IT'S NOT ABOUT THE FROYO. IT'S ABOUT THE SPRINKLES.

Yes, another metaphor for life. With a recipe.

Ask any mother of a small child – or any small child – and they will tell you that a visit to the frozen yoghurt shop is all about the sprinkles.

You go in and fill your tub with swirls of icy-cold soft-serve, and then approach a counter lined with bowls of bright, colourful treats, all manner of mini confectionery and gooey, sticky syrups, and go for it. 

The froyo is just there to enable the sprinkles.

Which is life, ’innit?  Life winds from day to night, day to night, divvied up into tasks, jobs, duties; the mundane and the banal; the poignant and the painful. We need to sprinkle those days and nights with as many jelly babies, mini mochi and blueberries as we can. Metaphorically speaking, anyway, which is pretty much the only way I like to speak.

So here’s a recipe for frozen yoghurt, to which you can add your own sprinkles, in whatever shape or form they may take.

But first, here’s the real take-out – we have something to learn from those deviously clever yofro and gelato franchises.

The next time you serve up a scoop of ice-cream, a lovely but rather plain cake or a bowl of summer-is-coming fresh fruit, or a stack of pancakes, serve an array of sprinkles as well.

Let everyone jump in and grab what they want, and customise their own bowl. It makes kids feel grown-up, and grown-ups feel like kids. And you just get to sit back and let them do all the work - I mean, bask in their pleasure.

Some sprinkle-worthy thoughts:

• Chocolate syrup and toasted nuts.

• Whipped mascarpone cream, sponge finger biscuits, glace fruits.

• Raspberries and those raspberries-and-cream sweets you can buy in a bag from the supermarket.

• Actual sprinkles, like hundreds-and-thousands. Never ignore the obvious.

• Mini marshmallows, chocolate buttons, licorice bullets, jubes and jellies, all good. Oh, and those sesame seed wafers that everyone sells on the counter.

• Strawberries and watermelon, cubed.

• Breakfast granola ( for the crunch).

COCONUT FROYO

Frozen yoghurt spiked with coconut milk, whizzed up in an ice-cream machine.

• 500 g natural plain yoghurt, chilled

• 3 tbsp coconut milk or milk, chilled

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 100 g icing sugar

Chill the bucket from the ice-cream machine, and the serving bowls or glasses, for an hour in the fridge.

Whisk the ingredients together and transfer to the ice-cream machine bucket.

Place in the ice-cream machine and churn for 20 mins or until thick and creamy.

If too soft, place in the freezer for 15 minutes to firm up.

Get everything ready before you serve – eg small bowls of freshly diced pineapple and any fun confectionery.

Scoop and serve immediately with the sprinkles (shown: sesame seed wafers, Haribo gummy bears, and diced pineapple).

A word on piping:

If you’re handy with a piping bag (which I am not, so you won’t see any fancy swirls on my watch), transfer the froyo to a piping bag or plastic zip-lock bag and freeze for 15 minutes or so to firm up.

When you’re ready to serve, remove from the freezer but keep an eye on it as it softens – you want classic soft-serve consistency. Pipe away.

If using a zip-lock bag, pretend it’s a piping bag, and twist it to force the contents into one corner. Snip about 1 cm off the corner of the zip lock bag, and pipe into the serving bowls, aiming for some height.

A word on melting: Not going to lie, this will soften relatively quickly, because it hasn’t been stabilised by a massive amount of fat or sugar or whatever they stabilise things with. I don’t see that as a big negative, as long as you get your sprinkles ready to go, then scoop or pipe and serve.

A word on life’s own sprinkles: Here’s a little parade of things that have brought me joy and given me a lift in the past few weeks, carefully placed at the bottom of the post so you can skip it if you’re too busy.

They include 1 & 2/ my on-going and very rewarding association with the National Indigenous Culinary Institute, and a terrific lunch hosted by Business Sydney to introduce NICI to the top end of town; 3 & 4/ a wonderfully celebratory dinner with a dozen international food journalists and World’s 50 Best Restaurants chairpeople at Neil Perry’s beautiful Margaret restaurant in Sydney hosted by Tourism Australia (because we need to knock the socks off the right people about how good our King George Whiting and Blackmore Mishima wagyu beef is so they can tell the rest of the world about it). 5/ A very happy second birthday to The Charles Brasserie in Sydney, highlights of which were chef Billy Hannigan’s pithivier, every dessert ever, and the newly relaxed sense of hospitality in that gorgeous room. 6/ Working with Bianca Hrovat to find twenty of the best and most fun cafes in Sydney for Good Food. 7/ Heading to Brae in western Victoria for the Financial Review, for a great day with chef Dan Hunter and chef Danielle Alvarez to explore the provenance of their Harvest of Purpose dinners to be held at the Sydney Opera House in January. 8/ Enjoying the culinary offerings and art on the plate at the new Canvas at the Museum of Contemporary Art – and the gorgeously on-trend Blackblaze stand for the focaccia. 9/ Listening to some very genuine conversations being started about work and life culture in hospitality circles, hosted by Good Food’s Sarah Norris and Lightspeed.

Thanks for dropping by! And as always, thanks for your comments and suggestions. Special thanks to Terry for writing about froyo for an upcoming Good Weekend magazine and thereby inspiring this missive. Yes, we totally pinch each other’s ideas.

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I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and waters upon which I work, live, cook and play; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and pay my respects to Elders past and present, and to the continuing strength and resilience of First Nations people, communities and cultures.