If you grew up in India, you probably remember the ritual of eating a custard apple. You pressed the bumpy green skin, waited for it to soften, cracked it open, and spent the next ten minutes working around black seeds to reach the creamy flesh. It was messy and completely worth it. The catch is that sitaphal has a short season, and just when you get used to having it around, it disappears from the market.
Walk down any ice cream aisle and you’ll find the usual lineup: chocolate, vanilla, butterscotch, and mango when the season allows. Custard apple ice cream almost never shows up. That’s why sitaphal ice cream feels like a small discovery. NIC Icecream makes theirs with real custard apple and milk, and soft pieces of fruit stay noticeable in the scoop instead of dissolving into a vague fruity sweetness.
Custard apple is hard to describe if you haven’t had it. It sits somewhere between pear, banana and vanilla custard, with a soft, slightly grainy texture that’s very much its own. In custard apple ice cream, cold cream balances that sweetness well, and as the fruit pieces melt, they release their flavour a little at a time. Each spoonful tastes slightly different depending on how much fruit you catch, which keeps it interesting until the last scoop.
According to the brand, the ice cream has no artificial flavours, colours or preservatives, and it’s vegetarian. That’s not a miracle claim, just what you’d expect from a fruit this delicate. Custard apple has a distinct taste and doesn’t need much help, so a product built around genuine pulp and chunks is usually at its best when it keeps things simple.
Sitaphal suits slower moments, like the end of a heavy Sunday lunch, a quiet dessert after dinner, or a tub passed around the family while everyone argues about what to watch. It doesn’t need toppings, though a few chopped nuts wouldn’t hurt. One small tip: take the tub out of the freezer a few minutes before serving. When ice cream is rock hard, the cold dulls the flavour, and five minutes of softening lets the custard apple ice cream come through much more clearly.
It’s also nice to see fruits like sitaphal, jackfruit, chikoo, lychee and anjeer turned into ice cream. Many of us grew up eating them, yet they rarely get the attention mango or strawberry does. NIC Icecream has a range built around them, and custard apple ice cream stands out because the fruit is so seasonal and so particular.
monica