Summer 2017 is all about creamy frozen treats as numerous new ice cream parlours have opened across the lower mainland. The newest addition to Riley Park is Innocent Ice Cream, a parlour along Main street that specializes in gluten-free ice cream sandwiches. I had the chance to meetup with the lovely owner, Asacia, and chat about her new brick and mortar parlour.
If you were at English Bay last summer, you probably saw Asacia serving her delicious ice cream sandwiches out of her silver food truck. But, there was an adorable pink tricycle cart that preceded the food truck. From three wheels, to four wheels, she has progressed to a complete storefront in under three years! Asacia's love for ice cream sandwiches began when she was a little girl and her love for Oreo ice cream sandwiches.
Innocent Ice Cream is the first of its kind in Western Canada and focuses on simple classic flavours. There are 12 different sandwich options, but you are welcome to create your own flavour combination. Choose from 5 different gluten-free cookies (chocolate chip, white chocolate chip, double chocolate, peanut butter and oatmeal) and 16 ice creams and sorbets. My favourite part, there is no food colouring used in any of their products!
I love how the gluten-free cookies are thin, giving the ice cream sandwich a great crispy texture. Also, the cookies are buttery and full of flavour and honestly, really hard to believe they could ever be gluten-free, but I promise you that they are! My favourite cookies were the double chocolate and the peanut butter.
It can be tough deciding what cookie to pair with what ice cream or sorbet, so Asacia has taken the time to test out various flavour combinations to find the most delicious ones. The top three most popular ice cream sandwiches are the Fairy Tale, Shortcake and Salty Cookie. But my favourite had to be the Cherry Bomb which also happens to be Asacia's favourite too. I guess great minds do think alike!
The Cherry Bomb is a scoop of their cherry ice cream paired with the double chocolate cookie. I loved the tang and tartness of the cherries and surprisingly the bright purple pink colour is completely natural from the cherrie's themselves. I find chocolate always pairs well with tart flavours, so the Cherry Bomb is a must try.
Since I love peanut butter cookies, I decided to give their top seller the Salty Cookie a try. Between two buttery peanut butter cookies is a generous scoop of creamy salted caramel ice cream. The salted caramel was rich and silky and melted in my mouth. Since I love raspberries, the last sandwich I tried was the Fairy Tale - white chocolate cookie with raspberry white chocolate ice cream. The ice cream was more sweet compared to the others as it was a white chocolate base, so I appreciated the tartness from the raspberry. Also, the name is just adorable!
The best part about Innocent Ice Cream has to be the option to order a flight of three mini ice cream sandwiches! It really does help those who struggle at making a decision because like me, sometimes we want to try all of the flavours. I think dessert flights need to become the norm for all dessert establishments as it is plain rude that they force us to pick one. So thank you Asacia for understanding and letting us have three different flavours.
I am really excited for the launch of their packaged ice cream sandwiches so I can stock pile them at home for when I have a mad late night craving and do not want to leave the comfort of my couch. Really loving the ice cream sandwiches that I have already taken my mum to try them!
BYES
Our first hurdle was to develop a gluten-free cookie that didn’t taste gluten-free. A cookie that everyone would love and no one would feel like they were sacrificing flavour or texture in any way. We also wanted the cookies and ice cream to act as a whole not two components… ice cream sandwiches that literally melted in your mouth. This meant over a year of testing and more than 500 batches to develop just the right recipes that created cookies that were tender, chewy and moist and ice cream that was rich and silky with a texture you could bite.
I love how the gluten-free cookies are thin, giving the ice cream sandwich a great crispy texture. Also, the cookies are buttery and full of flavour and honestly, really hard to believe they could ever be gluten-free, but I promise you that they are! My favourite cookies were the double chocolate and the peanut butter.
It can be tough deciding what cookie to pair with what ice cream or sorbet, so Asacia has taken the time to test out various flavour combinations to find the most delicious ones. The top three most popular ice cream sandwiches are the Fairy Tale, Shortcake and Salty Cookie. But my favourite had to be the Cherry Bomb which also happens to be Asacia's favourite too. I guess great minds do think alike!
Since I love peanut butter cookies, I decided to give their top seller the Salty Cookie a try. Between two buttery peanut butter cookies is a generous scoop of creamy salted caramel ice cream. The salted caramel was rich and silky and melted in my mouth. Since I love raspberries, the last sandwich I tried was the Fairy Tale - white chocolate cookie with raspberry white chocolate ice cream. The ice cream was more sweet compared to the others as it was a white chocolate base, so I appreciated the tartness from the raspberry. Also, the name is just adorable!
I am really excited for the launch of their packaged ice cream sandwiches so I can stock pile them at home for when I have a mad late night craving and do not want to leave the comfort of my couch. Really loving the ice cream sandwiches that I have already taken my mum to try them!
BYES