Homemade Turkish Ice Cream Dondurma is perfectly thick and stretchy as it traditionally has to be. It is made with milk, sugar and salep. With its unique flavor and consistency, it is not like other ice creams you have tasted.
If you have always wanted to make traditional Turkish ice cream, this in-depth recipe is for you! It only requires three ingredients that all create the unique chewy, hard, and incredibly elastic texture.
And the creamy flavor is out of this world! This is a must-try ice cream that can be served in cones, on a plate, or with other desserts!
Any Turkish dessert can be topped with this ice cream and the taste goes up to the next level. We do love to top a slice of pistachio kadaif or semolina cake with a dollop of ice cream or dondurma as we say in Turkish.
There are dessert stores who even serve baklava with ice cream inside it. And you can imagine how heavenly it is!
What Is Different About Turkish Ice Cream?
To Turkey, ice cream is one of its proudest dessert creations. This ice cream has actually reached world renowned status for its unique stretchy texture and creamy flavor!
It is also commonly called Maras ice cream, which refers to the region this ice cream originates from. The two main things that makes it incredibly unique from others is that it contains salep and that it is hand churned.
Salep is a powder that comes from the roots of orchids. This powder helps give the ice cream its consistency.
If you have ever tasted salep drink, you know how creamy and delicious it tastes. So dondurma made with salep is like the frozen version of this amazing drink.
Furthermore, the hand churning process, while time consuming and labor intensive, also helps develop an uber creamy and thick texture. So this recipe doesn't require an ice-cream machine.
You can of course use an ice cream maker if you have one, but it is said that dondurma tastes better when it is hand churned.
Although Turkish ice cream has the flavor of salep, it is known as plain ice cream –sade dondurma in the country and nobody calls it salep ice cream.
Turkish ice cream is very dense and chewy, so it doesn’t melt easily and you might find it completely different from the regular smooth ice creams you know. Some vendors even place a huge wheel of ice cream vertically just like doner kebab and slice it with a sharp knife.
If you are an ice cream fan, we highly recommend that you taste this traditional ice cream. It is one of the best Turkish foods. Put it on top of your must-taste foods list!
Dondurma in Turkish Culture
It is commonly believed that this unique ice cream originated in a region called Kahraman Maras, which later became the ice cream capital of Turkey. That's why this ice cream is also known as Maraş ice cream, Maraş dondurması.
Today, you can easily find ice cream in Istanbul (the main tourist hub in Turkey) and virtually all other regions of the country.
Now, we have all probably seen the videos of Turkish ice cream vendors in Istanbul playing pranks on customers. It is a real challenge for customers to get the ice cream cone from the vendor.
When these vendors make the ice cream, they serve a large scoop of it on a long pole that holds the cone. As you try to grab it, they will evade with all their skills so that you cannot get a hold of the treat you are likely drooling over! You end up with an empty cone in your hand after several attempts to catch it.
It is fun, interactive and gives lots of tourists quite a laugh while some might find it quite annoying, especially if they are not familiar with this prank.
These vendors are easily recognizable by the traditional Turkish attire they wear. This is usually a white short sleeved shirt covered with a red embroidered waistcoat. Most of these vendors also wear red embroidered hats to finish off the look.
About The Ingredients
This no-churn ice cream is made only with 3 ingredients.
Milk: Traditionally goat's milk is used for making dondurma for its natural flavor, but cow's milk or a combination of both is okay too. You just have to ensure that the milk has been pasteurized. Or, you can heat it to 90ºC (190ºF) to kill all microorganisms.
Salep Powder: There is no substitution or alternative for sahlep or salep powder for Turkish ice cream. It is what gives this ice cream its unique flavor and texture. This powder is a type of flour made from dried and ground bulbs of a purple orchid in the South-east of Turkey.
This powder can be difficult to find outside of Turkey, but you may be able to find it on online markets selling Turkish, Greek or Middle East markets. Search for pure salep powder.
Also, it is easier to find small sachets or packages of instant salep drink. These are not genuine pure salep because they have been mixed with starch. But, they can still work when making ice cream. The most famous brands are Kahve Dünyasi and Dr Oetker.
