Krembo is available only from October to February, generating annual hype around this chocolate-covered, cream-filled treat on a cookie base.
How do you know it’s November in Israel? When Krembo is back on grocery shelves.
Like a seasonal fruit (but a whole lot less nutritious), the chocolate-coated cream treat is available for a limited time, from October to February.
Supposedly, that’s because Krembo, introduced in the 1960s, cannot survive the spring and summer heat, and because in the winter people want a creamy dessert that’s not ice cold.
We suspect it’s more of a marketing ploy and a successful one at that. The start of “Krembo season” never fails to create a buzz.
Maybe one reason Krembo is such a favorite Israeli snack food is that we have to wait for it.
The name of the treatment means “cream in it.” Krembo, made by Unilever-owned Strauss Ice Cream, is constructed of a plain round cookie topped with a huge dollop of vanilla or mocha marshmallow fluff and coated in a thin layer of chocolate.
Off-brand versions include Kefbo, Manbo, and Tenbo, but everyone calls them Krembo no matter what the package says.
Once upon a time, each Krembo was hand-wrapped in foil. In 2018, Unilever/Strauss discontinued individual wrapping in the eight-unit packages to save 13 tons of aluminum foil annually.
So they’ve gotten a little greener– and a little more expensive, too, since Unilever announced a price hike effective October 2.
How to eat a Krembo
And now here’s the critical part of our story: How do you eat a Krembo?
- Hold the Krembo by the cookie base and eat top down, the method preferred by most.
- Twist off the cookie and eat it before the sugary fluff and chocolate shell.
- Eat the cookie and the chocolate shell together (frankly, we’re not sure how that works).
- Pick off the chocolate coating and eat it first.
- Squash the Krembo so that you can bite into the cream and the cookie together (assuming the fluff hasn’t plopped onto your shoes).
- Eat the cookie first and then spoon out the cream, finishing off with the chocolate shell.
- Puncture the shell to get at the cream, then eat the chocolate coating and finally the cookie base.
The other hot debate is at what temperature to devour a Krembo: frozen, refrigerated, or warm and gooey after briefly zapping in the microwave.
