Beyond the Cronut – the Beachy Cream Spin

Have you heard about the latest dessert craze, the Cronut?  It’s a hybrid croissant and doughnut filled with cream and glazed.  It started a few weeks ago at Dominique Ansel’s wonderful bakery on Spring Street in New York City, and people are camping out in line to get the limited quantity he makes each day.  It’s been so popular there’s reportedly a black market for them with some selling for $50 - $100.  That sounds absurd, but I guess those New Yorkers are pretty serious about scoring their desserts.

This got me thinking (often a dangerous exercise – in fact whenever I say to Beth, “I’ve got an idea”, her first response is always, “Oh no, now what?”) But I thought, what if we made some of our ice cream sandwiches using Cronuts instead of cookies? That started my mouth watering, so my pal Julie (who was at the store baking cookies with me today) and I decided to go on a filed trip and look for them.  We’d heard a rumor that DK’s Donuts on 16th and Santa Monica Blvd had them, so we jumped in the car and headed over there.

DK’s had about a half a dozen different types including a Maple Bacon Glazed that we just had to try (delicious), but we ended up choosing the cinnamon sugar coated one with no filling – a “plain” Cronut if you will – to take back to Beachy Cream to experiment with.  We sliced it in half and had a discussion about what ice cream to pair with it.  We decided that just about any flavor would work, but I liked the idea of our Coffee Toffee ice cream because it seemed kind of “breakfasty” to me.

The pairing was amazing.  The Cronut was crispy on the outside with soft flaky layers inside, and the cold and creamy Coffee Toffee Ice Cream was just perfect oozing out the sides as we bit into it.

“OMG!”,  said everyone who tried it. “You have to make these”!

So now I’m working to find the best croissant dough maker in Los Angeles (because, frankly, do I really want to make the pastry from scratch?).  I think I’ve tracked her down.  I’ll be heating up some oil in a couple of days to try these out.  Stay tuned, or just look for the line down the street when we start serving these up fresh with our ice cream.

Beachy Cream 2013 Pin Up Calendar Coming Soon!

As you can see from this photo, we had so much fun shooting the Beachy Cream 2013 Pin Up Calendar Thursday. Several of our Beachy Cream Girls that appeared in last year’s calendar (Stephanie, Jess, Sarai, Mary Kate, Briana, Christina, Lauren F and Kayla) have returned, and we have four new girls- Susana, Audrey, Lauren A. and Laine. The girls and our production crew, led by our fabulous Beachy Cream photographer Elizabeth Sarah Barr, were amazing and we can’t wait to show you the results. The purpose of the calendar is to help promote our Beachy Cream brand, and showcase our wonderful Beachy Cream Girls, most of whom work in our ice cream store in Santa Monica, and do parties and events with us. In addition to being lovely to look at, they are all intelligent, hardworking women pursuing careers in acting and modeling as well as working for us. They are a big part of what makes Beachy Cream special, and they bring a sense of fun and nostalgia to the experience. Anyone who has visited our store or website knows that pin ups are a big part of our branding, and The Art History Archive offers a wonderful history of the pin up starting with the Hellenic goddesses of ancient Greece and progressing through modern times. “A pin-up girl is a woman whose physical attractiveness would entice one to place a picture of her on a wall. The term was first attested to in English in 1941; however the practice is documented back at least to the 1890s. The “pin up” images could be cut out of magazines or newspapers, or be from postcard or chromo-lithographs, and so on. Such photos often appear on calendars, which are meant to be pinned up anyway. Later, posters of “pin-up girls” were mass-produced. Many “pin ups” were photographs of celebrities who were considered sex symbols. One of the most popular early pin-up girls was Betty Grable. Her poster was ubiquitous in the lockers of GIs during World War II. Others pin-ups were artwork, often depicting idealized versions of what some thought particularly a beautiful or attractive woman should look like. An early example of the latter type was the Gibson girl, drawn by Charles Dana Gibson. The genre also gave rise to several well-known artists specializing in the field, including Alberto Vargas and George Petty, and numerous lesser artists such as Art Frahm.“

The Beachy Cream 2013 Calendar will be available for purchase in our store at 1209 Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90403, or you can order them by mail by contacting us at youscream@beachycream.com. Like us on Facebook where we’ll announce the release date and offer special deals for early orders!

Grand Opening - Beachy Cream Ice Cream Santa Monica

We are excited to announce the Grand Opening of our new Beachy Cream Ice Cream Store featuring L.A.'s only 100% organic ice cream this Saturday, June 2nd at 1209 Wilshire Blvd in Santa Monica at 11 am. There will be a ribbon cutting with the Mayor, a raffle, prizes for best ice cream sandwich creation, Tacomaniaco and Creativeats food trucks, and Beachy Cream Girls! This is the culmination of a life-long dream for me that started first as a little girl going to Wil Wright's in Westwood Village, and continued when I worked scooping ice cream one summer at Howard Johnson's on Cape Cod when I was 16. There's just something about ice cream that always makes people happy, and I wanted to be the provider of that experience. But I also wanted it to be special and unique...a treat you could feel good about because it's 100% organic and locally-sourced. And we had to have flavors and combos different from any other, so that's why we created the Ginger Wipeout and Strawberry Surfer Girl ice cream sandwiches, and that's why we make Earl Grey Tea and Bisquits and Fresh Mint Brownie Chunk ice creams. And if you’re a lover of dairy-free and gluten-free we have some special treats just for you. You've just gotta try 'em! So come on down this Saturday as we Lick, Bite, Smile (repeat)*!

Happy Holidays from the Beachy Cream (Rockette) Girls!

Last week the Beachy Cream Girls debuted their holiday attire, and so far it’s a big hit! I got the inspiration to have them dress up like Radio City Music Hall Rockettes from a story my father, Jack Ryan, inventor of the Barbie Doll told:

When my father was a little boy (back in the 1930’s) his father James Ryan was a prominent builder in New York City, specializing in homes for the rich and famous (Katherine Hepburn and Helen Hayes) as well as lavish store facades and other commercial projects. One of his assignments was at Radio City Music Hall. My father often accompanied his father on these jobs, and while his father was busy working, my father would hide in the orchestra pit and watch the Rockettes rehearsing. From his vantage point far below the stage, the beautiful, high-kicking dancers legs looked a mile long. This was a lot of glamour and excitement for an impressionable young lad, and these images of the long-legged beauties were indelibly inscribed in his imagination. Later he cited it as one of his earliest influences in his development of the Barbie Doll.

-ANN