When I was growing up, viennetta was something I had in other people’s houses – for some reason, my mum regarded these frilly blocks of ice-cream as a waste of money, which made them all the bigger treat on the rare occasion I did get a front-row seat at the cracking of the chocolate. Launched, like me, in 1982, when developers at Wall’s realised that pumping ice-cream on to the production line slightly faster than the speed of the conveyor belt created a concertina effect that, I think we can now, with the wisdom of age, agree, is more impressive to behold than to consume. No doubt diehard devotees will beg to differ, but even as a child I couldn’t help but notice that all that air made the viennetta distinctly light on flavour (no wonder one slice is never enough, as the old advertising campaign had it). Happily, you can recreate the magic at home with something that looks good and tastes great – and you don’t even need your own conveyor belt!
