A Moment For: A Truly Indulgent Ferrero Rocher Croissant Ice-Cream Sandwich

There’s “indulgence” and then there’s Bottega Bandito’s latest croissant of the month. The February edition is a Ferrero Rocher-inspired ice-cream sandwich. It’s a triumph of the “more is more” mentality.

Head pastry chef John Laguna led the charge.

“Sometimes great products have their origin in a mistake,” Laguna says. “Back in the early days of Bottega when we were still finding our feet in the bakery, we had issues with a big batch of plain croissants. They didn’t rise properly [and] weren’t up to our standards, however, they were still delicious and we refused to throw them away. So we came up with the idea of blitzing them into a panko-like crumb and then roasting them with a bit of sugar. We called it ‘croissant crunch’. It was so good. The staff would just eat it by the spoonful.”

They knew they had a hit on their hands – and since summer has brought soaring temps, the time was right to bring the croissant crunch to the masses.

“Now that summer is here with all its might, we have decided to create something to fight back: a croissant ice-cream sandwich. Then we looked at our croissant crunch and thought of coating the ice-cream with it, but it needed something to help the ice-cream stick to the crunch. We used dark chocolate and noticed it was starting to look like a Ferrero Rocher. So, we made a delicious hazelnut ice-cream, added the traditional roasted hazelnuts and some extra hazelnut praline.”

What: Ferrero Rocher ice-cream sando croissant.

How: Making the dessert is a three-step process. It starts with a cross-laminated croissant dough, which is slow-proofed overnight and then rolled to a four-millimetre thickness and baked.

The ice-cream process starts with “a very rich, intense and aerated Hazelnut cream that gets evenly spread into a tray. Then comes the crushed roasted hazelnuts and last a generous drizzle of house-made crunchy hazelnut praline. This goes into the freezer overnight till it’s set.”

The pastry is then cut in half, the choc-dipped, croissant-crumbed hazelnut ice-cream is scooped in, the lid is placed back on top, and the whole pastry is dusted with cocoa powder and sprinkled with flakes of Maldon sea salt.

When: Available until the end of February.

Cost: $15 for a croissant and ice-cream. You could share it, but you may not want to.

Where: Bottega Bandito, 98 Prospect Road, Prospect

@bottegabandito