Dole Whip Clone


 

Chris Allingham

Administrator
Staff member
If you've been to Disneyland or Disney World, you probably know what Dole Whip is...essentially a pineapple-flavored soft serve that people wait in long line to get. Here's an example:

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I started with this recipe:

4 cups frozen golden pineapple chunks
4 scoops Sprouts Organic Vanilla Gelato
1 frozen banana, cut into chunks
Pinch of salt

Combine in food processor until smooth. Place in Ziploc bag, snip corner, and pipe into individual serving dish.

Let's just say...easier said than done.

I added the gelato to the bottom of the work bowl, the salt, the banana, and the pineapple chunks. I let the gelato container warm at room temp for 5 minutes so I could scoop it.

The whole thing seized up in the work bowl without chopping the pineapple and without combining everything into a smooth soft serve consistency.

So I dumped it out and added a small amount back to the work bowl and processed the heck out of it until smooth, then added more little by little until the whole thing came together. Transfered it to a Ziploc bag, put it back in the freezer for 10 minutes to keep it from melting too quickly, then snipped the corner of the bag and piped it into a bowl.

Not exactly like the real thing, but reminiscent. Problem is there are some textural issues, including pulpiness from the pineapple and especially some of the little hard black eyes that remained in the processed pineapple chunks.

Not sure if I'm going to try to take this recipe to the next level, but if I do, I'm thinking of running the golden pineapple through a juicer and then through a fine sieve to remove the solids, partially freeze the juice into a slush, then combine it with the gelato and banana in the food processor. Weird that I cannot find Golden Pineapple Juice online anywhere, only regular tart pineapple juice...I guess I'd have to make my own.

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We've been making a lot of smoothies lately that all contain pineapple and banana. Picked up a low cost Ninja Professional 1000 watt @ Costco on sale for $50 a few weeks ago, normally $70. If you leave it on high for 60 seconds there is no pulp left of anything. Much better then the old Oster blender we had before. For the price we are very happy with it.
 
Food processor is not fast/strong enough to get the cutting action you need.

Seems a lot of these types of dishes need the speed of something like a Vitamix. But not everyone has the $$ one of those things cost. But a blender would be my first choice.

For the juice, found this pic for pickup by one of those food delivery services at a Costco site
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https://www.inabuggy.com/Freshn-Pure-Golden-Pineapple-Juice-2-63L-Grocery-Delivery--P317213

Yes, I saw this product online in Canada, but haven't found it here in Northern California.
 
We've been making a lot of smoothies lately that all contain pineapple and banana. Picked up a low cost Ninja Professional 1000 watt @ Costco on sale for $50 a few weeks ago, normally $70. If you leave it on high for 60 seconds there is no pulp left of anything. Much better then the old Oster blender we had before. For the price we are very happy with it.

I suspect you're right, that a blender is the way to go.
 
This is off the Dole site. I have not tried it. Just found it today.

INGREDIENTS
• 1 cup pineapple juice, frozen in an ice cube tray
• 1 DOLE® Banana, peeled and frozen
• 2-1/2 teaspoons powdered sugar
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk beverage
DIRECTIONS
1. COMBINE pineapple juice, banana, and powdered sugar in a blender. Cover; blend until smooth, gradually adding coconut milk and scraping down sides if necessary. Serve immediately.
 
We drive out to the Dole Plantation on the North Shore just to get these when we visit the Islands. They are outstanding!
 
This is off the Dole site. I have not tried it. Just found it today.

INGREDIENTS
• 1 cup pineapple juice, frozen in an ice cube tray
• 1 DOLE® Banana, peeled and frozen
• 2-1/2 teaspoons powdered sugar
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk beverage
DIRECTIONS
1. COMBINE pineapple juice, banana, and powdered sugar in a blender. Cover; blend until smooth, gradually adding coconut milk and scraping down sides if necessary. Serve immediately.

Sounds healthy too, especially for a dessert.

I'll try as written, and then I'll add a mango.. bananas + mangoes are one of my favorite combinations.
 
This is off the Dole site. I have not tried it. Just found it today.

