Dairy Queen
Pastry Chef Lucy Blanche is the genius behind the best ice cream cakes in NYC
For people of a certain age, the term ice cream cake is synonymous with one word and one word only: Carvel. Whether Fudgy the Whale, the Ahab-antagonist shaped cake for your “Whale of a Dad!” on Father’s Day, or your very own colorful paper box with a clear top pulled from a freezer case promising two cold creamy layers of dense vanilla and chocolate ice cream sandwiching chocolate cookie crunchies, a Carvel cake was pretty much everything. (Though I was also partial to their Flying Saucers.)
But now, I have to say, there is a new dairy queen in our city: Lucy Blanche, the pastry genius behind the viral Tiramisu Ice Cream Cake at Bad Roman, the Carrot Cake Ice Cream Cake at Quality Meats, the Tarte Au Citron one at Quality Bistro, and my favorite new addition, the Rainbow Sherbet Ice Cream Cake at Twin Tails, the group’s fresh new Southeast Asian brasserie in the Time Warner Center.
The idea to create cakes from ice cream for the Quality Branded group of restaurants actually came from a creative block the team was having when opening Bad Roman. “We wanted to have something Tiramisu-adjacent on the menu, but we had a tiramisu on the menu at Quality Italian, and we didn’t know where to go with it,” Lucy recalled. At a menu meeting a manager said, “What about an ice cream cake?” We all looked at each other and said "You know, that might work!”
Lucy thought about the flavors of the classic Italian dessert and decided to make a gelato ice cream cake leaning on the traditional components of a tiramisu: ladyfingers soaked in coffee and Grand Marnier as the sponge base; then a layer of mascarpone gelato, followed by espresso chocolate crunchies with crushed pieces of Magic Shell for the middle layer, and a top layer made from the mascarpone gelato with bits of ladyfingers folded into it. A semifreddo made from meringue and whipped cream was the shiny top layer, sprinkled with sifted cocoa powder. It’s brilliant, fun, nostalgic and delicious. It became such an instant sensation that the team decided to try to create a signature ice cream cake for every one of the restaurants.
In creating a suite of ice cream cakes for the group, Lucy decided on a through-line, riffing on her Carvel memories. “The cakes are inspired by the Carvel ice cream cakes we all grew up with that crunchy middle layer, and the Mister Softee trucks with the soft serve in a Magic Shell. There is so much nostalgia for those days.”
For Quality Meats, she leaned into one of her favorite American desserts — carrot cake — creating an ice cream cake with a carrot cake base layered with cream cheese ice cream, crunchies made from scraps of carrot cake and graham crackers, topped with a whipped cream, cream cheese and meringue semifreddo.
For Quality Bistro, she wanted to reference a French dessert, and came up with a Tarte au Citron ice cream cake made from a joconde sponge base, creme fraiche and lemon curd ice cream, with crunchies made from toasted almond, frangipane and crushed up pieces of white chocolate Magic Shell.
The fun is in the layers, the textures, and the feeling you get digging your spoon down through layers of ice cream and crunchies. For those of us who grew up on Carvel cakes, every bite is a memory machine; I’m back in my parents wood-paneled basement with my Dorothy Hamill haircut listening to The Carpenters.
Lucy didn’t start out as a pastry chef. Born in Brooklyn and raised in the Dominican Republic, she is a late-in-life career changer who started out as a hotel concierge. When she had her three daughters the late hours were not ideal for motherhood, so she went to work at a local school so her schedule matched up with her three young children. Raising her daughters, she realized how much she loved to cook and so she went to culinary school, hoping that perhaps one day when her daughters were older, she might be able to find a place in a kitchen.
That happened in 2014, when she took a job at Quality Italian where a friend was the pastry sous chef. She’s never left, rising up through the ranks so that today, with three daughters aged 34, 34 and 22 – all of whom have worked for the company in some regard — she is now the Executive Pastry Chef for the entire group. “This is my home,” she said.
Her most recent ice cream cake was created for Twin Tails, the group’s maximalist Southeast Asian brasserie on the 3rd floor of the Time Warner Center where she also does four different soufflees a night. The idea to reach back in time to the days of rainbow sherbet came from Quality Branded’s CEO Michael Stillman who loved it as a kid. Lucy was immediately in. “It’s a dessert of a certain age,” she said. “My grandparents always had it in the freezer and when he suggested it, I was like YES!”
The sherbet was the perfect vehicle for the Thai and Vietnamese flavors channeled at Twin Tails. Lucy wanted vibrant citrus and some heat too so she went with guava, pineapple and a hint of red Thai chile, and a tart Makrut lime, swirled together like rainbow marble and layered with crunchies made from graham cracker streusels and chopped cashews dusted in chiles. It’s a frozen wonderland – bright, tart, and refreshing, with just the right arc of heat. It’s terrific, kind of like KateMcKinon’s Weird Barbie – a little quirky, but just the best.