The world of Korean Ice Cream
Does the idea of sweetcorn ice-cream sound strange to you?
It did to me – I think in Britain, sweetcorn is seen as an ingredient in savoury dishes (despite having the word ‘sweet’ in it!) But, like eating noodles for breakfast – my preconceived ideas have been challenged.
I was in a beer and ice-cream shop (!) and couldn’t resist the Lotte sweetcorn flavoured ice cream, especially since it was packed into a realistically shaped corn-on-the-cob wafer!
And the verdict? I really liked it!
It had a thin layer of chocolate inside the wafer and there were chewy sweetcorn kernels mixed in with the ice cream which added another dimension! The ice-cream itself was just sweet enough – not too sweet. And it’s easy to eat in its wafer casing. I’ll definitely have it again!
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The world of Korean ice cream is full of surprising flavours and unusual ingredients, shapes, and even names.
While we’re on the subject of ice creams with wafers, how about an ice cream in a FISH? Sweetcorn isn’t the only one that comes in its own shape, you know?
SAMANCO FISH ICE CREAM 붕어 싸만코
The classic wafer with ice cream has to be the bungo samanco fish waffle with red bean filling (by Binggrae 빙그레) which has been around since 1991. It’s the ice-cream version of the bungo-bang fish waffle sold hot on street stalls. (It also comes in green tea flavour). For me, the filling is very sweet, like jam.
(If you’re wondering what samanco means, it’s a combo of two adjectives – sa, meaning ‘cheap’ (싸다) and man, meaning ‘much’ (많다) (ko means ‘and’ 싸고많고) so literally it’s cheap and you get a lot for your money!
LUXURY ICE CREAM
With the growing coffee and cafe culture, there are more luxury ice-cream and dessert brands appearing too.
Baekmidang is a local luxury ice cream brand with a chain of cafes all over Seoul. I love the sleek style and high quality ice cream and coffee that Baekmidang offers. And their menu includes various dishes from Ice cream and coffee – Italian style – to desserts with a Korean twist: I haven’t tried the young wormwood herb ice-cream with red bean paste and soybean powder yet, but I will. On the Baekmidang website it looks like this:
pic: Baekmidang
Rice cake finds its way into all sorts of desserts and bakery goods and ice cream is no exception.
Baskin Robbins is hugely popular – our local one is NEVER empty and seems to be a dating hot spot for young couples. The menu looks tempting especially this Kakaofriends ice cream cake!
Pink Star strawberry ice-cream is the best seller, but amongst the huge range of flavours they also offer the more unusual black sesame and sticky rice cake with chewy pecan ice cream.
pic: Baskin Robbins Korea
QUIRKY ICE CREAM – 돼지바 THE PIG BAR
The supermarket freezer is full of tubs, cones, and lolly ices, so it’s hard to know what to choose. But because of its name, this one caught my eye: the tweji bar = PIG BAR!
The Pig Bar (made by Lotte) has been a favourite since 1983. It’s a milk ice cream lolly ice with a strawberry flavoured filling and crunchy chocolate coating. (For me personally, there’s a bit too much going on in this dessert and I’m not generally a fan of chocolate coatings on ice cream.)
But the name is intriguing. Could it be the pink filling that gives the bar its name?
pic: Lotte 돼지바 Pig Bar
Well, according to Korean wiki namu, it was the CEO of the company who chose the name. I would like to have been at the boardroom table back in 1983 for that meeting:
CEO: ‘So, I’ve thought of a great name for our new ice-cream.’
EXECUTIVES: ‘Great, what is it?’
‘CEO: ‘PIG BAR’
EXECUTIVES: ‘WHAAAAAAAAAT???
The reasoning behind this name was that 1983 was the YEAR OF THE PIG. And the pig is the symbol of good fortune and harvest. So it sort of makes sense, doesn’t it?
BUT despite all the objections, PIG BAR was a HUGE HIT and it’s still going strong!
Their adverts are fun too. This 2006 advert is a parody of a football match during the 2002 world cup between Korea and Italy when the referee gave Italy a red card and they complained profusely about it.
SCREW BAR 스크루 바
If you’re not in the mood for a PIG BAR, how about a SCREW BAR 스크루 바 (also by Lotte)? There’s strawberry or apple flavour in this twisted popsicle. It’s advertised as an ‘Ice gwabaegi‘ (a kind of twisted donut sold on street stalls).
I like their adverts. They feature famous cartoon characters known as the koindol family고인돌 가족 (like the Flintstones).
CONES
In the world of cones, the Bravo (부라보 since 1970 by Haitai 해태) was the luxury ice cream brand when Mr Kim was a child – and it’s the cone he still buys!
But the catchiest cone advert has to to go to this Super Cone advert (by pinggrae) featuring Tottenham Hotspurs player Son Heung Min. It started off annoying but now I can’t stop watching it. (Mr Kim didn’t like this ice cream though! He was not impressed by the quality of the chocolate.)
BEFORE ICE CREAM
Before ice cream it was all about shaved ice desserts.
Bingsu shaved ice is a dessert that’s been eaten since the Joseon dynasty. The version today was influenced by Japan during the occupation. Shaved ice was popular in the 50s and 60s and then ice cream was first made in the 60s by bakeries expanding their product lines.
THE OLDEST ICE CREAM BRANDS
The oldest bakery in Korea is Taegukdang established in 1946. They started making ice cream in 1960.
Their signature ice cream is the Taegukdang Monaka (태극당 모나카) – a milk flavoured ice cream in a wafer divided into 8 sections. I love this simple packaging- and the simplicity of the flavour. The flower logo is the Mugunghwa (hibiscus), the Korean national flower.
They revamped the brand (in time for the 70th anniversary in 2016) and this year opened a coffee shop set in the Arc N Book bookshop in Jongno.
pic: taegukdang
For specific flavours of ice cream, there’s green tea ice cream at the Boseong Green Tea Festival in May. Or how about a lavender ice-cream at the Lavender festival in June.
That’s just a brief look at some of the ice creams available here. There are loads more. And from the cheap and cheerful lolly ices you can fish out of the supermarket freezer to the luxury ice cream desserts served at one of the growing number of cool cafes, there is definitely something for everyone.
