You might soon be able to say sayonara to licking drips of melted ice cream from your wrists when your cone disintegrates in the summer.
Japanese scientists have invented an iced dairy treat that won’t melt (well, not for as long as it takes you to eat it, that is).
It’s all thanks to a strawberry extract which stops the oil and water found in the season’s guiltiest pleasure from separating so quickly.
Japan’s Biotherapy Development Research Centre in Kanazawa city wanted to test how strawberry polyphenol affected deserts.
They roped in a pastry chef to try and include it in a sweet treat, but he reported that it caused the dish to freeze.
It was then they realized they had struck creamy gold.
Tomihisa Ota, a professor emeritus of pharmacy at Kanazawa University, who developed the popsicles said: “Polyphenol liquid has properties to make it difficult for water and oil to separate, so a popsicle containing it will be able to retain the original shape of the cream for a longer time than usual, and be hard to melt.”
The company’s president, Takeshi Toyoda, claimed that its popsicles “will remain almost the same even if exposed to the hot air from a dryer,” reports the Asahi Shimbun.
Japanese journalists who tried them out confirmed that an ice cream held outside in 82-degree weather “retained its original shape” even after five minutes in the sun and still tasted “cool.”
Pictures of the ice pops have been posted across Twitter, and the ice cream has captured the imagination of the masses.