It seems to be the talk of the town, so let’s get right to it!  Renee Erickson, the ever-so-brilliant cookbook author, and James Beard-nominated owner of Seattle’s beloved restaurants joined forces with Cupcake Royale to create an outstanding ice cream! Our team loves all of her restaurants: The Whale Wins, Boat Street Cafe/Kitchen, Walrus and the Carpenter, and Barnacle.  We were so excited and honored to work with her on this very special project!

We asked her two questions:

What is your favorite ice cream flavor, and if you could create any flavor of ice cream what would it be?  Her response? Rocky Road with marcona almonds, and if it could be slightly salty and a little smokey that’d be great.  Instantly our mouths started to water, and our little heads started to churn up a plan.

We ordered marcona almonds and promptly ate about 10 hands full. Our team thought long and hard how we would incorporate these almonds in the ice cream to give them the proper love they deserve!  We hate, HATE soggy nuts and if you place a nut into ice cream it eventually loses its crunch and becomes, well, chewy.  So we always like to enrobe perfectly toasted nuts in brittles, barks or candy them to keep them crisp and fresh.  Our ice cream manager landed on a salted marcona almond bark. Brilliant! We melt chocolate, add in sea salt and toasted marcona almonds, and let it harden. We then cut the brittle into perfect bite-size pieces, so you get a crunch in every bite!

Now,  how to tackle the marshmallow ribbon?  We knew we wanted a ribbon quite unlike actual marshmallows. It had to be homemade, of course!  So we made a classic swiss meringue and added in just a slight bit of gelatin to bind it together, and added a touch of heavy cream so we could easily swirl it into the hundreds of buckets we will eventually be creating.  I guess this is our version of “fluff”!

Adding the SMOKE flavor? Not our first rodeo, folks!  We love the layer that smoked chocolate, vanilla beans, sugar and butter add to baking.  Our friends at Young and Young Smoked Fish Shoppe cold-smoke our chocolate for us over alder wood chips.  Cold-smoking is great, as it infuses the flavor without melting or compromising the product.  The guys at the shop smoke it for about 4-6 hours, depending on how intense we want it!

Where would Rocky Road ice cream be without the BEST chocolate?  Our buddies over at Theo make the best!  We use their milk chocolate in our ice cream base to add a rich, nutty sweetness to the entire experience.

After all of our trials and tribulations, we hand- delivered a test batch over to Renee herself, and it was approved with flying colors!  This new flavor hit stores May 11th and will be served until the end of June.  It’s very special, complex and expertly made. You don’t want to miss out!

Capitol Hill, Ballard, Queen Anne, and 108 Pine offer it in scoops and pints.

West Seattle and Madrona offer this delectable ice cream in pints only.

 

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