Sugar: We used regular granulated white sugar for this recipe. Other types will change the flavor and color.
Alternative Flavor: Optionally, you can add mastic in this unique ice cream if you want more flavor. Mastic is a resin that you can get in droplets from a mastic tree. It has a refreshing flavor that is similar to pine. These trees are also known as gum tree and grown in Turkey and Greece.
Mastic will also help give the ice cream a stretchy consistency, but it is mainly used for its unique flavor.
How To Make It
Today, we will look at exactly how you can make your own traditional Turkish ice cream dondurma at home. But remember, there is no substitute for salep powder. It gives the ice cream its unique flavor and unmatched elastic and stretchy consistency!
- Create the ice cream base: To start, combine the milk, sugar, and salep powder in your saucepan. Whisk well to combine the ingredients. Then, place it over a medium heat and allow it to cook until the sugar starts dissolving. Stir constantly to prevent the mixture from burning.
- Cook the ice cream mixture: Once all of the sugar has dissolved, reduce the heat to the lowest. Let the mixture simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring frequently until it gets a slightly thicker consistency.
- Freeze: Transfer the mixture to a freezer-safe container and allow it to cool completely at room temperature. Then, cover it with plastic wrap.
- Start the hand churning process: Place the sealed container in the freezer. After 30 minutes, remove it and mix the base with a fork for 2-3 minutes. Make sure to fold in icy bits on the sides into the mixture. Place the mixture back into the freezer for another 30 minutes. Repeat this process 4-5 times. It will become more stretchy and harder as the time elapses. After the last mixing, put it back in the freezer and keep it there for 5 hours.
- Serve: Once ready to serve, thaw it at room temperature for 10 minutes. This makes it easy to scoop out and serve on cones or with your favorite desserts.
Expert Tips
- You can make this ice cream using an ice cream machine too. To do so, put the completely cooled ice cream mixture in a freezer safe container and freeze it for 30 minutes. Then take the ice cream out of the freezer and churn it according to the manufacturer's instructions. Once frozen, place it in an airtight container and freeze it for 5 hours.
- If you cannot find salep powder, there are some alternatives. Outside of Turkey, it may be hard to find genuine salep powder. So, you can look on online markets like Amazon for instant drink salep powder in sachets or packets. For this recipe, you can use 1 packet of 17 grams.
- Every time you hand churn the ice cream, make sure to mix it very well. You need to keep incorporating the crystals that have formed on the side of the container. This will give you the best stretchy texture and consistency for this Turkish stretchy ice cream.
- If you want to, you can add gum mastic for an extra flavor. But, you have to freeze 3 grams of mastic beads for 10-15 minutes. Then, grind them into a fine powder. Next, add the ground mastic after the sugar has dissolved into the milk base. Continue the ice cream making process as per usual.
Serving
You can simply serve it on ice cream cones with some garnishes like pistachios or chocolate sauce.
Maras ice cream can be served in such a way that it can be eaten with a knife and fork. This may be easier as this is an ice cream that doesn’t melt easily and it is very stretchy.
You can serve this ice cream not only on its own but also with some other desserts as an accompaniment. The most popular Turkish desserts to serve with dondurma are baklava, kunefe and semolina halva.
More Turkish Desserts
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📖 Recipe
Dondurma (Turkish Ice Cream)
Turkish ice cream has a chewy and stretchy texture with a natural aromatic flavor coming from salep powder. No ice cream maker is needed for this recipe!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 50 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 6 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Freezing
- Cuisine: Turkish
Ingredients
- 1 liter milk
- 1 and ½ cups sugar
- 1 tablespoon salep powder
Instructions
- Combine milk, sugar and salep powder in a large saucepan. Whisk well with a hand whisk.
- Put it over medium heat and cook it until sugar dissolves, stirring continuously.
- Reduce the heat to the lowest and keep cooking until it gets thicker in consistency. This might take 15-20 minutes.
- Transfer it into a freezer-safe container. Let it cool completely.
