A Delicious Ice Cream "Recipe" That is Barely a Recipe
The best ice cream I have ever had was a seasonal flavor from Salt & Straw. It’s a rhubarb crumble ice cream, and it is only offered for a short time each year, and if you miss it you miss it (if you get it, you also miss it, because it’s gone just as swiftly as it arrived). You get a perfect early summer of perfect ice cream that is almost immediately just a fond memory.
I was pre-embarrassed of looking like an influencer taking a photo of ice cream, so this hasty shot is all I have to commemorate my reunion with my beloved.
This ice cream is available for such a tiny window of time - and I’ve missed it YEARS in a row - that I did a quick Google while I was writing this to see if I could pinpoint when it’s actually in stores and turns out it’s RIGHT NOW. I do not live close to a Salt & Straw, but I also don’t live far (all three Seattle-ish locations are within a 20 minute drive), and I WENT and I GOT SOME and it was EVEN BETTER than in my memory. I am now contemplating buying a few pints…
But even if I do buy an ungodly amount of expensive ice cream and manage to ration it so I have it for months, it’s still 1) hard to source, 2) expensive, and 3) seasonal. Years ago I started searching for a good substitute. I searched for a rhubarb crumble ice cream all over the place. I would pay far too much to have this ice cream in my life, if anyone would just give me the chance. Since I couldn’t find any kind of fruit/berry/rhubarb crumble ice cream anywhere, I decided to make my own, and it - to my shock and delight - turned out even better than I expected.
Hang on, this isn’t an involved process with an ice cream maker and buying a bunch of specialized ingredients. When I say “make my own ice cream” I mean buying three things and putting them in one bowl. Here’s what you need:
Vanilla Ice Cream. I think Trader Joe’s French Vanilla is the best vanilla ice cream you can get, but get what you can, use what you have, whatever. But know that the better your vanilla ice cream is, the better any concoction you make with it will be.
Granola. This is the “crumble” part. I prefer Kirkland Ancient Grains, because it’s very good and it’s 35oz for like $7. I always have a bag in my pantry. Again, get any granola you want, but I’d stay away from anything with extra flavors. The goal here is to mimic a berry/rhubarb crumble, and birthday cake flavored granola is going to mess with that a little.
Jam. Last year I bought a case of strawberry rhubarb and raspberry rhubarb jam from a local farm, and I’m still working my way through it. Again, get whatever, but if you are in their delivery zone, Sidhu Farms has some great jam (and when they say delivery, they mean someone will put in in their car and drive it to your house and text you that it’s on the doorstep. Adorable!). I also get rhubarb from them and use it to make these strawberry rhubarb crisp bars, which you can also bake and eat with ice cream, if you have the time/patience/ingredients.
Now put it all together. Measure with your heart. I tend to do Ice cream first, then scoop some jam in there, then add granola over the top. I like to mix it all up, so each bite has a bit of everything. I have also tried making this in advance in a large batch and storing it, but the granola gets a little soft and it’s not as good, IMO. That’s the beauty of this DIY crumble - it’s crunchy and jammy and vanilla-y and it’s all fresh (fresh from the containers, that is). There’s no quality loss from combining it all together. And while it doesn’t taste as good as my dream ice cream from Salt & Straw, it DOES taste as good - if not better - than all the ice creams I’ve tried in a search to find a more easily-sourced rhubarb crumble ice cream.
I’m still constantly looking for a berry crumble or pie ice cream, and I’ll try any of them when I see them. I had decent hopes for Tillamook Marionberry Pie Ice Cream, but it wasn’t really what I was looking for. I saw Sohla El-Waylly’s food diary video and she mentioned Jeni’s Brambleberry Crisp ice cream, and when I saw it in Whole Foods one day I had to try it. I have never spent so much money on so little ice cream, and I felt a little dizzy adding it to my basket, but I had to know. IT WAS JUST LIKE MY HOMEMADE CONCOCTION. But with mushy crisp, so maybe mine is BETTER?! Plus, if you’re getting a big tub of TJ’s french vanilla, granola from Costco, and whatever jam you like, your cost per bowl is ridiculously cheap - certainly less than $10 a pint like Jeni’s.
