Within 10 minutes of opening online ordering on Monday morning, all four new flavors of Pint’s Peak Ice Cream had sold out.
At another shop, owner Curt Peterson and his team at Smith + Canon Ice Cream Co. were working around the clock to restock after a week of record sales, leading to early closures each day.
“There’s plenty (of other ice cream) out there for everyone, I think,” laughed Caitlin Howington, who founded Pint’s Peak in April after she was laid off from her catering career.
But as small-batch ice cream companies, Pint’s Peak and Smith + Canon are rare, not only for Denver but around the country as well.
While their recipes and business models differ, Howington and Peterson are both making ice cream from scratch. They each combine cream and milk — and in Howington’s case, eggs, for a French custard-style — with fresh ingredients to create textures, flavors and mouthfeels unlike those offered by most mainstream and even many specialty ice cream stores.
“Whenever you walk into an ice cream parlor that has 50 different flavors brightly shining at you … that’s really cool, and in America we’re used to that,” Peterson said. “But that’s not my brand.”
To be sure, those 50-flavor ice cream parlors that Peterson speaks of are nostalgic brands, with their bright green mint chocolate chips and their bubblegums.
Back when he was researching his business plan, Peterson toured one such shop in the Midwest, where the storage room was filled with “flavor concentrates that last forever — super potent high fructose corn syrup concoctions.”
For the ice cream’s base, that shop and most others work with a dairy purveyor that pre-mixes cream, milk, sugar and sometimes half and half. “So they create this dairy mix, and then you squirt your flavoring into it, and then you’ve got your ice cream,” Peterson said.
Neither he nor Howington would stand for it with their own blends.
“There’s a reason that you can go everywhere in the country and buy strawberry ice cream and it tastes the same,” Howington said. “I think we’ve kind of forgotten what homemade ice cream tastes like.”
Howington went to culinary school and worked as a pastry chef in Philadelphia before moving to Colorado. She says she follows the fine dining rule of making everything from scratch now with Pint’s Peak.
“There’s no other way,” she said. “I’m charging $10 a pint. If you’re going to call something artisan, it better be high quality.”
One of her new, June flavors combines a malted vanilla bean base with homemade shortcake and a fresh strawberry jam, all folded together to make strawberry shortcake.
When working with fruits, as she often does, Howington has to balance the water content with the creaminess of the dairy base. She also doesn’t use extracts for added flavor as many ice cream makers do.
“Most of the time I want to do flavors that we already know and love and just elevate them,” she said.
At Smith + Canon, Peterson is constantly perfecting each ice cream’s mouthfeel with different combinations of dairy (heavy cream plus buttermilk, half and half or whole milk).
For his Thai tea flavor, for example, he wants a smooth, silky feel that won’t turn too icy or fluid in texture. Butterbrickle and coffee, by contrast, need to be heavier to support their richness.
“You can make a ton of different ice cream styles by varying those dairy attributes,” Peterson said.
He admits that he can geek out on the science behind the treat. Before going all-in on ice cream, Peterson was a stay-at-home dad (Smith and Canon are the names of his daughters). Before that, he worked in policy analysis and insurance.
“I think my friends would say when I’m focused on something, I’m just over the top. But I think expertise is a valuable thing, and (especially) in our world right now,” he said, adding, “You’ve got to look deep and try to get beyond where other people are thinking and give the public a reason to try you out.”
To try them out
Smith + Canon, 2260 E. Colfax Ave., 720-546-6377, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, until 6 p.m. Saturday and from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, smithcanon.com
Pint’s Peak is online only, for now, with ordering available each Monday starting at 10 a.m. (and selling out quick), and delivery and pickup by end of week, pintspeakicecream.com
Did you know?
Many ice cream aficionados will argue over eggs and fat content, but air is one of the biggest differentiating factors in texture, especially between ice cream and gelato. The latter is heavier and more dense because it has less air whipped into it, Peterson of Smith + Canon says. And it all comes down to the RPMs of the ice cream maker, which will change the density of the dessert.
Five ice cream flavors to try this summer
Salted Creme Fraiche: “Hear me out,” said Pint’s Peak owner Caitlin Howington. The high fat content in the creme fraiche creates an “unctuous, velvety mouthfeel, cut by the bright apricot and herbal notes of the thyme … perfect for the ‘I’m-not-much-of-a-sweets-person’ folks.”
Strawberry Shortcake: Howington’s summer birthday present to herself — combining crumbles of her sheet-baked shortcake with an organic strawberry jam reduction and a malted vanilla bean base. Nostalgic, effervescent and summery-fresh.
Gianduja: Don’t let the pronunciation intimidate you (jaan-DOO-yuh), Howington said. It’s just a fancy name for hazelnut chocolate from Italy that goes beyond here with toasted hazelnuts, Nutella and caramel.
Black sesame and salty honey: Smith + Canon owner Curt Peterson says his next labor of love is also a nod to Japan’s favorite ice cream flavor. He grinds black sesames to a paste using a mortar and pestle and creates a sauce out of the paste combined with Brazilian raw honey. The result is a charcoal-gray ice cream that’s nutty, salty and sweet at once, Peterson says. Think peanut butter cup as a similar flavor profile.
Lemon Meringue: An ode to the bright, tart and creamy seasonal pie, this ice cream will be whipped to extra-fluffiness when it’s introduced at Smith + Canon, likely in July.
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