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Like any other food trend, ice cream flavors fall in and out of popularity throughout the decades. While the most popular ice cream flavors are almost always classics like chocolate and vanilla, other flavors may fall victim to the icy winds of change. One such flavor is tutti frutti. Once so popular that it was the title of a Little Richard song, it’s getting harder and harder to find in freezer cases and ice cream shops.
Tutti frutti, which means “all fruits” in Italian, was a popular mixed fruit filling for tarts, pies, and cakes — it was an easy way to use up older fruit before it went bad. Eventually, this fruity name was used to describe any candy, gum, soda, or ice cream with a mixed fruit flavor. Most versions of tutti frutti ice cream are a mixture of vanilla ice cream and candied or dried fruits and sometimes nuts. It is most often made with cherries, pineapples, and raisins. As with fruit cake recipes, in the original Tutti Frutti recipe, the fruit was soaked in rum or brandy to create a boozy ice cream treat.
Roy Motherhead, who owned an ice cream shop in Kentucky, claimed to have invented the ice cream flavor in the 1950s. However, there are references to tutti frutti ice cream in an 1871 cookbook and 1888 newspaper ad, and tutti frutti recipes were increasingly popular throughout the early 1900s. The ice cream experienced a surge in popularity between the ’70s and ’90s thanks to clever marketing by popular ice cream brands like Gino Ginelli and Carvel.
Where can you buy tutti frutti ice cream now?
There are a few ice cream companies and ice cream shops that still make tutti frutti ice cream. Leopold’s Ice Cream, located in Savannah, GA, ships its ice cream nationwide. The shop offers a wide variety, including old-school ice cream flavors like rum raisin, banana, and tutti frutti. Scottish frozen food and grocery chain Farmfoods also sells its own brand of tutti frutti ice cream, and some local Indian grocers and markets may also sell a version of this creamy, fruity rarity.
You can also make your own tutti frutti ice cream at home. Because tutti frutti is something of a catch-all name for any mix of fresh, dried, or candied fruits, you have a few options. The easiest way might be to buy a package of mixed candied fruit bits and blend them into some vanilla ice cream using an ice cream maker or a Ninja Creami. You can also use our simple, no-churn vanilla ice cream recipe as a base for making tutti frutti ice cream at home from scratch. You can add small pieces of canned fruit like chopped peaches, cherries, and pineapple, or use a mix of dried fruit bits. Of course, for a summertime treat when ripe fruit abounds, you can use your favorite mix of chopped fresh fruits.