INGREDIENTS
• 1 cup pineapple juice, frozen in an ice cube tray
• 1 DOLE® Banana, peeled and frozen
• 2-1/2 teaspoons powdered sugar
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk beverage
DIRECTIONS
1. COMBINE pineapple juice, banana, and powdered sugar in a blender. Cover; blend until smooth, gradually adding coconut milk and scraping down sides if necessary. Serve immediately.

Thanks for this! Why didn't I think to go straight to the Dole site?
 
So I tried Round 2 of Dole Whip Clone.

I liquified a can of Dole Golden Pineapple chunks in a blender, strained it, and froze it in ice cube trays. I cut a banana in pieces and froze it. I placed a scoop of vanilla gelato into the blender, added the banana, and a bit of pineapple juice from yet another can of golden pineapple. It seized up in the blender. I tried adding a few frozen pineapple cubes, that didn't help matters. I transferred the contents of the blender to the food processor, whizzed it up, added some frozen pineapple chunks, and it started seizing up as well. After some stirring and whizzing and stirring and whizzing, I got it kind of where I wanted it. Taste was good, and by liquefying/straining the pineapple chunks I solved the previous problem of pulpiness. It will never have the perfect smoothness of a soft serve, there was some graininess of ice crystals, but not bad. But the whole blending/food processing thing is horrible. My blender had plenty of power, and it makes daiquiris and frozen margaritas fine, but I suspect the shape of the container and the blade configuration is not conducive to make a soft serve facsimile.

What I may do is try to borrow an ice cream maker, keep the ingredients liquid, and try to freeze it to the soft serve stage.

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We have tried the "official" Dole Whip recipe at home a couple of times. It's good, but not exact. I think the lack of artificial stuff and stabilizers in the home version is why it just can't quite match the original.

Blenders are so different from each other too, and that makes a difference. We have two blenders, and have tried making it in each. The results are surprisingly different. Our Oster didn't do very well with this, but our no-name blender my dear wife bought in a weight loss kit (Isagenix?--- don't ask) worked really well. I think it has to do with the container shape, combined with the blender RPM (or lack thereof). The slower RPM and narrower container on the cheap blender actually worked better, for this anyway.
 
Round Three.

I bought a Ninja Professional at Costco. Decided I'd roughly follow the Disney recipe. I started with a 20 oz can of Golden Pineapple chunks from Costco. I measured out and refrigerated 4 oz of juice from the can, the rest of the can contents went into the blender. I liquified it and poured it into ice cube trays to freeze. I deviated from the Disney recipe, reaching back to the earlier recipe to slice and freeze a large banana.

When it came time to make the whip, I placed 3 oz of good vanilla ice cream in the blender along with the banana and refrigerated juice. All those things liquified pretty well. But when I started adding the frozen pineapple, it was just like before. It chopped up into a dry, compact mass that would not mix with the liquified ice cream/banana/juice mixture. I used a spatula to move it down into the liquid and reblend, but with no success. I ended up with a thick siezed layer of pineapple on top with a couple of inches of liquid below.

Like before, I spooned out most of the icy pineapple, left a little bit on top of the liquid mixture, started the blender again and poured in some milk. Got some mixing action. More pineapple, more milk. Finally got all the pineapple in there and ran it on the highest setting for a couple of minutes. It was all mostly incorporated, but there's just something about the thickness of the pineapple that even one of these new blenders can't seem to muscle around inside the container.

Taste was OK, not great.

I'm beginning to think the Dole recipe is the way to go, where they use frozen pineapple juice and not the pineapple flesh. Or I'm just going to give up. I don't think it's worth making this without Golden Pineapple, it's much less acidic and more flavorful that regular pineapple, but I've not been able to find it in juice form.

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Four ounces of juice removed from can.

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Can contents liquified in blender.

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Mise en place.

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Result.

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Your 'results' photo looks pretty good, and even looks to be a pretty close match to my eye. Do you think smaller sized frozen pineapple cubes would make a difference with the blending, or is it just an issue of what it is composed of? EDIT: meaning the total mass of the cubes, not necessarily the size?
 
Round Three.

I'm beginning to think the Dole recipe is the way to go, where they use frozen pineapple juice and not the pineapple flesh. Or I'm just going to give up. I don't think it's worth making this without Golden Pineapple, it's much less acidic and more flavorful that regular pineapple, but I've not been able to find it in juice form.

Maybe you could contact Dole's to see if they can give you advice?
 

 

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