Gelato vs Dandourma: Italian and Stretchy Ice Creams Explained

Gelato is dense Italian ice cream; dandourma is stretchy ice cream thickened with salep and mastic. Here is how they differ and where to find each.

Gelato is Italian-style ice cream: denser, smoother and served slightly warmer than most ice cream, with less air whipped in. Dandourma, also known as Maraş ice cream or booza, is a chewy, stretchy ice cream from Turkey and the Levant, thickened with salep and flavoured with mastic. Both are loved in Egypt.

What makes gelato gelato

Gelato usually uses more milk and less cream than American-style ice cream, so it has less fat but more flavour intensity. It is churned slowly, which keeps air low, and is served a few degrees warmer, which keeps it soft. Pistachio, hazelnut, chocolate and fruit sorbets are classics.

What makes dandourma stretch

Dandourma's texture comes from salep, a flour made from the dried tubers of certain wild orchids, and from mastic, a resin from the Greek island of Chios. It is pounded and kneaded rather than just churned, giving a dense ice cream that can be stretched and cut with a knife. Turkish vendors are famous for playful tricks with long paddles.

Ice cream in Alexandria

Alexandria's Greek and Italian confectioners made ice cream a fixture of the summer Corniche. At Délices the founder is said to have invented ice-cream flavours of his own in the early years, and gelato is still part of the counter.

Dense and cold, or stretchy and chewy; both belong to the Mediterranean.

How to choose

Pick gelato for clean, intense flavour, especially fruit and nut. Pick dandourma for texture and the scent of mastic. On a hot day, there is no rule against both.

Order gelato from Délices

Call us to ask today's gelato flavours or to plan an ice-cream station for an event: +20 3 486 1432. We're at 46 Saad Zaghloul Street, Raml Station, open daily 8 AM – 1 AM.