Disney recently released the recipe for their famous Dole Whip ice cream via their App and everyone has got pretty excited! Claiming to be the official recipe and super easy to make at home from only a few simple ingredients it seems like the perfect tonic to the endless canceled trips and ruined plans.
Surely it cannot be as simple as the App Recipe suggests and can you really whip up a soft-serve ice-cream at home? We realized we had everything we needed I the cupboard so jump to the chance to whip up some Amazing Dole-Whip Ice-Cream. So here is our Disney Dole Whip Recipe Tested for you to see if the hype is deserved.
We have seen hundreds of Recipies for Dole Whip and have never bothered to attempt them as we just knew Soft Serve Ices cream is not something home chef can do without a Soft-Serve Icecream Maker, and these cost $1000’s and quite frankly we don’t want easy access to unlimited Soft Serve for our Waistlines benefit! But when the Recipe came Directly from Disney the day after we canceled our lastest DisneyAdventure and with our trip to Hawaii also looking in doubt we just had to strike out and see if the hype was real.
What Is Dole Whip
We first had Dole Whip in our Happy Place, Hawaii at the Dole Plantation and quickly joined the hordes who devour this treat on every Dinsey trip. It is essentially Pineapple Flavour Soft-Serve Ice cream sold at the Dole Tiki Stands in Disney Parks for $5+ a serving!
While in reality there is nothing overtly special about the Dessert there is some kind of Disney magic about it. and queues at the stand show just how popular this treat is. And the chance to whip it up in minutes from 3 common base ingredients is pretty awesome, however, we were steeped in doubt!
Reservations
Recently Disney Released their Recipe for Dole Whip Soft Serve Ice Cream
The Simple Recipe was Released via a series of Slides pushed on the Disney
Parks App
4 Simple Steps and only 3 ingredients…Too good to be true?
We have to admit we were pretty skeptical. You surely cannot just bang a few ingredients in a food processor and expect to get whipped ice cream. Soft Serve Icecream tends to use pre-mixed ingredients and expensive machinery to produce a super smooth cream ice-cream that is unrepeatable in a home kitchen.
After some digging around we quickly found this was FAR from the Offical recipe. The 5 Slides given by the app only require 3 ingredients, and the official recipe is as expected pre-mixed garbage with heaps of un-pronounceable chemicals and garbage.
Sugar, Dextrose, Stabilizers (Cellulose Gum, Xanthan Gum, Locust Bean Gum, Guar Gum, Karaya Gum, Pectin), Coconut Oil, Contains 2% Or Less Of Each Of The Following: Maltodextrin, Citric Acid, Natural & Artificial Flavor (contains Pineapple Juice Powder), Modified Food Starch, Malic Acid, Beta Carotene (Color), Mono & Diglycerides, Silicon Dioxide (Anticaking).
http://www.dolesoftserve.com/prod-info.cfm
This is mixed in a bucket and pumped out of proprietary Machines, good luck with that at home! Although when we took a look at the ingredients of our Ice Cream it was not far off! However, the noticeable absence from the above list is Pineapple, the primary ingredient in the Disney Recipe
However, we were not perturbed, and while we were sure we would not get anything close to real Dole-Whip we decided to give it blast, and maybe it could produce a reasonable substitute.
Disney Recipe for Dole Whip
Dinsey Released the Recipe via a series of slides pushed from the Disney Parks App, We have included the screenshots below and there was no additional information so these vague instructions are all we have to go off.
Our Test of the Recipe
We went with a one-shot attempt at this, we didn’t try and be clever or tweel anything. We wanted this to be as close as following the Slides would be so you can be sure it would be as close to your attempt as possible. We just gathered the ingredients and whizzed them up, but we will try and add a little more detail to help you along with your attempt.
Ingredients
Unfortunately, we didn’t have any Frozen Pineapple or a fresh one to Chunk and Freeze. We did, however, have a tin of Pineapple Slices. This was 400g or 14oz and as that would happen would produce almost exactly the right amount of Pineapple Chunks AND Juice for the recipe. We poured off the juice and Chunked the Slices before Freezing for 24 hours with the juice in the Fridge.
Next, the Ice Cream. One Large Scoop was a little vague. We reckoned on about 4 oz or 100-120 grams but we didn’t measure. When a Recipe is Vague it is invariably forgiving so we just eyeballed what we thought a large scoop would be. We just used regular shop-bought Vanilla.
Equipment
You just need two items, a Blender or food processor and a Piping kit. And even then the Piping kit is only needed for the swirl, you could just scoop it into a bowl and spoon away, it will still taste the same.
