Felicity Cloake's Viennetta. Photograph: Robert Billington/The Guardian. Food styling: Loïc Parisot. View image in fullscreen Felicity Cloake's Viennetta. Photograph: Robert Billington/The Guardian. Food styling: Loïc Parisot. How to cook the perfect ... Dessert How to make the perfect homemade viennetta – recipe Your rosy memories of the classic ice-cream dessert may not hold up to scrutiny today, but thanks to our resident perfectionist, you can make a delicious version of your own
Felicity Cloake Sun 26 Jul 2026 14.00 CEST Last modified on Sun 26 Jul 2026 14.02 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google W hen I was growing up, viennetta was something I had in other people’s houses – for some reason, my mum regarded these frilly blocks of ice-cream as a waste of money, which made them all the bigger treat on the rare occasion I did get a front-row seat at the cracking of the chocolate. Launched, like me, in 1982, when developers at Wall’s realised that pumping ice-cream on to the production line slightly faster than the speed of the conveyor belt created a concertina effect that, I think we can now, with the wisdom of age, agree, is more impressive to behold than to consume. No doubt diehard devotees will beg to differ, but even as a child I couldn’t help but notice that all that air made the viennetta distinctly light on flavour (no wonder one slice is never enough, as the old advertising campaign had it). Happily, you can recreate the magic at home with something that looks good and tastes great – and you don’t even need your own conveyor belt!
View image in fullscreen The Gladwins of London’s The Shed add egg yolks for a ‘paté à bombe’. Thumbnail pics direct from Felicity’s kitchen. You may be relieved to learn that this is not a recipe for which you’ll need an ice-cream maker – the real thing is an egg-free zone, though two of the recipes I try do use them. For Richard, Oliver and Gregory Gladwin of Notting Hill’s The Shed, that’s in the form of yolks, which are whipped with sugar syrup to make a pâte à bombe , which is then folded into whipped cream to produce something much like a frozen vanilla mousse. Delicious, but distinctly richer and denser than the authentic model. Pastry chef and award-winning author Nicola Lamb, however, who has trodden this particular obsessive path before me, and whose findings, published on her reliably excellent Kitchen Projects Substack , I am indebted to, whisks a French (ie, uncooked) meringue into cream instead, with the aim of achieving maximum airiness without any other trace of the eggs themselves, because egg whites are “pretty much flavourless and colourless”.
Her version is judged by my testers to be the closest to the original, but with a superior richness of flavour, rather than texture – it’s definitely lighter than Gabriella English’s condensed milk version in Red magazine, which is wonderfully creamy, but has the solidity of an old-fashioned brick of vanilla, or Georgina Hayden’s whipped cream and mascarpone number in her new book MEDesque, which is positively velvety … unlike the OG. I’m also very keen on the slightly smoother version from the much-missed Delicious magazine , which combines whipping cream with glucose syrup and ice-cream, but, seeing as glucose syrup, which also features in the Wall’s version, is strictly speaking a UPF, I’ve decided to stick with the egg whites, which have the additional benefit of being easier to source in even the smallest of shops.
“With double…