If you don’t want to miss out on a scoop of ice cream even in the cold season, you have to search a little in the Munich district. One ice cream parlor has temporarily been converted into a gingerbread shop, the other is temporarily closed. In the Café Dolce in Pullach there is ice cream all year round, in winter there are fewer types of ice cream than in summer, but there are also special ones that are tailored to the season. Co-owner Raffaele Paulangelo then creates the flavors gingerbread, speculoos, cinnamon, walnut with fig and brownie. “The varieties are very popular,” he says.
One or two of these are currently available every week, alongside classics such as chocolate, vanilla and stracciatella. He has just made gingerbread and cinnamon ice cream. “The base is always a creamy cream, then gingerbread or cinnamon are added,” he says.
Paulangelo, who has been making ice cream for almost 30 years, also reveals the recipe for around four people. First, you put 800 milliliters of milk, 220 grams of sugar, 30 grams of dextrose and 200 milliliters of cream in a saucepan and “heat it up until the sugar melts,” says the ice cream maker. Then 100 to 150 grams of gingerbread are pureed “not very fine, but in such a way that small pieces remain”. If you want, you can also add a little gingerbread spice. This puree mass is then mixed with the cooled base cream and placed in the ice cream machine. In contrast to the speculoos ice cream, Paulangelo relies on fresh gingerbread instead of a ready-made sauce. “At the beginning, when I was 80, I tried it with 100 grams of gingerbread and at some point it tasted good,” he says. For cinnamon ice cream, ten grams of the sweet spice is added to the base cream instead of gingerbread. How long does the mass get into the ice cream maker? “By feeling, better so that it is a little creamier than too hard,” he says. With his large machine, in which he prepares around four liters of each type, it takes around five minutes.
Unlike in the café, where he gives the mass even more creaminess with binding agents, Paulangelo recommends preparing the ice cream at home and eating it shortly afterwards. To make it look nice, he decorates the cold delicacies for the counter with gingerbread crumbs or cinnamon powder, depending on the variety. He himself prefers the classic varieties: “I’m a chocolate, nut and yoghurt fan,” he says.
The steady time is a bland time this year. With this series, the SZ tries to bring at least a little bit of light into Advent every day.