We are deeply skeptical a Blender or smooth maker will work for this. Despite this being shown in the Slide, the mixture needs to be pretty thick and a blender only really works on liquids, if this mixture gets to the liquid stage it’s too late for swirling, you are having cold Pineapple soup!
A Food processor can handle pastes and near solid mixtures and this is what you are dealing with here. So if you have a food processor this is perfect. So we dug ours out of the cupboard and dusted it off, leaving the expensive food mixer and blender where it was. The Food Processor worked fantastically!
Method
This is a two-stage method. One: Lump it all in the Food Processor and blast it. Scape the Sides and blast again. Keep going until it is as smooth as possible. Keep scraping down and blitzing again. It is a fine line between getting it finely processed and it melting.
Two: Once as smooth as possible. You need to transfer to a large Piping bag with a thick star Nozzle and pipe directly into the Serving Vessel. A bowl, Cone, or as a float on a very strong Cocktail!
Using a swirling motion pipe out the whip and enjoy straight away.
Result!
Honestly, We knew all along this was going to be a fail. DoleWhip is a highly processed product with an array of stabilizers and flavor enhancers, simply whizzing up some pineapple in a blender is not going to cut it.
The end result was however surprisingly good. The Swirl held up well and we think it looks pretty good. The taste was a long way off. They add in so much junk and while we know it’s bad for us, these enhancers are what makes these things so addictive and tasty. While we do not crave the Home Made version like we do the real thing, it was a very nice dessert and even though we had pretty big portions, the end of the bowl was disappointing as there was no more left.
The biggest letdown was the texture. While it looks really good in pictures the mouthfeel was a mile off. Soft-Serve is ultra-smooth and has no lump or ice crystals of any kind and a minute or two in a blender is not going to reduce frozen Pineapple down to that level of smoothness. Any longer and it would melt so you are just not going to get it right without further processing, such as passing it through gauze, and then you would need a refreshing stage…That starts getting complicated.
Overall though it is far from bad, in fact, it is downright delicious, it just is not quite the awesome you get from real Dole Whip. But with the park Closed and no end in sight for this Global catastrophe, this recipe brought a little Disney Magic back into our lives as we gorged on Dole Whip While watching Disney+
What We Learned and Tips for Making Your Own.
As we said we wanted to do a one-shot attempt at this to ensure we were getting a similar result to what you might at home. We could easily week this to try and get a better product but we really wanted that 6 Slide simplicity. However, we learned a few bits that should help you get the best result possible without changing much.
It’s a Race! – Once you start this process, Everything is starting to melt and thaw. The aim is to have everything mixed up and smooth before the Mixture is too melted and you are left with Pineapple Soup. So Make sure all tools, equipment, and ingredients are ready and to hand.
Prepare your piping bag first – Get the Piping bag out and set up ready to spoon the mixture into as soon as you finish blending. If you wait after blending, to get this ready it will be too late. We use a jug and fold the top of the Bag over the jug so we can spoon straight in.
Make sure your Pineapple Chunks are separated – This was our biggest mistake. As we had frozen our own tin of Pineapple chinks some of the chunks had frozen solid in a lump. This took a lot of blending to break down. In hindsight, we would have made sure each chunk was separate. A good Bash with a rolling pin beforehand would have done the trick!
Chill Everything – To help with the melt time, get all the equipment reduced in temperature. Whiz up a bit of Ice water in the blender first and put your Piping bag in the freezer and hor before. The colder everything is the longer you have to blitz!
Chill Your Bowls – The one thing we forgot to chill was our serving bowls, this meant the finished product melted fast where it contacted the bowl. A chilled bowl would reduce that melt.
Add Some Vodka! – We didn’t get to try this as we didn’t think of it till after, it’s definitely one for next time. We figured replacing 1 or 2 oz of the pineapple juice with frozen Vodka would make for a very happy dessert! But remember to keep it from the Kids.
Storing
We don’t think this will store well. If you have a chilled bowl and put the served mixture straight in the freezer you may be able to delay eating it, but really only for an hour max. There is a high amount of liquid in the mixture. If you freeze it, it will set solid, like a rock. This is a Blitz and Eat recipe. But as it only takes 5 mins, that is no bad thing, it does make a lot of washing up though!
Have Your Say
Have you tried the Disney Recipe for Dole Whip? What did you make of it? Did it come out ok or was it a complete disaster? How did it compare with the real deal? Let us know in the comments below, and if you have any questions fire away.
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