Make Cheap Ice Cream Taste Like An Expensive Dessert With Only One Ingredient

There are few desserts that can beat the summer heat quite like a serving of ice cream. The classic treat deserves a regular place in your freezer, though sometimes this same dessert can grow a little blasé. But when you want to change things up with your ice cream, you don't need to splurge on a fancy, artisanal, unique flavor. All you need is one sweet and spicy ingredient to really jazz up your regular ice cream: hot honey.

Making hot honey at home is incredibly easy, which is just a bonus considering how versatile it is. From using it in sweet and spicy meat marinades to giving legendary cocktails like old-fashioned an upgrade, hot honey is a delicious ingredient that gives you honey's earthy sweetness with a bit of attitude. And as it turns out, hot honey's versatility extends to the realm of ice cream, where a drizzle of the stuff can really enhance even the cheapest and plainest of scoops. Plus, if you're really craving some spice, you can even make ice cream that includes hot honey in it. But for your tub of store-bought ice cream whose flavor may have grown stagnant, all you need is one helping of this unparalleled ingredient.

Hot honey may be an ingredient that you can use in seemingly all scenarios, but it does have its limits. Hot honey and ice cream can work very well generally speaking, but some flavors are going to be more receptive to its sweet and spicy notes. As such, certain ice cream flavors stand above others as the best ones to drizzle with hot honey.

When it comes to adding this unique ingredient, the best course of action is to start with the basics. For this reason, the classic chocolate and vanilla ice cream flavors are great places to begin. Chocolate and spice are excellent complements to each other, with the heat bringing out some of the chocolate's sweet notes. Not to mention the added sweetness of honey that the ice cream will have. Pairing this combo with some decadent maraschino cherries is another great move, since chocolate and cherries pair so well together as well.

For vanilla, a similar logic applies. The honey provides an earthy, sweet bottom note to the overall flavor, while the contrast of spice helps bring out the character of the vanilla in a beautiful harmony. And if you want to dress this one up even more, add some espresso for a hot honey affogato that makes this iconic Italian coffee dessert taste even better and witness the symphony of flavors for yourself. Of course, you can always expand from these classic flavors to suit your own palate, but starting here gives you solid insight into what hot honey can do for your ice cream.