What’s happening in the world of ice cream? LOTS! But perhaps the most exciting thing is a sold-out (or is it???) pop-up event. The Museum of Ice Cream, across from the Whitney Museum of American Art, on Ganesvoort St. in the Meatpacking District of NYC is an ice cream lover’s dream. Open through September 4, visitors can wade in a sprinkle pool, pop an edible balloon made of sugar, teeter-tot with a friend on an ice cream scoop see-saw, and yes, sample ice cream. Word on the web is that they are adding tickets as you read this, so it may not be too late after all. Watch a video on Bon App’s site to get a look inside the museum, and visit the #MOIC’s Facebook page for updates. And if you go, report back! We want to know what it’s like to lose yourself in a pool of rainbow sprinkles!
Listen to our recent Faith Middleton Food Schmooze® ice cream extravaganza.
Inspiration for Ice Cream Sandwiches
Call it serendipity, or just a great-minds-think-alike moment. Faith asks herself (and chef Chris Prosperi) if good ol’ white bread could work as the “sandwich” in a simple ice cream sandwich, and a “food cruise” web search pulls up this beautiful number from Brooks Headley. Even Headley himself calls it, “trashy,” but we’re all about simplicity, here. One pastry chef’s “trashy” is someone else’s “crazy delicious.”
Also on the ice cream sandwich front, Faith invents her own ice cream sandwich with buttered, grilled cornbread, vanilla ice cream, and bacon crumbles, while producer Robyn Doyon-Aitken takes the lazy mom’s cheat of store-bought cookies and pints of her son’s favorite Häagen Dazs cookie dough ice cream. Robyn also uses chocolate graham crackers because they approximate the Good Humor sandwich pretty closely.
Probably the most outside-the-box ice cream sandwich is the one Faith found from Blackbird Doughnuts in the south end of Boston. The Boston Globe calls them “the only thing better than doughnuts.” Check out our recent Food Schmooze® celebrating doughnuts, find a shop near you, and DO try this idea out at home. Let us know how it goes.
Wild Ice Cream Flavors
The Baking Bird blog calls Humphry Slocombe in San Francisco “THE hipster ice cream parlor of ice cream parlors.” With flavors like these, that’s fair enough: (We’re not hipsters, but we’d like to try most of these, if not a cup, then at least one of those little taster spoons most shops will give you).
Candy Cap
Candied Ginger
Elvis (the “Fat Years”)
Green Tea-Black Sesame
Guinness Gingerbread
Harvey Milk & Honey Graham Cracker
Honey Thyme
Milk Chocolate Tarragon
Peanut Butter Curry
Pom Coconut Ale
Pumpkin 5 Spice
“Red Hot” Banana (Red Hot candies in banana ice cream)
Salted Licorice
Skull Splitter Root Beer
White Chocolate Lavender
Cucumber Ice Milk
Dirty Girl Strawberry
Golden Beet Saffron
Hibiscus Beet
Jesus Juice (red wine + coke)
Pineapple 5-Spice
For our final ice cream inspiration, what about us folks who don’t own an ice cream machine? If you don’t have a fleet of kids to kick around an ice cream making soccer ball, here’s the secret to no-churn ice cream at home. And it includes a common pantry staple.
Photo: Robyn’s cheater ice cream sandwiches