Vegemite Ice-Cream, Anyone?

Culinary scallywag Heston Blumenthal is up to his old tricks again. The British chef, whose Dinner by Heston Blumenthal restaurant occupies the third floor of Crown Towers in Melbourne, is paying tribute to an Australian icon in a most unusual way.

While the rest of the world sees only a thick, black yeast-based by-product of beer, Blumenthal looked at Vegemite and saw dessert. For more than six months Blumenthal, group executive chef Ashley Palmer-Watts and their team deconstructed the flavour profile of our favourite breakfast spread. What they found was, of course, yeasty saltiness but also caramel and rich chocolate notes.

The very Australian Vegemite Ice Cream dessert. Image supplied.

Using these findings, they created Vegemite Ice Cream, a dessert that takes its place on the Dinner by Heston Blumenthal menu just in time for Australia Day. Served on a sourdough-crumble biscuit base, the ice-cream is teamed with toasted puffed spelt, cocoa nibs, burnt honey and macadamia. It’s served with barley-chocolate ganache and verjuice curd and comes with a Vegemite jar of caramel sauce for drizzling.

See also: The Restaurants Putting Australia into Australian Food

The dessert is the grand finale of a four-course Australia Day lunch menu that also explores other iconic Australian flavours, such as rosella flowers, which feature in the Rosella Wine cocktail.