Love Turkish cuisine? Love ice cream? Anyone that answers yes to both of those questions should make a date at one of Sofra’s central London restaurants, where an irresistible, new and totally unique range of ice creams and sorbets are now on the menu.
Sofra is a chain of London-based Turkish restaurants with outlets in Mayfair, Covent Garden, St Christopher’s Place and Özer Oxford Circus, serving authentic Turkish food with an eclectic mix of Mediterranean, Middle-Eastern and Oriental styles to more than 8,000 customers every week.
The new ice creams and sorbets have been specially created for Sofra Restaurants by Kent-based artisan ice cream and sorbet maker, Taywell, at the request of restaurant founder, Huseyin Ozer, who wanted to offer a new range of ice creams and sorbets combining traditional flavours from Turkish cuisine with some more popular and familiar ice cream varieties.
“Our previous supplier was failing to deliver consistent quality ice cream,” explained Huseyin. “We wanted to offer our customers some special flavours and a consistently high quality product.”
Taywell has developed some unique and individual flavour combinations to feature traditional and authentic ingredients of Turkish cuisine. To that it has added some locally-sourced ingredients for extra provenance and the result is a new range that challenges the consumer’s common perceptions of ice cream and sorbet flavours.
Asked to think of foods and flavours that remind you of Turkey and high on most consumer’s lists will be Turkish Delight, Tahini and apricots, so it is hardly surprising that each of these flavours feature in this new range. Turkish Delight is one of Turkey’s most famous exports. The new Sofra Turkish Delight sorbet has a rosewater base with sliced pieces of actual Turkish Delight added by hand. Tahini is a paste made from ground sesame seed, which is commonly used in hummus, baba ghanoush and halva. In the Sofra Tahini ice cream it is added to a vanilla base of Wealden milk and cream. Organic Apricot & Walnut is made with authentic, organic Turkish apricots and Turkish Mulberry molasses as an additional sweetener. It has been specially created to replicate a delicious Sofra dessert.
Turkish Coffee, another famous Turkish export, has been re-created in Turkish Coffee ice cream, which boasts large quantities of Efendi Turkish coffee infused into a creamy, vanilla base.
Keçiboynuzu is more commonly known as the ‘Carob Tree’ and the key ingredient of this ice cream is carob syrup, which is added to ice cream containing a thickening agent of seeds from the carob tree, also more commonly known as ‘Locust Bean Gum’.
Local ingredients also feature in the new range of ice creams and sorbets for additional provenance. Vanilla Madagascar is made with Wealden milk (from West Kent/East Sussex), free-range British egg yolks and real vanilla pods. The combination makes this one of the richest vanilla ice creams available anywhere in the world.
Chocolate & Roasted Cobnut is another locally inspired recipe. Cobnuts are hazelnuts that are only found in Kent and originate from fields located close to the Taywell kitchen. They are roasted for extra flavour and combined with rich, dark chocolate, which is made with fructose rather than sucrose or glucose and is suitable for diabetics.
Two other top selling ice creams from Taywell’s extensive range complete the new line-up of ice creams and sorbets at Sofra. Cinnamon is a flavour that crosses international borders and Taywell’s Cinnamon ice cream is regularly used as an accompaniment to dessert dishes that contain apples. Taywell’s Pistachio ice cream is made with pure pistachio oil with nut pieces making it rich in colour and flavour.
The full range of new flavours is available now from all Sofra restaurants in central London.
