Popular New Jet-Black Ice-Cream Is Made with Coconut Ash

By Spooky on June 1st, 2016 Category: Foods

You couldn’t really tell by just looking at it, but this pitch black ice-cream doing the rounds on photo-sharing sites like Instagram is actually coconut flavored. It’s made with coconut milk, coconut cream, coconut flakes, and, for that unique confusing color, coconut ash.

The Coconut Ash Ice-cream recently made its debut at Morgenstern’s Finest Ice-Cream parlor, in downtown Manhattan, New York. Owner Nick Morgenstern said he had been “monkeying around with coconut ash for a while”, and then had a fancy chocolate bar which also used the ash as an ingredient. So when he finally decided to include coconut as a flavor in his new ice-cream menu, it all came together. “I just had to use it,” he says. As bizarre a color as jet-black may seem for an ice-cream that’s not chocolate or coffee flavored, it proved a big hit with customers, who instantly started flooding Instagram with snaps of the unusual treat.

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Photo: Morgenstern’s Finest Ice-Cream/Facebook

Coconut ash, which is literally the charred remains of coconut shells, is a trendy new ingredient used in all sorts of products, from fruit juices and cocktails to pizza and even organic soaps. It is considered a form of “activated charcoal” and apparently has cleansing and detoxifying properties, although such claims are yet to be scientifically confirmed.

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Morgenstern’s Finest Ice-Cream/Instagram

Morgenstern says he knows that coconut ash “theoretically has health benefits”, but admits he wasn’t thinking about that when he decided to use it as an ingredient for his new ice-cream. He just wanted something visually intriguing that fit the coconut theme. His bet definitely paid off, as the internet is buzzing about his bizarre new treat. Despite the hefty $7 price tag, the novelty of coconut ash ice-cream doesn’t seem to be wearing off.

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Photo: notorious_smc/Instagram

Not even the fact that eating the charcoal black dessert temporarily stains your mouth and teeth seems to be putting people off. “This coconut ash ice cream from @morgensternsnyc’s might look beautiful, but beware!” a woman wrote on Instagram. “It will turn your mouth into a black hole/ make you look like you’ve been drinking lots of dark wine and your coworkers will definitely make fun of you.”