Clementine's Naughty and Nice Ice Cream: Gingerbread Love and EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Right before I ran the Go! St. Louis Marathon I asked the internet what ice cream I should eat the day before the race. Someone suggested Clementine's ice cream. I looked the place up and saw it didn't open until May, so just crossed that one off the list. However, in the days after the marathon, I found and followed Clementine's on Twitter. We started tweeting back and forth and they asked me if I had ever tried Bourbon Kentucky Pie or the Salted Crack Caramel. Obviously, I replied and was like, "No! How do I get it in my mouth?!" (Since Clementine's makes naughty ice cream I am in no way obligated to make this post PG.)
The answer shone down from the ice cream heavens: Delivery!! Clementine's will deliver ice cream to your door. There is nothing more I could ask for in life than ice cream being delivered to my doorstep.
When I called Tamara Keefe, the owner of Clementine's, to place my order, we ended up having a pretty long conversation about Clementine's, how it got started, and ice cream in general. As we talked more and more I thought "All this info is too good! I've got to take notes to share with my readers." The story of Clementine's is pretty great, so I just thought I would share it with you, my Dearest Readers.
Clementine Naughty and Nice Ice Cream is just about a year old. Tamara used to have a corporate job. She did well by most people's standards and was successful, but didn't have much free time and wasn't enjoying life. After a mini life-crisis on a weekend trip to the Lake of the Ozarks, her friends convinced her to quit her job and follow her passion and start making ice cream full time.
This first year of business, Clementine's has mostly been providing ice cream to the top restaurants around St. Louis and corporate events and weddings to build a reputation and get her ice cream out there. Last year, as she was building her commercial kitchen, a friend of Tamara's invited her to a dinner party and asked her to make ice cream for the dessert course. She did and everyone at the party loved it. What she didn't know was the party guests were restaurateurs and chefs. They were so impressed with what they ate, they asked if she could make ice cream for their restaurants. Kevin Brennan, of Brennan's in the Central West End, decided he just had to have her boozy, aka naughty, ice creams in his bar. Since then, Clementine's has been available at Pi Pizza, Cleveland-Heath, Old Standard, and Olio, and others. The only restaurant I have been to on this list is Pi, which makes sense why I hadn't heard of Clementine's until recently. As crazy as this sounds, whenever I go to Pi, I am so full of pizza, I can't usually think about eating ice cream, until at last a few hours later.
By popular demand, Clementine's also started delivering ice cream around the city in December. Since then, they have delivered at least 1,205 pints of ice cream. (Tamara told me 1,200 before the 5 they delivered to me!) However, they do not plan on doing as many deliveries when the shop officially opens on May 16th.
In addition, Clementine's will be sold in Whole Foods in St. Louis starting later this summer. Clementine's is the only St. Louis local brand of ice cream to meet Whole Foods' strict requirements to be sold in their stores.
The reason their ice cream meets these standards is just about everything is local. The dairy all comes from a farm in Illinois and a farm in Pacific, Missouri. There are not many ingredients which aren't local. The only ingredients that aren't local are ingredients which can't be gotten locally; like they get their hazelnuts from Italy. They make all of their sauces and chunks, including their pies, from scratch on their own. There are only two things they don't make on their own. One is the gooey butter cake they put in their Gooey Butter Cake flavor (review on it's way). They get their gooey butter cake from Park Avenue Coffee, because no one can make gooey butter cake better than Park Avenue Coffee so why even bother. The also get their cookies for their ice cream sandwiches from Whisk, a bakery on Cherokee Street. The ice cream is also 100% natural; no stabilizers, no nothing.
Clementine's is also the only microcreamery in St. Louis. Looking back on when Tamara said that to me, I am kind of glad we were talking on the phone, because I raised my eyebrows and sort of thought to myself, "yeah right." There are a decent, and growing, number of small ice cream shops in St. Louis. However, based on the definition of a microcreamery, which I had no idea there was such a thing, let alone the definition of it, Clementine's is, in fact, the only microcreamery in St. Louis. According to Tamara, a microcreamery must be small batch, must make under 3,000 gallons a year, and must have less than 30% overrun. According to Urban Dictionary, the 100% most trustworthy source of definitions for words that aren't words, a microcreamery is "A creamery that produces and [sic] all natural, small batch, hand-crafted ice cream made with less than 20% overrun, and more than 16% butterfat. A micro creamery produces less than 1,000 gallons of ice cream year. " But actually, this definition was written by an author named Ice Cream Scientist, so this has got to be somewhat reliable. It is also the only definition I can find on the web. Clementine's is between 16-18% butterfat and around 20% overrun.
