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This premium ice cream is designed to look like the vegetable from which it’s made, but that’s just one of its many attractive qualities.

When it comes to frozen desserts, sweet lovers in Japan can’t resist the simple pleasures of a soft-serve ice cream. Its immense popularity means there’s always an amazing array of weird and wonderful flavours to try, with retailers around the country offering unusual ingredients like gold-leaf and locusts and even ramen, fish and turtle flavours. Now, to keep ice cream lovers interested in the cooler months of autumn, a brand new treat is being served up, and while its premium ingredients and attention to detail make it look like it comes from a high-end retailer, this delicious delicacy can be found at Ministop convenience stores around the country.

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Last autumn, the popular convenience store chain released a premium soft-serve filled with the flavours of Japanese chestnuts, and this year’s star ingredient features another one of the nation’s most beloved autumn flavours: sweet potato. As a premium treat, this one uses a special type of potato called “Annou Imo”, which is grown on Tanegashima, an island to the south of Kyushu, and is well-known for its high sugar content and flavourful orange-hued flesh.

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The treat promises to be full of flavour, with the sweet potato being used as an ingredient in the soft-serve ice cream, the paste that makes up the thick sauce topping, and the crunchy, caramelised pieces that appear scattered over the sweet. And to give it some extra eye-catching appeal, the whole thing will be wrapped up in a caramel-flavoured waffle cone that contains salt from Okinawa, to represent the chewy, salty skin of a sweet potato.

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Available from 28 October at select stores, the premium soft serve will officially go on sale from 4 November for 320 yen (US$3.08). It’s a small price to pay for a sweet taste of luxury that only comes around once a year!

Source, images: Ministop