The dessert challenge

Serving tasty desserts quickly was always a challenge for restaurants and cafes. But as the staffing crisis deepens, the industry has to get increasingly creative in the quest to serve tempting treats.

As the old proverb says: ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’. Right now, your broth’s safe because you’d be hard-pressed to find cooks – let alone recruit them. Job vacancies in the hospitality industry have been steadily rising, as the sector feels the full force of the fall-out from the Covid and Brexit. In UK alone, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that in June 2021 there were 102,000 job vacancies in the sector, compared with 19,000 in December 2020.  

So as restaurants and cafés struggle to recruit and retain staff, what can business owners do to maintain an appetizing dessert menu with minimum fuss?

Time-saving taste creation

What do you get when you cross a Portobello commercial ice cream machine, a delicious range of Italian gelatos and vegan sorbets, and a staffing shortage in the hospitality sector? Simple and inventive serving inspirations!

Why not offset staff ‘churn’ with delicious ice-cream-centric desserts and creative dessert-to-go solutions from fwip?

Give easily-sourced sweet menu staples a luxury twist by combining them with our delicious ice-cream flavours.  And if you’re running short on expertise in the kitchen, you can transform your business into a mini ice cream parlour, that’s simple for anyone to operate and clean.

fwip it simple

Okay, so we’re not saying one push of a button and your recruiting problems are solved. But we are saying that installing a fwip Portobello inside or outside your restaurant, café, or mobile catering unit, is a great way to give your customers delicious and memorable food moments, again and again, and again (up to 200 servings per hour). No chef required. 

The speed and versatility of the fwip Portobello ice cream machine makes it an ideal way to produce premium desserts at the touch of a button. All you need to do is get creative with the toppings and sauces to take it to the next level.

Or even better, give your customers a choice of accompaniments to customize their fwip experience.  

Need some ideas to get started? 

• Pop a swirl or two of our award-winning Salted Caramel Gelato in a waffle cone, cover with candy-floss, and sprinkle over mini-meringues. 
• Grab yourself some cold or warm fruit compote and red berries of your choosing, then decorate a creamy fwip Frozen Yogurt inside a serving bowl. 
• Half-fill a serving glass with brown sugar boba pearls, top with fwip’s delicious Vanilla Gelato, and finish with stroopwafel.

If you want to add a bit more ambition, why not combine fwip flavours with easy but oh-so-yummy popular desserts to make it even more indulgent? Here are three ideas to get you thinking, and your customers’ taste buds tingling:

Mango Fool‍

What can we say? Another fresh and fruity award-winner, this time from our vegan sorbet range. Harnessing the refreshing sweetness of Indian Alphonso mangoes, our Vegan Mango Sorbet is a sunshine sorbet for all seasons.

With exclusive 3-star status from the Great Taste Awards 2021, it seems a sacrilege to do anything more than enjoy the pure flavour of this tropical-tasting fwip. But don’t be fooled, with some slices of fresh (Alphonso) mango and a dash of cream, you can fwip up a delicious mango fool in minutes.

Chocolate Gelato & Banana Tempura

For a modern twist on a traditional split, try coating banana slices in tempura batter. Fry them for a few minutes, then dust them in icing-sugar.

Serve warm with our velvety-smooth, Chocolate Gelato made from a carefully sourced single-origin dark chocolate, fwipped into creamy milk. It’s made to melt.

And yep, you guessed it, it’s another award-winner.

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Salted Caramel Gelato & Churros

If you’re looking for over the top indulgence, try with our Salted Caramel Gelato with churros. Long strips of fried light batter, covered in sugar or cinnamon, churros are known all over the world as a famous Spanish dessert – but they’re actually traditionally enjoyed as a breakfast or a snack.

We don’t mind what time of day you eat them, but we do recommend sinking those fried-dough fingers into a pot of slowly melting Salted Caramel Gelato. Yum. You can find this and many other ideas here.

Feeling hungry? Whether your business is short on staff or not, why not appoint the world’s smallest gelateria with the tastiest ice-cream selection?

Interested in what the Portobello commercial ice cream machine and fwip can do for you? Please check out our business solutions pages for more information: Retail, Cafes & Restaurants,  Catering and Leisure & Entertainment.

Or, just get in touch.

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