You’ll be able to try his latest weird pursuit using the newly-Australian spread from this weekend onwards.

We always cringe when we see those videos of an overseas visitor being “introduced” to our country’s signature spread by way of a huge spoonful unfit for consumption by anyone, let alone a complete amateur.

It’s nice, then, to see that renowned food pioneer and acclaimed chef Heston Blumenthal is heading over to show us how it’s done, turning the decidedly un-dessert-like yeast paste into one of his odd creations at a special Australia Day lunch, Concrete Playground reports.

The dish is apparently being called, very plainly, ‘Vegemite Ice Cream’. But, as always with Heston, there are a few twists to make it something a little bit less ordinary than that.

Created together with the Dinner By Heston group’s executive chef Ashley Palmer-Watts, it apparently sports a sourdough crumble, barley chocolate ganache, and a curd made with the highly-acidic verjuice – so, plenty of flavours to smooth over a little dollop of Vegemite ice cream in the middle, then. Apparently the iconic jar will even appear at the table and play a part in the serving of the dish.

“I had never really eaten Vegemite until I came to Australia,” says Palmer-Watts, an Englishman, who apparently took some convincing. “Heston was intrigued by the flavour immediately and pretty insistent for some time that we explore a dessert dish based on the spread.”

Apparently the duo worked on the dish for six months, and the timing couldn’t have been better, considering that Vegemite is once again Australian-owned following its partial acquisition by Bega cheese. Now, cheese and Vegemite – that’s a combination that makes sense.

If you can’t make it to Melbourne’s Crown Towers for Australia Day, don’t worry – the distinctive dish will be sticking around at Dinner By Heston for the forseeable future.

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.
to Rolling Stone magazine
to Rolling Stone magazine