S'porean man nonplussed as Swensen's dark chocolate truffle ice cream really contains truffle oil

Chocolate truffle or chocolate with truffle??

Ashley Tan | October 01, 2021, 01:42 PM

Update on Oct. 8, 7pm: This article was updated with more information from Swensen's.


One Singaporean man and his family looking for a sweet treat on Sep. 29 night ended up with something they ordered that did not quite meet their expectations.

Sanjay Jegatheesan told Mothership that he and his family had decided to order via Grab delivery Swensen's Topless 15, which consists of 15 scoops of ice cream for S$17.98.

These came neatly arranged in a box.

Photo courtesy of Sanjay Jegatheesan

One of the flavours Sanjay ordered was the dark chocolate truffle flavour, which the Swensen's website described as chocolate ice cream, mixed with chocolate truffles.

Photo courtesy of Sanjay Jegatheesan

Ice cream tasted "funky"

However, once they dug into the ice cream, Sanjay and his family came to the realisation that the dark chocolate truffle ice cream did not taste exactly like what they had in mind.

Sanjay said they had expected the ice cream to taste like chocolate truffles "in the traditional sense".

Sanjay's sister had the first taste and thought it tasted "funky". She then asked Sanjay to try the ice cream, upon which he realised that the ice cream had hints of truffle oil.

He shared that they initially thought it was a mistake, wondering if the restaurant was unaware of the difference between chocolate truffles and chocolate with truffles.

A quick check with Swensen's confirmed Sanjay's suspicion.

Photo courtesy of Sanjay Jegatheesan

Photo courtesy of Sanjay Jegatheesan

Truffles or truffle oil?

For the uninitiated, chocolate truffles typically contain chocolate ganache coated with more chocolate. They are called truffles due to their small spherical and lumpy shape, which resemble the actual truffle fungi.

Chocolate truffles typically do not contain actual truffles or truffle oil -- authentic or synthetic.

There might be a few chocolate truffle recipes out there that include truffle oil, but these are generally few and far between.

However, it seems that Swensen's took their ice cream literally a step further by infusing it with truffle oil.

Sanjay shared that he did not ask for a refund from Swensen's, and neither was he looking for one.

He simply wanted to know if the ice cream's flavour was intended or a culinary faux pas.

The family ended up washing down the dark chocolate truffle ice cream with the other flavours.

Welp.

Swensen's says customers know about truffle oil

In an update on Oct. 8, Swensen's told Mothership that the image and description of the ice cream flavour that Sanjay saw apparently came from Swensen's Thailand, which has a different menu from that of Swensen's Singapore.

Swensen's said that customers who have seen their Singapore menu before are typically aware that their truffle ice cream is infused with truffle oil.

Top photo courtesy of Sanjay Jegatheesan