- Cover it with plastic wrap and put it into the freezer.
- Remove it from the freezer after 30 minutes and mix with a fork for 2-3 minutes. Make sure to fold in the icy bits on the edges of the container. Put it back into the freezer.
- Repeat this 5 or 6 times every 30 minutes. You will see how it gets stretchy in the end and it will get really hard to mix. This shows that your ice cream is almost ready.
- Keep it in the freezer until serving time, at least for 5 hours.
- Take it out 15 minutes before serving. Then you can easily scoop it and serve on the scone or on your desserts.
Notes
- Making it in an ice cream maker: After step 5, take it out of the freezer and freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Take it into an airtight container and freeze for at least 5 hours.
- If you can’t find authentic salep powder: It might be hard to find the genuine salep powder outside Turkey. Then you can buy salep mixture powder in sachets or packages at online markets like Amazon. Use one sachet (17g) for this recipe.
- Make sure to mix it well each time you take it out of the freezer if you are not using an ice cream maker.
- You can add a gum mastic flavor if you want. To do this: Freeze mustic beads(3g) for 10-15 minutes and then grind them well. Add in the ground mastic after the sugar dissolves in the heating milk.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 dollop
- Calories: 218
- Sugar: 43.2g
- Sodium: 100.1mg
- Fat: 1.3g
- Trans Fat:
- Carbohydrates: 46.2g
- Protein: 6.1g
- Cholesterol: 3.3mg
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Syed Muhammad Ali Raza Zaidi says
Salep is available in the form of pure roots by name of "sohlab dana" at local pansari stores if you dig deeper into the spice merchant markets, it is quite cheap as compare to the prepared counterpart. Also the icecream calls for gum mastic which is quite pricy and is available at local pansari store with the name of "mastagi younani".
anusha says
hello everyone, im from pakistan. i visited turkey last year and loved their typically traditional icecream. can someone tell me where i can get this turkish icecream making machine?? and how much it costs?
Haris says
Syed where are you from? I tried to findout here in pakistan and didnt find sohlab dana
Ahmed says
My milk and salep mixture never reaches pudding consistency, what do I do?
Zerrin says
Hi Ahmed!
It is probably because of the quality of salep powder you are using. I sometimes have the same issue. What I do in such cases is whisking one tablespoon of cornstarch and about 1/4 cup cold milk in a small bowl until smooth and then add it into the simmering salep mixture. This gives the pudding some consistency. Hope this helps.
Ash says
So we would need only the Salep ? How about dondurma? Do I have to get it too? Are they the same?
Zerrin says
Hi Ash, dondurma is the Turkish translation of ice cream. So you need only salep.
Melih Elibol says
It took me a while to find salep powder. It's quite rare in the US. In case anyone else is wondering, you can buy some on etsy or alibaba. I wasn't able to find pure salep powder on amazon.
I ended up getting some from here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MeseloponLtd
I can't yet attest to the quality of the salep powder as it hasn't yet arrived.
I lived in Turkey for quite a while and this is my favorite ice cream in the world. Looking forward to making it 🙂
May says
You are guilty of international orchid smuggling. It is illegal to transport orchids or their parts across borders without a ton of paperwork, and some orchids can't be transported at all because they are endangered. Turkey's orchids are nearly extinct because of this, and now they have started in on smuggling orchids from Iran and Greece to fill the demand. There are orchid-free salep recipes and products.
Boo says
Calm down May.
Hammy says
You need to make an amendment to this reciepe.
"If you are not using original Turkish salep, you will require a thickening agent such as mastic. As without this your mixture will not thicken."
I spent so much time trying to figure out why it didn't thicken 😞😞😞
SinanDira says
Is sugar a must for this? Because I've used stevia instead and stirred it consistently for 30 minutes without it thickening the slightest noticeable amount.
Here are my ingredients (2/3 of original recipe's volume):
500ml of milk
1 teaspoon of salep/sugar mixture (the way Syrian vendors sell it in my city)
1.5 teaspoons of sugar
2 mastic buds (used in most other recipes)
4 teaspoons of stevia
Zerrin&Yusuf says
Never used stevia in this recipe. Thanks for sharing what changes you've made. How was the result?
