The ultimate guilty pleasure: vanilla ice cream with red Fernandes
Yes, you read that right: vanilla ice cream with red Fernandes. It’s sickly sweet, very bad for you, bubbly and oh so delicious. My ultimate guilty pleasure for years.
Guilty pleasure?
First of all, I actually hate the term guilty pleasure. Why should we be ashamed or feel guilty about something we enjoy? No taste, now that’s something to be ashamed of! If you enjoy Nutella more than really good hazelnut spread, still leave the crusts on your bread or prefer eating peanut butter off your finger rather than on bread; that’s totally fine! We shouldn’t judge when it comes to food. I’m a proud vanilla ice cream with Fernandes eater and everyone can know it.
That first bite
I remember it as if it were yesterday, that very first bite. I was about 14 and my brother had a girlfriend who swore by this combination. After hesitating for a moment, my brother & I decided to give it a try and bought vanilla ice cream, a bottle of red Fernandes and blue M&M’s.
The wonder began as soon as we put together this unique dessert. It starts simply: a few scoops of ice cream in a bowl. The magic begins when you pour in the red drink. It was like some kind of chemistry experiment: the ice cream starts to bubble and the fizz from the soft drink seems to settle right into the ice cream. The result is a kind of pink bubbly bed of vanilla ice cream that you actually just want to lie down in. And that first bite is exactly as you expect: sickly sweet, bubbly and life changing. You can fine-tune the pink concoction to suit your own (wonderfully wrong) taste; M&M’s, sprinkles, Oreos: it’s your party!
Known worldwide
I thought my brother’s girlfriend was some kind of superwoman, the only person ever to know this recipe. But no. She got it from Suriname, where she had lived for several years. And guess what? There are variations all over the world. In Australia, they use proportionally more soft drink than ice cream, so it has become a drink. They call these Spiders, and they’re often made with lemonade or Cola. In the United States, you can order Root Beer Floats: vanilla ice cream with the soft drink Root Beer, which is well known in America.
Fortunately, I’ve managed to limit my addiction. I rarely eat my favorite dessert anymore. Just as well, otherwise my teeth would fall out one by one. But every now and then, the craving for that bowl of bubbles returns. Then I retreat, eat vanilla ice cream with red Fernandes once again and am absolutely, absolutely delighted.
Guilty Disclaimer
Oh my god, I just made and tasted this sickly sweet dessert for the first time in years. It’s very different from how I remembered it in my sweet, sweet memory. The bubbly effect is just as magical as it was back then, the taste… umm. Sweet, chemical: bubble-gum galore. But oh well. That’s the nice thing about a guilty pleasure: they don’t always have to taste equally delicious.
Read also:
- 10 x gross – delicious #5
- Recipe: Donnie’s vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce and Rice Krispies shards
- I asked (Michelin-starred) chefs about their ultimate guilty pleasure
