What it is
A peanut ice cream roll (花生捲冰淇淋) is a sweet wrap put together like runbing (潤餅), Taiwan's fresh spring roll. A thin wheat crepe holds shavings from a block of peanut brittle, two scoops of ice cream and a few sprigs of coriander. It also goes by chunjuan bing (春捲冰), "spring roll ice". Western media sometimes call it an ice cream burrito.
Where it came from
Nobody recorded who first made it. Yilan County, on the north-east coast, is named as its home, and it is now sold at night markets and temple fairs. One account, repeated by the MICHELIN Guide, says Japanese residents put the parts together during the colonial era (1895 to 1945).
The snack has since moved upmarket. It has been served at a formal banquet for foreign guests. The Taipei fine-dining restaurant Tairroir (態芮) built a dessert on it, with sour plum and taro ice, coriander mousse, a peanut sugar wafer, frozen honeyed taro and a crisp sheet in place of the soft wrapper.
How it is made
The wrapper is the same as for runbing: flour, water and salt worked into an elastic dough and wiped thinly over a hot griddle. Careful vendors make it fresh each day. The peanut layer is shaved from a brick of peanuts set in maltose, using a blade with a wider edge so the sticky sugar does not clog it. The traditional ice cream is babu (叭噗): flavourings cooked with sugar, thickened with a starch such as tapioca and frozen, with no dairy.
How to eat it
It is a hand-held snack from night market stalls and temple fairs. Taro is the classic ice cream; pineapple and plum are common, and some stalls now offer roasted tea, sea salt lemon or tiramisu. Coriander is standard, but you can ask for it without (不要香菜, bú yào xiāngcài).
Around Taiwan
- North
- In Taipei, the runbing stall Wu Wang Tsai Chi (吾旺再季) at Nanjichang Night Market, a Bib Gourmand in the 2026 MICHELIN Guide, makes its wrappers daily and a little thicker than most. A stall on Jishan Street (基山街) in Jiufen, New Taipei, sells the roll.
