Guri guri sits in a category of its own. It is not ice cream. There is no cream. It is not sherbet either. There is no fruit pulp. It lands somewhere between a frozen ice milk and a sorbet, made cloud-soft by sweetened condensed milk and gelatin, then scooped into a small paper cup at one Kahului shop that has been making it for over a century. The texture is the whole point. Somewhere between snow and marshmallow, with a clean strawberry or pineapple flavor that doesn't try to be anything other than what it is.
The recipe lives almost entirely inside one Maui family. Jokichi Tasaka, an immigrant from Japan, started selling guri guri on Maui in the early 1900s, and Tasaka Guri-Guri later moved to the Maui Mall complex in Kahului in the early 1970s. It's still run by the same family, still serving the same two flavors: strawberry and pineapple. The published recipe below is a home approximation. The real one stays at Tasaka's.
At a glance
About 1 quart per flavor
20 minutes
6 to 8 hours
Easy
Ingredients
For the strawberry batch
- 1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
- 1 packet (0.25 oz) unflavored gelatin
- 1/4 cup cold water
- 2 cups whole milk
- 1/3 cup strawberry syrup (the kind sold for shave ice or sodas)
- A few drops red food coloring (optional, for the Tasaka pink)
For the pineapple batch
- 1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
- 1 packet (0.25 oz) unflavored gelatin
- 1/4 cup cold water
- 2 cups whole milk
- 1/3 cup pineapple juice concentrate, thawed
- 1 tablespoon fresh pineapple juice (for brightness)
Equipment
- Two shallow freezer-safe containers (a metal loaf pan works well)
- Whisk and small saucepan
- Fork for raking the mixture
- Small paper cups and short wooden spoons, if you want to serve it Tasaka-style
To serve
- One small scoop of each flavor, side by side, in a small paper cup
- A short wooden spoon. No waffle cone, no toppings.
Method
Run through these steps once for the strawberry batch and again for the pineapple batch. The base is identical; only the flavoring changes. You can make both at the same time if you have two saucepans and two pans for freezing.
- Bloom the gelatin. In a small bowl, sprinkle one packet of gelatin over 1/4 cup cold water. Let it sit for 5 minutes until the surface looks wrinkled and softened. This is the texture step. The gelatin is what gives guri guri its faint chew after freezing. Skip it and you get hard, crystalline ice. Use too much and you get jello.
- Warm the milk. In a small saucepan, gently warm the 2 cups of whole milk until steaming but not boiling. Pour the bloomed gelatin into the warm milk and whisk until fully dissolved. The mixture should look smooth and slightly thickened.
- Build the base. In a mixing bowl, whisk the sweetened condensed milk into the warm milk-gelatin mixture. Add the strawberry syrup (or pineapple juice concentrate) and a tiny drop of food coloring if you want the classic pink. Whisk until uniform.
- Freeze and rake. Pour the mixture into a shallow freezer-safe container. Freeze for 1 hour, then drag a fork through it to break up the ice crystals. Repeat the raking every 45 minutes for the next 3 hours. This is the home-kitchen workaround for the proper commercial paddle freezer. You're trying to keep the texture light and snowy, not solid like a block of ice cream.
- Final freeze and scoop. After the last rake, let it freeze undisturbed for another 2 hours until set but still scoopable. Scoop in small portions. Guri guri is a snack, not a bowl. Serve in small paper cups with a flat wooden spoon. Both flavors in the same cup is the Maui way.
- Repeat for the second flavor. Run the same five steps with the pineapple ingredients (or strawberry, if you started with pineapple). Two batches, one for each flavor.
Notes from a local cook
The texture is everything. Real guri guri is finer than sorbet and softer than ice cream. The home version will never quite match Tasaka's commercial freezer, but raking with a fork every 45 minutes during the freeze gets you remarkably close. Walk away for two hours and skip the rake step and you'll get a brick of pink ice. Set a timer.
Use syrup, not jam. For a home approximation, shave-ice-style strawberry syrup gives you the clean, almost candy-like strawberry flavor you want, rather than the body of real fruit. Hawaiian Sun's syrups work; so does Torani or any other shave ice syrup at the right sweetness. If you only have jam, thin it with a little water and reduce the sweetened condensed milk slightly. What Tasaka's actually uses is a family secret, so this is the cook's best guess at hitting the same note.
The pineapple flavor is subtler than people expect. Tasaka's pineapple guri guri tastes more like sweetened condensed milk with pineapple in the background than like a pineapple sorbet. Don't overload the juice concentrate. Start with what the recipe calls for, taste before freezing, and add a splash more only if you really want the brightness.
Serve small. Two small scoops, one of each flavor, in a small paper cup with a flat wooden spoon. A 3-ounce cup is a good home target. That restraint is part of why people line up for it at Tasaka's. It's a snack that doesn't try to be a dessert.
While You're on the Islands
Eat it made by someone else. The original and still the only true source is Tasaka Guri-Guri at 70 E Kaahumanu Avenue in the Maui Mall area of Kahului. The family has been making guri guri on Maui since the early 1900s. They're famously cash-only, and hours are limited — call ahead at (808) 871-4513 before driving over, since hours and stock can shift. There's nothing else quite like it on Maui, and nothing at all like it on the other islands. If you're spending time on Maui, set aside an hour to make the drive and eat a cup standing in the parking lot. That's the full experience. See our Maui dining guide and things to do on Maui for more ways to fold it into a trip.
Bring It Home
Honest note: this one doesn't really travel. Tasaka's exact texture is proprietary — a family recipe, not a sourcing trick — so the home version in this recipe gets you close but won't be identical. There's no special ingredient to pack home; the closest you'll get anywhere else is a well-made fruit sherbet, which is exactly what this recipe makes.
Where to try this in Hawaii
