Hokey Pokey

Hokey Pokey Ice Cream

New Zealand's most iconic ice cream flavour: creamy vanilla studded with shards of golden honeycomb toffee that snap, then go chewy against the cold ice cream. At home you can either fold the toffee through softened premium vanilla ice cream or simply ripple a quick vanilla base and freeze it.

Prep

20 min

Cook

10 min

Total

30 min

Serves

6

Difficulty

Easy

Recipe ingredients

• •1 L (1 quart) vanilla ice cream, premium, full-fat, softened for 10 minutes; or null
• •150 g (¾ cup) caster sugar, superfine, or null
• •60 ml (¼ cup) golden syrup, or light corn syrup as a substitute
• •30 g (2 tablespoons) butter, unsalted, or null
• •10 ml (2 teaspoons) water, or null
• •5 g (1 teaspoon) baking soda, bicarbonate of soda, sifted; do not skip or reduce
• •5 ml (1 teaspoon) vanilla extract, optional, for an extra-vanilla base, or null

Steps

1. 1 Line a 20 cm (8 in) square tin with baking paper and lightly grease it. Set the sifted baking soda right next to the stove with a teaspoon — once the syrup is ready, you must work quickly.
2. 2 Combine the sugar, golden syrup, butter and water in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Stir constantly until the sugar dissolves, then stop stirring and let the mixture come to a steady boil.
3. 3 Clip a sugar thermometer to the pan and cook the syrup to 150°C / 300°F (the hard-crack stage). If you don't have a thermometer, cook until a small drop sets instantly hard and brittle when dropped into cold water. Watch closely — it can scorch in seconds at this temperature.
4. 4 Immediately remove the pan from the heat. Wait 10 seconds for the bubbles to settle, then tip in the baking soda all at once and whisk briskly. The mixture will foam up dramatically and turn pale gold — do not stir beyond mixing it in, or you will knock the airy honeycomb structure out.
5. 5 Pour the foam into the prepared tin. Tilt the tin to spread it; do not spread with a spoon or it will collapse. Leave to cool completely at room temperature, about 30 minutes, until hard and brittle.
6. 6 Snap the honeycomb into rough chunks and place in a strong plastic bag. Crush with a rolling pin until you have a mix of small pebbles and gravel-sized shards — some crunch, some chew.
7. 7 If using store-bought ice cream: scoop the softened ice cream into a chilled bowl, sprinkle in about two-thirds of the crushed hokey pokey and fold gently so the shards stay defined. Tip back into a lidded container, scatter the remaining hokey pokey over the top, press on the lid and return to the freezer for at least 2 hours, or until firm again.
8. 8 If making a quick base: whisk 500 ml (2 cups) heavy cream with one 395 g (14 oz) can of sweetened condensed milk and the vanilla extract until thickened but not stiff. Fold in two-thirds of the crushed hokey pokey, pour into a loaf tin, scatter the rest on top, cover and freeze for 6 hours, or until scoopable.
9. 9 Serve scoops straight from the freezer. The toffee will snap crisply on the tongue and then soften to a chewy bite against the cold ice cream — exactly the contrast Kiwis queue for.