For those of you who don't know, overrun is the amount of air in ice cream. Tamara introduced the subject of overrun into our conversation with a bit of riddle. She asked me if I knew the number 1 ingredient in ice cream. Assuming it was a trick question and in order to avoid sounding like an idiot, I said no. The answer was air. A lot of ice cream you will buy in the store has up to 100% overrun. This means the amount of air in the ice cream is equal to the amount of ice cream in the ice cream; 50% air, 50% ice cream. As Madeline will discussed in her blog post about meeting David of David's Famous Gourmet Frozen Custard, different overruns produce different textures, and also different prices (as, duh, air is cheaper than ice cream). And at $8 for a nice pint and $15 for a naughty, Clementine's definitely demonstrates this. (Interesting fact, especially in the context of price, Jeni's used to have an overrun of about 20% and butterfat at 16%, but since they have started selling nationally, they are at 60% and 12% respectively. However, Jeni's is still really freaking expensive.)
As you can tell from what I have said so far, Clementine's is all about the city of St. Louis. The shop is opening up in Lafayette Square on May 16th at noon. They get most things locally. According to Tamara, they are "In the city, for the city, and by the city." In fact, Tamara never plans on expanding to locations in St. Louis County. As a St. Louis lover, myself, I have mad respect for that.
Now on to the fun stuff. Not that talking to Tamara about ice cream wasn't fun, but getting it in the mouth is so much better. It being ice cream of course. Okay I'll stop with the inappropriate jokes (especially since I'm not creative with them and I can only think of one I am just keep repeating over and over). But I just have to make some when I'm talking about a company that calls its ice cream naughty. -wink wink-
Okay now for the review of the first flavor I tried. It was called Gingerbread Love and is described as Festive gingerbread ice cream with chunks of chocolate-covered gingerbread cookies.
So the first thing I have to say about this ice cream is molasses. Molasses molasses. Molasses. This was definitely one of those gingerbread ice creams emphasizing the molasses than the ginger.
So the second thing I have to say about this ice cream is ginger. Molasses was definitely the most prominent flavor, but the ginger was still there. The molasses was the first flavor to hit your tongue and as the flavor faded you got a bit of kick of ginger.
The chunks of gingerbread cookie in the ice cream were HUGE and there were tons of them. They were also pretty soft and chewy. Most of them were more like gingerbread than gingerbread cookies. However, some were a little bit crunchy, but I wouldn't describe any of them as crispy, which is what I usually think of when I think of gingerbread cookies. However, I definitely liked that these chunks were soft and chewy. It kind of mellowed out the whole experience, which was kind of intense from the flavor. Crispy cookies would have made for an intense flavor experience and an intense texture experience which would have been too intense. The chocolate coating on them was pretty thin, but was nice when you could taste it. I really really really liked the chunks. I would buy these cookies/bread/whatever plain and eat them all the time. So there's a business suggestion, sell your chunks as stand alone products because I would for sure buy them.
The texture of this ice cream was awesome. It was definitely dense, but still soft and creamy.
This is definitely an A+ ice cream! The best part of this ice cream is its availability all year round; you don't have to wait until Christmas to get some!
The answer shone down from the ice cream heavens: Delivery!! Clementine's will deliver ice cream to your door. There is nothing more I could ask for in life than ice cream being delivered to my doorstep.
When I called Tamara Keefe, the owner of Clementine's, to place my order, we ended up having a pretty long conversation about Clementine's, how it got started, and ice cream in general. As we talked more and more I thought "All this info is too good! I've got to take notes to share with my readers." The story of Clementine's is pretty great, so I just thought I would share it with you, my Dearest Readers.
Clementine Naughty and Nice Ice Cream is just about a year old. Tamara used to have a corporate job. She did well by most people's standards and was successful, but didn't have much free time and wasn't enjoying life. After a mini life-crisis on a weekend trip to the Lake of the Ozarks, her friends convinced her to quit her job and follow her passion and start making ice cream full time.
This first year of business, Clementine's has mostly been providing ice cream to the top restaurants around St. Louis and corporate events and weddings to build a reputation and get her ice cream out there. Last year, as she was building her commercial kitchen, a friend of Tamara's invited her to a dinner party and asked her to make ice cream for the dessert course. She did and everyone at the party loved it. What she didn't know was the party guests were restaurateurs and chefs. They were so impressed with what they ate, they asked if she could make ice cream for their restaurants. Kevin Brennan, of Brennan's in the Central West End, decided he just had to have her boozy, aka naughty, ice creams in his bar. Since then, Clementine's has been available at Pi Pizza, Cleveland-Heath, Old Standard, and Olio, and others. The only restaurant I have been to on this list is Pi, which makes sense why I hadn't heard of Clementine's until recently. As crazy as this sounds, whenever I go to Pi, I am so full of pizza, I can't usually think about eating ice cream, until at last a few hours later.
By popular demand, Clementine's also started delivering ice cream around the city in December. Since then, they have delivered at least 1,205 pints of ice cream. (Tamara told me 1,200 before the 5 they delivered to me!) However, they do not plan on doing as many deliveries when the shop officially opens on May 16th.
Bad lighting from the early morning delivery. There is nothing I would rather be doing at 8AM than getting ice cream delivered to my doorstep.
In addition, Clementine's will be sold in Whole Foods in St. Louis starting later this summer. Clementine's is the only St. Louis local brand of ice cream to meet Whole Foods' strict requirements to be sold in their stores.
