Some use Nebraska’s Dorothy Lynch dressing on their salads. At Ivanna Cone, they add it to their ice cream.
As strange as it may sound, Dorothy Lynch Carrot Cake is the latest flavor being served up at the ice cream shop at 701 P St. Grace Green, the general manager, said the new ice cream has a rich cinnamon flavor with a little savory vinegar taste.
“It weirdly works,” Green said. “Dorothy Lynch is the base of the ice cream, but it’s not overpowering. It’s more of a back note to it. You taste the carrot cake first and then it just helps bring up the sweetness, kind of like when you put sea salt in chocolate chip cookies.”
Carrot cake wasn’t the only idea swirling around in their quest to make a delicious Dorothy Lynch ice cream. The tomato-based dressing, created by Dorothy Lynch, was first served in the late 1940s at a local Legion Club in St. Paul, Nebraska. Since then, it's become a household essential across the Midwest.
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“We were thinking of doing something with cornmeal and like a ricotta cheese, some sweet basil,” Green said. “We just kept experimenting and playing around with what would work best.”
Ultimately, the carrot cake idea came from Jon Beeck, Ivanna Cone's production manager.
“Dorothy Lynch is sugar, oil, vinegar and a little tomato so I was thinking carrot cake might work well with it,” Beeck said. “And then there’s vegetables, so it’s good for you.”
While creating the dressing, Green said it was important for the staff to actually use the dressing rather than creating a flavor inspired by Dorothy Lynch. To do so, Beeck cooked the dressing into a sweet syrup.
“The first batch I made was maybe a little too Dorothy Lynch and I ended up adding some cinnamon to it to kind of cut through a little bit of that, but I think we got a nice balance,” Beeck said.
While Beeck is relatively new to Ivanna Cone, he’s had a long history working with flavor profiles with previous jobs in bartending and cooking at Dish restaurant. The skills were an easy transfer when he started working with ice cream.
“I like making fruit ice creams with a twist,” Beeck said. “I like ice creams that you won’t get somewhere else. Maybe something you’d expect, but with a twist.”
Some of his recent concoctions have included sweet corn blueberry ice cream or ones with a little spice such as Thai chili ice cream.
Beeck can take credit for the carrot cake idea, but the whole project started from a branding agency called Eleanor Creative whose clients include both Dorothy Lynch and Ivanna Cone. Green said Eleanor Creative came to them last year proposing the idea.
After nearly a month of experimenting, Ivanna Cone began serving the new flavor on June 13. During the first week of sales, Green estimates around 200 people have ordered the Dorothy Lynch Carrot Cake ice cream.
“We get the whole gambit. We get people who love it, we get people who can’t stand it. But on the consensus, more people love it than they hate it, which is what we want,” Green said.
For Green, she prefers it with a little bit of salted caramel on top.
5 sweet and savory recipes to make this week
This week's recipe roundup offers a perfect mix of sweet and savory (and a little spicy, too). Think Sicilian ice cream sandwiches, party-ready chicken frites and more.
Thick fish fillets, such as salmon, halibut and mahi-mahi, taste great on the grill, and the leftovers make a beautiful salad.
Combine fresh herbs, capers, lemon juice and olive oil, along with the juices collected from the chicken as it rests, to make a simple sauce that livens up this take on poulet frites, or chicken and fries.
This salad may surprise your guests when they wonder how cauliflower can taste as good as potatoes. A chilled rose would be a lovely beverage accompaniment.
This Sicilian ice cream sandwich is simply a split brioche bun with your choice of creamy gelato. The best part? It’s often eaten for breakfast in the hottest months of summer.