Ice cream in an instant, using liquid nitrogen

N2IceCream, South Africa's first liquid nitrogen-cooled ice cream store has opened its doors in Parklands Cape Town. It is offering vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, plus one guest flavour per month/week. Customers are then able to choose from 10 toppings to add to the flavour.

The concept of using liquid nitrogen to freeze ice cream is huge overseas and owner of the business, Maija Groenewald explains why, "Liquid nitrogen is so cold and freezes so fast that it reduces the size of ice crystals which form ice cream. Smaller ice crystals create smoother ice cream.

"Traditional ice cream manufacturer's first blast freeze the ice cream to a semi-solid state and then place it in a commercial freezer or hardener to freeze the rest. Because our ice cream has not been placed in a commercial freezer, it has not suffered freezer burn. As soon as ice cream is placed inside the freezer, the compressor turns on and off, each time cycling through temperatures, melting and refreezing the ice cream.

"Our emphasis is on quality flavour and we use locally sourced full fat milk, vanilla essence, sugar, cream and one special, secret ingredient. We do not use emulsifiers, additives, preservatives or any other artificial ingredients. This is real ice cream, and it tastes amazing," concludes Groenewald.

Consumers are invited to join Cosmopolitan's Hottest Barman, Johnny Bezuidenhout for an afternoon of indulgence, as he combines the power of liquid nitrogen and summer cocktail flavours to create a decadent frozen journey on Saturday 11 October at 2pm at the Emporium, Sandown Road, Parklands. N2IceCream is a small lab themed kiosk where customers can watch their ice cream being made from scratch after placing their order.