Crown Candy Kitchen
It's about time. A review of Crown Candy Kitchen. There are so many fabulous places to get ice cream in St. Louis and the fact that Madeline and I don't actually live in St. Louis any more makes it quite difficult to review them. Yesterday, Madeline, my boyfriend, Brett, and I took a trip up to the Old North side of St. Louis to visit Crown Candy Kitchen, an adorable old-fashioned soda fountain that makes amazing candy, ice cream, and sandwiches.
Crown Candy Kitchen opened in 1913 and is actually St. Louis' oldest soda fountain. Not to go into too much St. Louis history, but these days a lot more people know a thing or two about North St. Louis than they used to. I'll just say that it's kind of awkward that there are all these county white people on this one block of North St. Louis. Just look at the section of this map that says, "Out of Place White People Eating Ice Cream." That would be Crown Candy Kitchen.
Crown Candy Kitchen has a bit of national fame from it's challenge, attempted by Man v. Food's Adam Richman. The challenge is to eat 5 of their 24 ounce malts or shakes in 30 minutes. 120 ounces in 30 minutes. Or as our dad calls it, Puke City. Adam Richman did not complete it and only about 30 people since 1913 have completed it. But just to make you feel really pathetic or really grossed out the record time for 5 malts is 2 minutes and 29 seconds by Randy Santel and the record for 7 malts is 5 minutes and 55 seconds by Ben Monson.
Lizzy's take: I decided to get a sundae from Crown Candy Kitchen, because last time I had been there I had gotten a malt. I had a really really really hard time making a decision. There were so many tasty sounding sundaes. I decided on the Crown Sundae.
Mostly because getting the sort of name sake of the place sounded like an easy way to make a decision. This sundae was described as, Vanilla ice cream with hot fudge and caramel sauce topped with lots of pecans. Whipped cream cost extra, but I obviously got it because why would you not. The vanilla ice cream was amazing, super creamy and soft.
They loooaded this sundae with hot fudge and caramel sauce. The caramel sauce was middle of the line in thickness and color; very traditional. The hot fudge was very thick and chocolatey.
The best part of this sundae was the pecans. Again, I am on a total pecan kick right now. The pecans they put on this sundae were candied.
The roasted flavor was amazing and sugar on them mixed into the two sauces giving a bit of granulated texture to the chocolate and caramel sauces. Yum.
Madeline's take:
I love Crown Candy Kitchen for both their food and their ice cream and their candy and after this trip feel that I have a well-established tradition of visiting Crown Candy kitchen on a whim during the freezing depths of winter. I decided on a sundae rather than a malt or a milkshake, but from there the decision was not exactly easy. Every sundae sounds delicious, and you can also make your own. Ultimately I decided on the Swiss Chocolate Sundae because I am incapable of saying 'no' to jimmies (chocolate sprinkles). The Swiss Chocolate Sundae is described as
Lots of vanilla ice cream with sweet chocolate sauce folded in and chocolate sprinkles scattered on top.
I think there were many awesome verb choices in the description of this sundae. Rather than vanilla ice cream, I opted to try the raspberry ice cream. The raspberry ice cream was good, but was a bit overwhelmed by the chocolate sauce and chocolate sprinkles. I think it would be really good in a milkshake or a cone, but to really stand out in a sundae it would need to have a more intense flavor. It did have one of the most interesting textures I have experienced in a ice cream. It was .... squishy. Firm and squishy. Firm and squishy and yummy. The chocolate syrup was delicious and there were so many chocolate sprinkles.