SinanDira says
Thanks for your reply! After not achieving any thickening after 30 minutes of stirring, I decided to go the old fashioned way we Arabs cook milk or salep by, adding a bit of cornstarch that is. As soon as it cooled down, it yielded a surprisingly similar result to the dondurma in your pictures, albeit a tad less smooth/consistent. Still has two thirds of the elasticity though. My family and I LOVED it!
Zerrin says
Could it be because of the different types of salep we use? I never add any cornstarch when making salep. Thank you for sharing your experience though. I'm glad your family and you loved it!
Sahar says
Hi every body
Im sahar from iran
We make ice cream with this reciepe but we also add saffron , rose water and pestachiue.
GIVE it a try, wont be disappointed 😉
Zerrin says
Hi Sahar! Adding saffron and rose water is a brilliant idea! I'm sure it has an amazing color! Thanks for sharing the idea with us here!
Sahar says
You're welcome dear 😊
Katerina says
I really love dondurma ice cream. I made it and the consistency was fantastic. It was a bit too sweet for my taste buds but overall fantastic and easy. Next time I'll be making this is will add mastic which is actually the way they serve dondurma here (in Greece. I don't know if it's in the original recipe.) Thank you for sharing this.
Zerrin says
Thanks Katerina for sharing your experience and ideas here! The consistency is amazing, isn't it? As for mastic, I'm sure it will enrich the flavor. Personally I don't like its flavor much though.
frank says
Hi,
im wondering if it's supposed to be a teaspoon or a tablespoon of salep?
i made it, but it didnt realy thicken while cooking?
Zerrin says
It is teaspoon. If your salep is original, it must thicken the liquid. If salep is not pure salep, it won't give the same result.
Teri says
Where is the recipe???????
mariana says
Theres no salep here in Guatemala, what can I do??
Zerrin says
Hi Mariana, sorry but salep is a must for this recipe. You can't have the same elastic result with any other ingredient.
Susana I. says
Hello, I would really like to try this ice cream but have no idea how salep must be or look like, I looked it up on Amazon but they seam to have the instant drink kind that you mention in the post, any suggestions in how I shoul look for it to get the real thing, like "pure salep" or something like that?
Thanks a lot. 🙂
Zerrin says
Hi Susana, salep looks like powdered sugar, but it's not as white as sugar. I'm not sure if you can find it on Amazon. Maybe you can look for "orchid powder" or "salep powder" Hope you can find it.
Susana I. says
I found an instant salep drink on Amazon.
Thanks.
Zerrin says
Hi Susana, instant salep drink contains sugar and very little salep inside. I'm not sure how it works for ice cream. Would love to hear your result if you try.
Pati Gulat says
I lived in Izmir, Turkey for awhile and I LOVED the ice cream !!! Pistachio and Cantaloupe were my favorites. I am VERY excited to find this recipe ! I will try talumba.com for the salep. 🙂
Isaac says
Salep is common in turky. Their are two types, dont buy the drink mix. buy the small amount of powder. Its A darkish white and i got 23 grams for 15 TRY in turky
Iulian says
Can we substitute with starch because i can't find salep in Romania.Thank you!
Icecream says
I tried starch but it does not give elasticity or contribute to taste, you want this get salep
Shonalika says
That looks absolutely fascinating! I've heard of salep before and was very much curious to try it - even more so now its manifesting in an ice-cream the likes of which I've never seen! And no ice-cream maker required? I'm definitely going to have to give it a shot, provided I can get hold of salep... do you think it will work with non-dairy milk? I'm vegan:p
Zerrin says
Thank you Shonalika! This ice cream could become you favorite, it's that good! Isn't it great that ice cream maker is not needed for it? Hope you can find genuine salep. I'm not sure about non-diary milk though. I haven't had any experience with it, not something common here. I'd love to hear the result if you try.
Librarian Lavender says
I really, really want to try this! It looks so good!