Here’s How NOT to Make Disney’s DOLE Whip Recipe

DOLE Whip. Just those two words are enough to set your mind racing: memories of your favorite Disney Park, happy times, and hot summer days. Wouldn’t it be great to recreate that at home? Thanks to Disney Parks Blog, now you can! They recently released a take on the DOLE Whip recipe and we just had to try it!

First check out the recipe:
Ingredients:

• 1/2-3/4 cup pineapple juice, divided
• 2 cups frozen pineapple chunks
• 1 cup dairy-free vanilla ice cream

Directions: 

1. Place 1/2 cup pineapple juice, frozen pineapple, and dairy-free vanilla ice cream in blender and blend until smooth – do not over blend. If the mixture is too thick to blend, add 2 tablespoons of pineapple juice at a time.
2. Scoop into bowls and serve immediately.

Seems easy enough. Let’s try it! My store was out of dairy-free ice cream so I had to make it with the full dairy kind. Dairy-free is important in this recipe because of the texture, dairy ice cream is thicker and richer while dairy-free has a more watery consistency so I have my doubts about my attempt being a success but we shall see.

Credit: Jill Bivins

My doubts proved correct as I very adeptly butchered this recipe. The taste was close…ish but the consistency was all off. Contrary to my fear that full dairy ice cream would be too thick, it was far too runny. As you can see from the photo below, that looks nothing like a DOLE whip.

Credit: Jill Bivins

I decided to throw it in the freezer to let it “set up” a bit. After a couple hours in the freezer it was looking more like it DOLE Whip but still a far cry from what it was supposed to look like. Since DOLE Whip floats are my favorite, I added a splash of pineapple juice and sat down to enjoy.

Credit: Jill Bivins

My hopes were high. After all, it doesn’t matter what it looks like as long as it tastes good right? (That’s what all the well meaning onlookers to my various baking disasters tell me at least). Soon I discovered my hopes were much much too high. Enjoyment would not be any part of this experience. The directions said “do not over blend” and I took that to heart. If you attempt this recipe yourself, don’t be afraid of over blending. The pineapple didn’t get completely blended and there were very unappealing fruit chunks in the concoction. I love pineapple as much as the next person but this was… not good. I took a few bites, for research purposes, and threw it out. I couldn’t even finish it, that’s how bad it was.

Rather than a taste of Disney at home (which incidentally was supposed to be the title of this article), this experience has just made me miss Disney and the real thing even more. Come to think of it, maybe that was Disney’s plan from the get go. Well played Disney, well played. Totally kidding, I don’t blame the recipe; this was most certainly operator error (I am, after all, the girl who once blew up a microwave just by boiling water).

If you decide to try this DOLE Whip recipe out for yourself, come back to the comments and let us know how it went for you. I’d love to read comments about how much better yours turned out because I’m certain someone somewhere can execute this recipe to perfection. That person is just not me.