British food inventor creates glow-in-the-dark ice cream

Move over, wine-flavoured ice cream. There's a new novelty scoop on the scene — and it glows.

Award-winning British food inventor Charlie Harry Francis is behind Lick Me I'm Delicious, a travelling ice cream laboratory that specializes in weird and wonderful custom flavours.

His latest creation, however, is something more like to be found in science-fiction than in your local ice cream parlour: glow-in-the-dark ice cream.

"We decided to work on this quite a few months ago when we found this amazing scientist from China who has managed to synthesize the luminescence protein from jellyfish," Francis writes on his blog with an accompanying photo of a glowing ice-cream cone. "Naturally we wanted to have a go with some of the stuff, so we ordered some, played around and eventually made this."

Also see: We dared to try this ice cream -- would you?

He introduced the crazy cone just in time for Halloween.

He goes on to explain how it works:

"It's glow in the dark jellyfish ice cream using calcium activated proteins that react when they are agitated, or to put it a non-sciencey way, it glows when you lick it."

"It is incredible stuff but still at very early days in terms of production," Francis tells Metro.

"The protein we are using in the ice cream reacts with your tongue at neutral pH. So as your mouth warms up the protein it will raise the pH level and the ice cream will glow."

Also see: How to make your own ice cream at home (without a machine!)

He adds that the pricey jellyfish make the price of each scoop about £140 ($235 CAD). So start saving up.

(Note to ice cream splurgers: The glow-in-the-dark cone is still considerably cheaper than Serendipity 3's $1,000 sundae.)

Now for an important question: is Francis' new creation safe to eat?

"Well I tried some and I don't seem to be glowing anywhere, so we'll go with a yes for now," he writes.

Also see: The craziest ice cream sandwiches

No word on what it tastes like, but that's not really the point, is it? It GLOWS.

Francis and his team have also managed to create a non-jellyfish version using quinine from tonic — we're assuming it's considerably less expensive — to make a gin and tonic sorbet that glows under UV light. The sorbet will be available at all Lick Me I'm Delicious event contraptions.

Next up? Invisible ice cream. (Funny, that's what I have in my freezer right now. Sadness.)

Here's what your favourite ice-cream flavour says about you.