The inspiration for this flavour came from my father, who passed away early in 2013. He grew up in Messina, in northern Sicily, and always said that his two favourite flavours were torrone e chocolato.
At Messina, we make Italian Nougat gelato, which is our version of torrone; it’s a honeybased gelato with cracked hazelnut and almond nougat folded through it. The chocolato gelato in Sicily refers to a rich dark chocolate; we call our gelato Chocolate Fondant.
So, for my father’s wake, we decided to combine the two flavours and call it Pop’s. It’s an interesting recipe because it’s a dark chocolate gelato but we replace the sugar with honey. We then make our own nougat and fold it through. Making nougat is really difficult, but the fact we break it up and mix it through the gelato makes it a little more forgiving. If you’ve never made nougat before or if you don’t have time, I’d recommend that you just buy some good quality hard nougat and use that instead.
A tip: Chop up some extra nougat and scatter some nuts over the top of the gelato before you serve it.