For a long time, Ben Van Leeuwen wanted to make ice cream with potatoes. As co-founder and CEO of the Brooklyn-based artisan ice cream company with the same name, he likes to do “shocking” flavors a couple of times a year “to surprise and delight people,” he said.
Then the Idaho Potato Commission got in touch with Van Leeuwen from its Boise headquarters with the same desire to make ice cream with potatoes.
“We conceptualized a some ideas together,” said Van Leeuwen. “We don’t make flavors just for the sake of being unique or weird. They have to taste delicious so people will want to keep eating them.”
The concept of combining french fries and ice cream didn’t materialize out of thin air. There’s a large group of Wendy’s fans who habitually dip their fries into the chain’s iconic Frosties. And an even larger contingent of customers regularly orders milkshakes and fries at the same meal, enjoying the two together.
According to the Idaho Potato Commission, a recent national survey identified french fries and milkshakes as one of the most irresistible flavor combos, edging out biscuits and gravy and chicken and waffles.
The R&D team starts churning
The CEO and his team at Van Leeuwen Ice Cream’s Brooklyn headquarters began the R&D process by asking this question: “How can we make a pint of ice cream more like a milkshake?” Van Leeuwen built its reputation on the quality and decadence of its product; the ice cream has a high 18-19% butterfat content, and egg yolks account for 5-8% of the ingredients.
“We legally have to call it French ice cream or frozen custard,” said Van Leeuwen.
To perfect the malted milk flavor, they added malt powder to the brand’s sweet cream base. “We tried vanilla but it didn’t carry the flavor as well. We really liked the malt to come through. It was nostalgic,” he said.
Van Leeuwen Idaho Potato Malted Milkshake & Fries ice cream is available at scoop shops in L.A. and New York.
The french fry component took a few more steps. An actual potato fried in oil and frozen into ice cream didn’t communicate well or taste especially good, said Van Leeuwen. Same with commercial potato sticks. Both also sucked up too much moisture.
Instead, the team used dried potato flakes as an ingredient to bake up pastry pieces, and the result was a kind of aerated cookie. Bits of the potato-flavored “cookie” are incorporated into the ice cream. A little more salt than usual goes into this flavor as well.
“The bits don’t stay super-crisp but the combination works and you get the potato flavor,” said Van Leeuwen.
There’s a trick in the ice cream business to keep pastry bits crisp—you coat them with coconut oil, he added. But it’s expensive and hard to do on a large scale. Van Leeuwen now has 41 scoop shops across the country and the brand is also available in grocery stores and through nationwide shipping.
What’s next?
Limited-edition Idaho Potato Malted Milkshake & Fries launched on Feb. 23 in Los Angeles and New York, and the initial reaction was positive.
“I was thinking ‘OMG, this is going to be weird,’ but anecdotally, people seem to really like it,” said Van Leeuwen.
Flavors like Mint Chip, Vanilla Bean, Cookies & Cream and Sicilian Pistachio are staples, as are a line of vegan ice creams, but the limited-edition flavors do create buzz. Recent ones include Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, a mashup with the same bright orange hue as the product, and Glass Onion, a Knives Out mystery swirled with “mysterious” bits.
“We don’t want to get too crazy, and the bottom line is that they have to taste good,” said Van Leeuwen.
Some other possibilities he’s considering: an ice cream flavored with Tapatio hot sauce and one incorporating a signature Australian cookie.
“We love to do flavors popular in other countries,” he said.