Visiting the Ice cream Exhibition

Hello! 

Spring is finally here, that means ice cream season starts as well. :) 

And to start it in a glamorous way the biggest ice cream exhibition was held for 3 days in Budapest. 

As a confectioner trainee I felt it's my duty to be there.

(And let's face it who wouldn't have gone to taste the new ice cream creations of the year? :D )  So I visited it with my fiancé. 

I brought You my little review of the event and more than 30 tasteful pictures of it! 

Briefly, I could characterize the exhibition like this: Little tasty icy bites in a crowded place, with lots of expectations and standing in lines.

I liked it, it was a great program to go to, it was not expensive, it costs the same as watching a film in the cinema, and the ice creams were free to taste. Well, the portions were extremely small.

The most of the kiosk only gave one teaspoon of ice cream, there were only a few to give us more variety than one. 

Let's start with the normal ice cream kiosks...

Each year there are new inventions, new trends to follow, even in the ice cream industry... Some of them remains, like lavender is fashionable for 3 years. 

We didn't got the chance to taste everything, usually one or two per stations, but I tried to take a photo of the rest as well. Now I see there was Thai massage ice cream, too, which I missed. What would it taste I wonder? :D

My colleagues said that the Parsley with Kiwi was really enjoyable. 

We had to wait at least 5-10 minutes in a line to get a bite, but most of the time they worth it. Every kiosk served the ice creams in little plastic teaspoons, which I washed after and now I have at least 15 colorful spoons. :D

This kiosk was truly funny for a confectioner, because it had some huge decorating mistakes. The main rule at decorating desserts, cakes, or even ice cream is to use the main ingredients, or to refer to that in the decoration in color, or taste, or form. Like a chestnut cake has chestnut hearts on top, a strawberry cake has strawberries, etc... But this company decided they don't care. :D Like on the left, that's a lemon ice cream, decorated with raspberries.  And there is a banana in a Sloe ice cream... With no else reason just to decorate, because it's not a mixed kind of taste. 

But still the banana-dolphin is cute.

However, they had the most interesting new tastes, like the Elderflower was one of my favorite. But do You see the slices of bread in one of them? Bread with jam in ice cream? :D The pop corn and the cream of wheat are special too...

See the 3rd above? Yes, that's Aloe Vera! Surely it tasted like a special vanilla, but the idea is great.

Now this station was my favorite. This is the cooked ice cream station of the Horison's company. On the first day of the exhibition there was a competition of the best tastes, and they won 2 ranks as well. I can only agree, their cake-ice creams were wonderful! Their Lemonade, and Irish Cream Caramel won the competition.

To continue with special tastes, look at this kiosk.

The Donut was a little bit of a disappointment for me, as it tasted like a simple vanilla. I even asked what was the pink dressing made of, and the answer was colored vanilla... But the Dark Chocolate was really good.

 We tried the bio / organic ice cream station's variety as well (they were one of the few who gave more options to try at once, which was really nice :) ) The Asian Goji tasted a little bit like carrot, and the Snowdrop cookie tasted really delicious. Although they were bio, they didn't lack anything, they could compete with the rest of the ice creams.

We tried some ice cream cups, too, but the Tiramisu was again a simple vanilla. I didn't find any marscapone taste in it. (Nor coffee)

A lot of people with families were disappointed of the small portions, and because nearly half of the kiosk was due to confectioner companies, and didn't offer tasting samples. They were advertising extracts and ice cream mixes, which were only for companies. Still I think it was interesting to see the great variety of them as well. Like these...(it was only one of the dozens of windows)

 After so many sweet ice creams we were delighted to see a coffee kiosk, and these little cups were amazing. I think it was Italian coffee.

Besides the ice creams, we could look at other interesting exhibition pieces, like these.... sausages??? "Why are they here?"  I could not wonder, but as we looked them more closely, we realised they were made of sugar! Actually, from grillage. 

They even had hot grillage sausages, which I learnt were seasoned with chili, and sweet of course. :)

There were big ice cream machines,and mixers as well, that are used in factories and confectioners.

And ice cream cars, which are so adorable, I would have one for my own. :D 

But as I still don't have a driving license, for me maybe this bike would be the one to have. :D

And I left the most beautiful creations to the end, the parfés. We do it at my workplace as well. These tastes like ice creams, they are cold but the most beautiful cakes of all.

There were some mini cakes, and cups as well. The sad thing was that we couldn't taste them...

After so many tasty, pretty food there was something eye-catching for the men society... Cars of course... (I don't know exactly how they came to be at the same exhibition, still they were nice as well. :) )

 It was fun, I hope we go next year, too. And, despite we didn't get whole scoops of ice creams, we could still enjoy them. (At least we didn't gain too much weight here! :D )  I hope You enjoyed this longer post, and I will bring recipes soon, because March is a cake baking month for me. :D 

xoxo: Hajni