Provo Adventures Part II: Roll With It Creamery
Not only was the weekend ice cream crew willing to go out of their way to get ice cream in Provo, they were even game to stop at two separate ice cream shops. The first was the excellent Rockwell Ice Cream Co (review here) and the second was Roll With It Creamery, specializing in Thai rolled ice cream.
What is Thai rolled ice cream? Basically, you start with liquid ice cream base, pour it in a thin layer on flat, cold metal surface and stir and scrape it until it freezes. When it is frozen into a sheet, you take a spatula and scrape it off of the metal plate using a spatula into a roll.
I've wanted to try Thai rolled ice cream ever since it became a ~thing~ on Instagram, and never in my life did I think I'd get to try it in Utah. I thought I'd have to travel to California or New York or wait months for the trend to percolate to the rest of the country. I've had multiple people tell me (somewhat jokingly and somewhat not) that they eat lots of sugar in Provo instead of drinking alcohol, and I say THANK GOODNESS FOR THAT!
Roll With It Creamery occupies one corner of Good Thyme, a hip, modern eatery that I imagine is super popular with BYU students. You order in three steps:
1) Pick your base flavor. They offer chocolate or vanilla. I picked vanilla.
2) Pick your flavor. I picked Banana Nutella. There were about 10 flavors to choose from with a good mix of chocolate and fruit flavors.
3) Pick your toppings FOR FREE. Yes, free toppings. Since I had already had a ton of ice cream I went easy on the toppings and just got whipped cream.
Here's a few pictures of the process (I did get the employee's permission to take pictures and post them!). A few things to note are the fresh banana and the fact that she spelled out Big Muddy in Nutella. Coolest thing ever.
After one time trying Thai rolled ice cream I'm hooked. It's pretty gimmicky, and if the product wasn't very good that's all it would have, but I really like the ice cream, I thought the gimmick added to the overall experience. This ice cream has a really interesting texture. Since it freezes in a thin sheet, it freezes much harder than typical ice cream. If normal ice cream was this hard it would be very hard to scoop, but because it was in such thin sheets it was easy to get even a plastic spoon through. Even thought it was hard, it was definitely didn't have an icy or unpleasant texture, and the hardness allowed the rolls to hold their shape.
The vanilla base wasn't anything special, but it didn't have the overly alcoholic tang of vanilla extract, so it didn't take away from the experience. The real standout, and the star of the show are the mix-ins. Freezing the ice cream on the spot allows for the freshest taste of the fruit mix-ins which is super important for fruit like banana which doesn't always translate well to ice cream. The banana was mashed enough that there weren't distinct banana chunks, but the ice cream had a very vibrant banana flavor.
I don't think I've ever done a banana/Nutella combo, but I might have to start because they complement each other so well. The ratio of banana to Nutella was spot on.
This whole concoction cost ~$5.50 + tax and you get an amount of ice cream approximately equal to two scoops at a scoop shop, so not a bad price for a cool experience and free toppings.
I give this š¦š¦š¦/4 stars. I'd love to see the possibilities with an expanded selection of base flavors.
Even though I have a few more Utah ice cream reviews lined up, I want to spend a minute now talking about my Utah experiences. When I think of a happening ice cream scene, I think of NYC, the West Coast (Portland, San Fran, LA), St. Louis (tons of new shops in the past few years, also I'm biased!), and the dairy belt (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio), but I definitely don't think of Utah, and that's a totally unfair omission. Maybe they're just trying to keep their great secret, or maybe they're just trying to be humble, but Utah has great ice cream across the board, from amazing scoop shops to high-quality grocery store brands with innovative flavors, and nobody knows about it.
What is Thai rolled ice cream? Basically, you start with liquid ice cream base, pour it in a thin layer on flat, cold metal surface and stir and scrape it until it freezes. When it is frozen into a sheet, you take a spatula and scrape it off of the metal plate using a spatula into a roll.
I've wanted to try Thai rolled ice cream ever since it became a ~thing~ on Instagram, and never in my life did I think I'd get to try it in Utah. I thought I'd have to travel to California or New York or wait months for the trend to percolate to the rest of the country. I've had multiple people tell me (somewhat jokingly and somewhat not) that they eat lots of sugar in Provo instead of drinking alcohol, and I say THANK GOODNESS FOR THAT!
Roll With It Creamery occupies one corner of Good Thyme, a hip, modern eatery that I imagine is super popular with BYU students. You order in three steps:
1) Pick your base flavor. They offer chocolate or vanilla. I picked vanilla.
2) Pick your flavor. I picked Banana Nutella. There were about 10 flavors to choose from with a good mix of chocolate and fruit flavors.
3) Pick your toppings FOR FREE. Yes, free toppings. Since I had already had a ton of ice cream I went easy on the toppings and just got whipped cream.
Here's a few pictures of the process (I did get the employee's permission to take pictures and post them!). A few things to note are the fresh banana and the fact that she spelled out Big Muddy in Nutella. Coolest thing ever.
After one time trying Thai rolled ice cream I'm hooked. It's pretty gimmicky, and if the product wasn't very good that's all it would have, but I really like the ice cream, I thought the gimmick added to the overall experience. This ice cream has a really interesting texture. Since it freezes in a thin sheet, it freezes much harder than typical ice cream. If normal ice cream was this hard it would be very hard to scoop, but because it was in such thin sheets it was easy to get even a plastic spoon through. Even thought it was hard, it was definitely didn't have an icy or unpleasant texture, and the hardness allowed the rolls to hold their shape.
 |
| This image gives a good idea of the texture. |
The vanilla base wasn't anything special, but it didn't have the overly alcoholic tang of vanilla extract, so it didn't take away from the experience. The real standout, and the star of the show are the mix-ins. Freezing the ice cream on the spot allows for the freshest taste of the fruit mix-ins which is super important for fruit like banana which doesn't always translate well to ice cream. The banana was mashed enough that there weren't distinct banana chunks, but the ice cream had a very vibrant banana flavor.
I don't think I've ever done a banana/Nutella combo, but I might have to start because they complement each other so well. The ratio of banana to Nutella was spot on.
This whole concoction cost ~$5.50 + tax and you get an amount of ice cream approximately equal to two scoops at a scoop shop, so not a bad price for a cool experience and free toppings.
I give this š¦š¦š¦/4 stars. I'd love to see the possibilities with an expanded selection of base flavors.
Even though I have a few more Utah ice cream reviews lined up, I want to spend a minute now talking about my Utah experiences. When I think of a happening ice cream scene, I think of NYC, the West Coast (Portland, San Fran, LA), St. Louis (tons of new shops in the past few years, also I'm biased!), and the dairy belt (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio), but I definitely don't think of Utah, and that's a totally unfair omission. Maybe they're just trying to keep their great secret, or maybe they're just trying to be humble, but Utah has great ice cream across the board, from amazing scoop shops to high-quality grocery store brands with innovative flavors, and nobody knows about it.
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