Candy lovers! You may have your favourites, and the Belgians sure have theirs: the gooey Cuberdons! Now, let’s turn them into delicious ice cream!

Cuberdons – the origins

Many parts of the world have signature candy, and Belgium is no exception. The cuberdons, cone-shaped and traditionally filled with a gooey raspberry syrup, have been around since the later part of the 19th century. In its region of origin, they’re sometimes also referred to as “little noses”.

Much like a lot of ice cream lore, the exact origins remain murky but there are still good stories. According to one popular account, the “noses” (“neuzekes”) were created by a clergyman (hence other nicknames such as “nun’s belly-button” or “cleric’s hat”). A competing story instead gives the honour to a pharmacist by the name of De Vynck, who purportedly got inspired when he noted that a batch of discarded and forgotten medicinal syrup had turned hard on the outside but remained liquid on the inside. As the (unverifiable) story goes, he opened a candy shop soon after, and the rest is history. The traditional flavour is raspberry, but modern cuberdons can actually be had in a vast number of different flavours (apparently, there is even a cola-flavoured one destined for the US market).

A cuberdon consists of a relatively thick crust held together mainly by gum arabica, its interior traditionally filled with rich, gooey raspberry-flavoured syrup.

The syrup is very sweet and the  flavouring – while “natural” – feels far from natural raspberries, yet strangely addictive;-) . The optimal shelf-life is only about 8 weeks: after that, the sugar in the syrup inside the cone begins to crystalise and you end up with something that no longer really qualifies as a good cuberdon. This probably also explains why the cuberdon to this day largely remains a Belgian candy: short shelf-life seldom goes hand in hand with great international export success.

Cuberdon ice cream – the considerations

Broadly speaking, candy ice cream can be done in rather easy ways: take an ice cream base you like, add the candy (either by melting it or by chopping it up to be used as add-in or add-on). While this is a route open also to cuberdons, I decided to go with a “dedicated” recipe here however: the cuberdons are so very sweet (66 % sugar and glucose syrup), and contain quite some stabilisation (gum arabica and pectin) that I wanted to cut back on some of the overall sugar to avoid a too sickeningly sweet end result. I also used less fat than I’d normally go with in a base without eggs – not least in order to avoid risking that the fat would unduly “dull” the candy flavour. Optionally, but I used it, you may still add some Tara gum to the mix to ensure the overall consistency: if you go without, I think the result still should be good.

As for the how-to, this recipe is very simple:

Mix the cream and the milk in a saucepan.

Add the cuberdons, keep whisking and bring the mix up to about 80° C / 176° F (this will help melting the cuberdons and – if used – also ensure the full activation of the tara gum).  Add the sugar (if using, mix in the Tara gum before) to the dairy. Whisk for a couple of more minutes until all has dissolved.

Take off from the heat and let the base cool down and then chill in the refrigerator for at least a couple of hours or over night.

Churn in your ice cream machine, or still-freeze in your household freezer.

Freshly churned cuberdon ice cream. Notice how the colouring of the candy did not carry over to ice cream. If you wish to re-create also that aspect of the cuberdon, you’d have to add some crimson food coluring.

There is something special with freshly churned ice cream – this one, I admit, belonged to an early test batch that became too sweet (and consequently extra soft …). The photo is nice, however, and I can assure you that the test batch turned out to be very popular among the family’s sweet-toothed members 😉

Still delicious when served freshly churned, this scope came from a batch made with the recipe in this post: still pleasantly sweet and soft but overall better balanced.

A delicious candy-flavoured ice cream

The cuberdons turned out to be a perfect fit for use in ice cream. The ice cream really delivers, with the cuberdon coming through very clearly and in a pleasantly balanced way: a lot of candy flavour, yet still not overly sweet. The overall consistency turned out to be very good too: great mouthfeel and the ice cream remained nice and scopable, even after several hours in the freezer: no surprise perhaps, given the total amount of glucose syrup and sugar in this creation 😉 .

Cuberdons may not be so easy to track down outside of Belgium but if you ever get the chance: grab a box and try them out!

In any case, I hope the post may serve as inspiration for turning your own favourite candy into delectable ice cream!

Several days in the freezer? No problems for this ice cream!