The reason their ice cream meets these standards is just about everything is local. The dairy all comes from a farm in Illinois and a farm in Pacific, Missouri. There are not many ingredients which aren't local. The only ingredients that aren't local are ingredients which can't be gotten locally; like they get their hazelnuts from Italy. They make all of their sauces and chunks, including their pies, from scratch on their own. There are only two things they don't make on their own. One is the gooey butter cake they put in their Gooey Butter Cake flavor (review on it's way). They get their gooey butter cake from Park Avenue Coffee, because no one can make gooey butter cake better than Park Avenue Coffee so why even bother. The also get their cookies for their ice cream sandwiches from Whisk, a bakery on Cherokee Street. The ice cream is also 100% natural; no stabilizers, no nothing.
Clementine's is also the only microcreamery in St. Louis. Looking back on when Tamara said that to me, I am kind of glad we were talking on the phone, because I raised my eyebrows and sort of thought to myself, "yeah right." There are a decent, and growing, number of small ice cream shops in St. Louis. However, based on the definition of a microcreamery, which I had no idea there was such a thing, let alone the definition of it, Clementine's is, in fact, the only microcreamery in St. Louis. According to Tamara, a microcreamery must be small batch, must make under 3,000 gallons a year, and must have less than 30% overrun. According to Urban Dictionary, the 100% most trustworthy source of definitions for words that aren't words, a microcreamery is "A creamery that produces and [sic] all natural, small batch, hand-crafted ice cream made with less than 20% overrun, and more than 16% butterfat. A micro creamery produces less than 1,000 gallons of ice cream year. " But actually, this definition was written by an author named Ice Cream Scientist, so this has got to be somewhat reliable. It is also the only definition I can find on the web. Clementine's is between 16-18% butterfat and around 20% overrun.
For those of you who don't know, overrun is the amount of air in ice cream. Tamara introduced the subject of overrun into our conversation with a bit of riddle. She asked me if I knew the number 1 ingredient in ice cream. Assuming it was a trick question and in order to avoid sounding like an idiot, I said no. The answer was air. A lot of ice cream you will buy in the store has up to 100% overrun. This means the amount of air in the ice cream is equal to the amount of ice cream in the ice cream; 50% air, 50% ice cream. As Madeline will discussed in her blog post about meeting David of David's Famous Gourmet Frozen Custard, different overruns produce different textures, and also different prices (as, duh, air is cheaper than ice cream). And at $8 for a nice pint and $15 for a naughty, Clementine's definitely demonstrates this. (Interesting fact, especially in the context of price, Jeni's used to have an overrun of about 20% and butterfat at 16%, but since they have started selling nationally, they are at 60% and 12% respectively. However, Jeni's is still really freaking expensive.)
As you can tell from what I have said so far, Clementine's is all about the city of St. Louis. The shop is opening up in Lafayette Square on May 16th at noon. They get most things locally. According to Tamara, they are "In the city, for the city, and by the city." In fact, Tamara never plans on expanding to locations in St. Louis County. As a St. Louis lover, myself, I have mad respect for that.
Now on to the fun stuff. Not that talking to Tamara about ice cream wasn't fun, but getting it in the mouth is so much better. It being ice cream of course. Okay I'll stop with the inappropriate jokes (especially since I'm not creative with them and I can only think of one I am just keep repeating over and over). But I just have to make some when I'm talking about a company that calls its ice cream naughty. -wink wink-
Okay now for the review of the first flavor I tried. It was called Gingerbread Love and is described as Festive gingerbread ice cream with chunks of chocolate-covered gingerbread cookies.
So the first thing I have to say about this ice cream is molasses. Molasses molasses. Molasses. This was definitely one of those gingerbread ice creams emphasizing the molasses than the ginger.
So the second thing I have to say about this ice cream is ginger. Molasses was definitely the most prominent flavor, but the ginger was still there. The molasses was the first flavor to hit your tongue and as the flavor faded you got a bit of kick of ginger.
Thank you Brett for being a beautiful hand model.
The chunks of gingerbread cookie in the ice cream were HUGE and there were tons of them. They were also pretty soft and chewy. Most of them were more like gingerbread than gingerbread cookies. However, some were a little bit crunchy, but I wouldn't describe any of them as crispy, which is what I usually think of when I think of gingerbread cookies. However, I definitely liked that these chunks were soft and chewy. It kind of mellowed out the whole experience, which was kind of intense from the flavor. Crispy cookies would have made for an intense flavor experience and an intense texture experience which would have been too intense. The chocolate coating on them was pretty thin, but was nice when you could taste it. I really really really liked the chunks. I would buy these cookies/bread/whatever plain and eat them all the time. So there's a business suggestion, sell your chunks as stand alone products because I would for sure buy them.
The texture of this ice cream was awesome. It was definitely dense, but still soft and creamy.
This is definitely an A+ ice cream! The best part of this ice cream is its availability all year round; you don't have to wait until Christmas to get some!
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