On their menus, Crown Candy states that they make their ice cream with 14% butter fat. Per FDA guidelines, a frozen dairy dessert must, among other requirements, contain at least 10% butter fat (by weight, I think). Per an interesting post, the Ice Cream Informant states that brands such as Ben and Jerry's and Haagen-Dazs use a butter fat percentage somewhere in the mid-teens, so it seems Crown Candy aligns somewhere with these brands. I think this explains the amazing texture of this ice cream.
http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELDEV3004477
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Candy_Kitchen
Crown Candy Kitchen opened in 1913 and is actually St. Louis' oldest soda fountain. Not to go into too much St. Louis history, but these days a lot more people know a thing or two about North St. Louis than they used to. I'll just say that it's kind of awkward that there are all these county white people on this one block of North St. Louis. Just look at the section of this map that says, "Out of Place White People Eating Ice Cream." That would be Crown Candy Kitchen.
A sort of blurry picture of the menu and the counter.
Crown Candy Kitchen has a bit of national fame from it's challenge, attempted by Man v. Food's Adam Richman. The challenge is to eat 5 of their 24 ounce malts or shakes in 30 minutes. 120 ounces in 30 minutes. Or as our dad calls it, Puke City. Adam Richman did not complete it and only about 30 people since 1913 have completed it. But just to make you feel really pathetic or really grossed out the record time for 5 malts is 2 minutes and 29 seconds by Randy Santel and the record for 7 malts is 5 minutes and 55 seconds by Ben Monson.
The homemade candy selection!
Lizzy's take: I decided to get a sundae from Crown Candy Kitchen, because last time I had been there I had gotten a malt. I had a really really really hard time making a decision. There were so many tasty sounding sundaes. I decided on the Crown Sundae.
Mostly because getting the sort of name sake of the place sounded like an easy way to make a decision. This sundae was described as, Vanilla ice cream with hot fudge and caramel sauce topped with lots of pecans. Whipped cream cost extra, but I obviously got it because why would you not. The vanilla ice cream was amazing, super creamy and soft.
They loooaded this sundae with hot fudge and caramel sauce. The caramel sauce was middle of the line in thickness and color; very traditional. The hot fudge was very thick and chocolatey.
The best part of this sundae was the pecans. Again, I am on a total pecan kick right now. The pecans they put on this sundae were candied.
The roasted flavor was amazing and sugar on them mixed into the two sauces giving a bit of granulated texture to the chocolate and caramel sauces. Yum.
Madeline's take:
I love Crown Candy Kitchen for both their food and their ice cream and their candy and after this trip feel that I have a well-established tradition of visiting Crown Candy kitchen on a whim during the freezing depths of winter. I decided on a sundae rather than a malt or a milkshake, but from there the decision was not exactly easy. Every sundae sounds delicious, and you can also make your own. Ultimately I decided on the Swiss Chocolate Sundae because I am incapable of saying 'no' to jimmies (chocolate sprinkles). The Swiss Chocolate Sundae is described as
Lots of vanilla ice cream with sweet chocolate sauce folded in and chocolate sprinkles scattered on top.
So artsy.
I think there were many awesome verb choices in the description of this sundae. Rather than vanilla ice cream, I opted to try the raspberry ice cream. The raspberry ice cream was good, but was a bit overwhelmed by the chocolate sauce and chocolate sprinkles. I think it would be really good in a milkshake or a cone, but to really stand out in a sundae it would need to have a more intense flavor. It did have one of the most interesting textures I have experienced in a ice cream. It was .... squishy. Firm and squishy. Firm and squishy and yummy. The chocolate syrup was delicious and there were so many chocolate sprinkles.
On their menus, Crown Candy states that they make their ice cream with 14% butter fat. Per FDA guidelines, a frozen dairy dessert must, among other requirements, contain at least 10% butter fat (by weight, I think). Per an interesting post, the Ice Cream Informant states that brands such as Ben and Jerry's and Haagen-Dazs use a butter fat percentage somewhere in the mid-teens, so it seems Crown Candy aligns somewhere with these brands. I think this explains the amazing texture of this ice cream.
http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELDEV3004477
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Candy_Kitchen
Look! Eating ice cream makes you happy!
Brett with his Thick Chocolate Banana Malted!
Leave it to a liberal to make an ice cream shop about race.
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