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Papua New GuineaFlavors · New Zealand
Vanilla ice cream with crunchy bits of aerated caramel, hokey pokey. It’s New Zealand’s second most popular ice cream flavor after plain vanilla, and its origin is disputed between towns in the country.
Traditional sweet from New Zealand
Also known as: hokey pokey ice cream, sorvete hokey pokey
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Hokey pokey — New Zealand
In New Zealand, hokey pokey is the name for the aerated, crunchy caramel made from sugar, syrup and baking soda, known in other countries as honeycomb toffee. Mixed as small pieces into vanilla ice cream, it became the flavor that the country’s official encyclopedia, Te Ara, lists as the second most popular, after plain vanilla. The ice cream is sold nationwide in tubs, cones and ice pops.
The name has a long history. In 19th-century England and New York, hokey pokey referred to cheap ice cream sold by street vendors, many of them Italian. In New Zealand, the word came to designate the caramel: the National Archives holds a patent application for hokey pokey filed in 1896 by William Hatton, a confectioner from Dunedin, with a recipe of sugar, glucose, water and baking soda.
The creation of the ice cream is more recent and contested. Accounts place the mixing with ice cream between the 1940s and 1950s but disagree on who did it first: some versions link Dunedin to the story because of Hatton’s caramel, others credit makers in the Auckland region with the first ice cream, and some cite an ice cream maker from Lower Hutt near Wellington. None has definitive proof, and the flavor became a nationwide emblem.
Hokey pokey also appears in chocolate bars, cakes and biscuits, but it’s in ice cream that it became a symbol of the New Zealand summer.
New Zealand
The flavor is sold across the country, and the origin of the ice cream is disputed among New Zealand towns, with no definitive proof.
Vanilla ice cream; hokey pokey caramel made from sugar, golden syrup or glucose and baking soda.
In a cone, in tubs or as a dessert, preferably while the caramel is still crunchy.
All year round, with higher demand in summer, from December to March.
Your questions
In New Zealand, it’s the aerated, crunchy caramel made from sugar, syrup and baking soda. Mixed into vanilla ice cream, it gives its name to the country’s most famous flavor after vanilla.
The origin is disputed. A patent application for the caramel was filed by William Hatton of Dunedin in 1896, but accounts of the first ice cream point to different places, such as Auckland and Lower Hutt, without definitive proof.
It’s the same kind of aerated caramel; hokey pokey is the name used in New Zealand.
Flavors of New Zealand
Baked meringue with a crisp shell and soft interior, topped with cream and fruit, often kiwi. New Zealanders regard it as a national dessert and dispute its origin with Australia; researcher Helen Leach, of Otago, collected the oldest recipes.
Dry white wine from the sauvignon blanc grape, intensely aromatic, with herbal notes and tropical fruit. Marlborough, in the north of the South Island, is New Zealand’s largest wine region, and the name has been a registered geographical indication since 2018.
Red wine from the pinot noir grape, the standout variety of Central Otago, the southernmost wine region of New Zealand, set among the inland lakes and mountains of Otago. Fragrant, with intense fruit and a silky texture; the name has been a registered geographical indication since 2018.
Maori meal of meats and vegetables cooked in steam from an earth oven, a tradition throughout the country. In Rotorua, the village of Whakarewarewa cooks hāngī using geothermal steam, in boxes placed over hot springs, without the heated stones of the pit.
A slice of white sandwich bread spread with a cheesy cream, rolled up and toasted until golden. It’s traditional in cafés, bakeries and fundraising events in Southland, at the far south of New Zealand, where it earned the nickname southern sushi.
A small cake of beaten egg with whitebait, the juvenile fish of native species that move up rivers in spring, fried in butter or oil. On the West Coast, where catching and eating whitebait is part of local life, it is often served between slices of buttered bread.
