NEW YORK, U.S. – When summer hits, cold coffee is an absolute delight. It wakes us up while ticking off the whole ‘I am sweating all over and wish to fill my insides with ice’ need.
Cold brew coffee ice cream, therefore, is even better – because it ticks both of those boxes and adds in a new one: the joy of an ice cream cone.
Dominique Ansel, the same mind behind the cronut, cookie shots, and those marshmallows that bloom in hot chocolate, has just unveiled cold brew coffee soft serve ice cream.
This isn’t your regular coffee flavoured ice cream, to be clear.
It’s fancy. And, crucially, it actually has a caffeine hit.
Available in Dominique Ansel Kitchen in New York, the ice cream is prepared over the course of two days.
First off, coffee flavour is infused in a milky ice cream base before being strained. Then it gets mixed with the bakery’s own, special cold brew base, made with La Calombe beans, and rests for 12 hours to fully infuse.
It’s then poured into a cone and topped with crunchy anise biscotti and milk foam dusted cocoa powder.
Dominique told Grub Street that the end result has a ‘deep coffee flavour’ (so it’s for genuine coffee-lovers, not those of us who just like the coffee flavoured chocolates from a selection box).
‘It’s like drinking a nice glass of cold brew,’ he said. ‘It’s completely different from coffee ice cream: richer when it comes to flavour, without being bitter or sour.’
Yum.
The flavour will only be available in New York for June, as part of Dominique Ansel Kitchen’s soft-serve window (which is open Wednesday to Sunday only and sells Dominique’s signature burrata soft serve as well as a limited edition flavour).
In July the flavour will swap to white peach ice cream with salted pistachios and lavender honey, which sounds even dreamier.
Sadly, as we mentioned, the cold brew cone is limited edition and only currently available in New York, but Dominique has said that if it proves to be popular, he’ll consider bringing it back in September and spreading its joy to other branches.
So perhaps the London bakery could be dishing out soft-serve soon.
Until then, we’ll just grab a 99 cone and a frappuccino on the side. Not quite as fancy, but it achieves the same effect.
Ellen Scott
