Conor Curran’s affinity for ice-cream isn’t exactly a secret. The 2021 Masterchef alum famously stunned the judges with a polarising green olive flavour that saw him eliminated. “I did end up remaking it shortly after, and it was delicious,” he says. “I just had the wrong green olives in the pantry that day.” But his love of ice-cream extends beyond the weird and wonderful.
“I like any kind of savoury style, like Fluffy Torpedo is super cool,” he says. “That’s the style of ice-cream I did when I was on Masterchef, it’s the kind of stuff that I’m more interested in. I’m not a massive fan of throwing in chocolate bars and whatnot.”
Curran has channelled his willingness to experiment and preference for more refined, less sickly sweet styles into his latest batch of cold treats, as part of a collaboration with wellness brand Swisse. Curran has walked a Willy Wonka-ish line of unconventional and classic flavours inspired by Swisse Gummies and Swisse Smart Melts, managing to evoke their unique culinary qualities in frozen form.
“They came to me and said, ‘Can you create something using the flavour and sensorial experience you get from chewing gummies or having the Smart Melts in your mouth?’” Curran says.
And though Curran attacked the brief with enthusiasm, there were definitely challenges in weaving textures like chewiness into a food typically known for being soft and silky.
“Everyone knows what a gummy is and how that works, but creating gummies out of wholefoods without using chemicals or anything like that is quite difficult,” he says. “So trying to get that same bite and texture from my recipe was pretty important.”
The result is his Orange Greek Yoghurt sorbet, based on the orange flavour of the Swisse Probiotic & Prebiotic Gummies. It blends a zippy orange sweetness with some genuinely chewy homemade orange peel gummies.
With the base mostly made of Greek yoghurt, Curran says “a lot of the sweetness comes from the reduction of orange juice, so it creates a natural sweetness and that gets rolled through the gelato.”
The second ice-cream is based on the sour peach flavour of Swisse Energy Boost Smart Melts. While it’s not hard to make ice-cream that melts, the idea here isn’t to create a pool of cream. Instead, Curran has captured the unique sensation of the Swisse Smart Melt dissolving on the tongue by using both kitchen technique and some well-chosen local ingredients.
“That one is a peaches-and-cream ripple ice-cream with a Davidson’s plum sour powder,” he says. “Davidson’s plum is native to Australia, it’s super sour, and it kind of bounces on your tongue. So by putting the sour powder on top, it kind of has that ice-cream melt, but then also that sour, tingly bounce feeling you get from the dissolving Swisse [Smart Melt].”
These ice-cream flavours unfortunately won’t be hitting the supermarket freezer aisle, but Melbourne locals can head along to a one-day-only pop-up for a taste. The Swisse Whip van is parking at 136 Gwynne Street, Cremorne on March 25 from 1pm to 4pm, and Curran himself will be there serving up a limited number of free scoops.
Alongside the free scoops, expect free Swisse goodie bags packed with some of the brand’s bestselling products. Get in quick, because only 300 scoops are available. You can also go into the running to win a $500 restaurant voucher courtesy of Swisse – enter here.
*This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Swisse. Always read the label and follow the directions for use. *
