It may be the coolest thing for your palate, but it will definitely burn a hole in your wallet.
A Tokyo-based Japanese gelato brand, Cellato, is selling Byakuya ice cream, which features premium ingredients like white truffle, sake lees (sake kasu) and parmigiano cheese.
A 130-milliliter scoop of Byakuya is retailing for JPY880,000 (AED23,400/$6,370) – good enough to find its way into the Guinness World Records (GWR) as the world’s most expensive ice cream.
The gelato comes with a handcrafted metal spoon made by Takeuchi craftsmen in Kyoto, using the same techniques and materials that they use in the construction of temples and shrines.
It’s what the company calls ‘discerning material’ that jacks up the price. Cellato uses plenty of Italian ‘Phantom White Truffle’, which is known for its “sensual and unique scent”. Sake lees is a traditional Japanese ingredient that has a faint sweetness and ginjo incense and provides complex flavour when combined with the scent of the white truffles.
The rare white truffle is imported from Alba, and costs JPY 2 million (appx $14,500) a lot. It also includes edible gold leaf.
Other ingredients include milk, natural cheese, sugar, dairy products, egg yolk, milk-based foods, rice, rice malt, cashew nuts, starch syrup, salt, black truffle, brewed alcohol, milk protein, thickening polysaccharide as stablisers and emulsifier.
There is a recommended technique of serving Byakuya – you need to pour in the white truffle oil and mix until it is soft enough to allow a spoon to go into it. If the spoon can’t pierce the ice cream, it needs to be kept at room temperature until it does, or heated in the microwave at 500w for 10-20 seconds.
In an article posted on GWR website, it said making the most expensive ice cream was not Cellato’s only goal. They wanted to fuse together European and Japanese ingredients in the form of ice cream. To do this, Cellato brought in Tadayoshi Yamada, the head chef at RiVi, a restaurant in Osaka known for its imaginative fusion cuisine.
GWR quoted a Cellato representative as saying: “It took us over one-and-a-half years to develop, with a lot of trials and errors to get the taste right. Achieving a Guinness World Records title made the effort all worth it.”
While there is no expiration date, Cellato recommends that Byakuya be consumed within 10 days of purchase to preserve the flavour and texture.
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