The Silly Origin Story Of Germany's Spaghetti Ice Cream

If you've ever seen the movie "Elf," you may recall Buddy the Elf chowing down on a candy, Pop-Tart, and syrup-loaded plate of breakfast spaghetti. A favorite for Santa's tallest helper, the concept of combining pasta with all of those sweets probably isn't quite as appetizing for most humans, even as a dessert. But what about spaghetti ice cream?

No, we don't mean a literal plate of ice cream-topped noodles like the one that made TikTok's Pasta Queen leave the country. We're talking about spaghettieis: a whimsical German delicacy that has the appearance of spaghetti but is really made up of a heaping pile of ice cream "noodles" and whipped cream topped with red fruit sauce and grated white chocolate. Italian-German ice cream maker Dario Fontanella is the mind behind this unique sundae, which he came up with after ordering a French sweet called a Mont Blac on a ski trip. That dish traditionally involves pressing chestnut creme through a pastry bag, but the restaurant opted instead for a spaetzle maker, making the purée resemble long, thin noodles.

The results inspired Fontanella to try the same technique with ice cream — though it didn't come together right off the bat. He eventually was able to get it right when he discovered that the spaetzle maker had to be ice cold, and after some trial and error with colors, he landed on vanilla to give the dish a spaghetti noodle-like appearance that was almost too close to the real thing.

It was pretty easy to tell the difference between a real taco and Klondike's discontinued Choco Taco, but such was not the case with Dario Fontanella's spaghetti ice cream. In fact, Fontanella's wife, Desi, told Smithsonian Magazine that kids would often start crying when presented with spaghettieis because of how identical the dessert looked to an actual plate of spaghetti. "Since they ordered a sundae, they were rather disappointed about getting a pasta dish," she said.

Of course, the kiddos eventually realized that spaghettieis was made of ice cream and gobbled it down. Now, millions and millions of orders for the pasta-inspired novelty are sold yearly at ice cream shops across Germany — though you don't necessarily have to travel to Deutschland to get some. The one-of-a-kind treat has made its way onto menus at several ice cream shops across the pond in the U.S., like at Holy Moly Ice Cream in Cape Coral, Florida, where spaghetti ice cream is offered in 20 different flavors. However, if you don't live near a creamery selling spaghettieis, you can always attempt to make your own at home.

Start by filling a cold bowl with whipped cream. Then, press vanilla ice cream through an ice-cold potato ricer or spaetzle maker to create your ice cream pasta. Top the pile of whipped cream and "noodles" with strawberry or raspberry sauce and grated white chocolate, then dig in.