Ice Moon

Häagen-Dazs

2012

Ice cream

Description

Häagen-Dazs invited Doshi Levien to design a special ice-cream cake for Christmas 2012. The project appealed immediately: working with moulded ice cream brought together the studio’s love of materials, processes and sensory experience. The ephemeral nature of ice cream – a design meant to be eaten – made the collaboration irresistible.

In the studio, the designers began by shaping a clay prototype without initially considering how it might be manufactured, encouraged by Häagen-Dazs’s reputation for embracing challenges. A later visit to the company’s test kitchen revealed that a spherical ice-cream form had never been attempted before. The solution came from what seemed like a naive suggestion: mould the ice cream in two separate halves and bring them together without handling or compromising the shape.

The form of the Ice Moon drew on a constellation of references: a childhood Bollywood song in which the moon is made of ice cream, Georges Méliès’ Le Voyage dans la Lune, Léon Tutundjian’s 1929 reliefs, and early spherical “Bombes” ice-cream desserts. Together, these influences shaped a design filled with fantasy, adventure and playfulness.

Credits
Photos: Häagen-Dazs
Ice Moon
THE APPEAL OF WORKING WITH HAAGEN DAZS?
THE APPEAL OF WORKING WITH HAAGEN DAZS?
(Fig 1)

THE APPEAL OF WORKING WITH HAAGEN DAZS?

The studio has a particular love for materials and processes, so the idea of working with moulded ice cream was irresistible, with the designers embracing the ephemeral nature of ice cream – a form of design intended to be eaten. Doshi Levien felt that the meeting place between material technology and food culture was interesting, so welcomed the proposal from Häagen-Dazs to design an ice-cream cake.
FLAVOURS OF THE MOON
(Fig 3)

FLAVOURS OF THE MOON

The orange coloured Harvest Moon encompasses Häagen-Dazs’s well-known macadamia nut brittle, combined with the crunchiness of meringue and the delicate freshness of a raspberry sorbet on a pistachio biscuit base. The white moon is made using salted caramel and vanilla, finished with a salted caramel sauce on a bed of crispy chocolate cereal and caramelised pecan nuts.