Salt & Straw’s January series that features five brand-new flavors that are 100% plant-based. The collection, Cupcakes by Vegandulgence, was inspired by everything we love about cupcakes to create some of the most mind-blowing, out-of-this-world ice cream we’ve ever tasted. As Head Ice Cream Maker Tyler Malek says, these new flavors “are not delicious for being vegan, but because they are vegan” with the plant-based ingredients offering a new canvas to lean into.
All year long, Salt & Straw dedicates 20% of their menu to delicious vegan offerings including seasonal flavors and classics like Freckled Mint TCHO-colate Chip and Strawberry & Coconut Water Sherbet.
Carrot Cake w/ Cream Cheese Frosting (v): Carrot cake’s storied history dates back to medieval times when carrots were used in place of more scarce and costly sweeteners. Here, we bake finely shredded carrots and walnuts into an incredibly moist spice cake, smothered with thick, tangy cream cheese frosting (the star of any good carrot cake), and tuck it into a brightly orange, carrot juice ice cream.
Petunia’s Rainbow Sprinkled Babycakes (v): Your spoon’s happy place. We tapped Petunia’s Bakery, the Portland-based all-vegan bakery, for their affectionately named “babycakes” (the bite-sized birthday cupcakes we just can’t get enough of) before turning them through classic vanilla oat ice cream, studded with colorful sprinkles. Add in a deep red strawberry jam, and you’ve got a rainbow-confettied-birthday-cake-extravaganza.
Coconut Cream Pie Cupcake w/ Lemon Curd (v): Coconut cream pie gone rogue: Hunks of toasted coconut cupcakes layered into a coconut ice cream with dollops of bright lemon curd.
Chocolate Hazelnut Cupcake (v): Few people outside of Oregon actually know this, but Oregon produces about 99% of the nation’s hazelnuts, so we knew we had to share their unique nuttiness in this epically decadent ice cream. Plucked in peak fall, hazelnuts from our friends at Freddy Guys farms are roasted to bring out even more of their nuanced flavor and crunchiness. Then, we stuff them into a rich, chocolatey ice cream with hunks of vanilla cupcakes coated in a dense chocolate ganache frosting.
Renewal Mill’s Chocolate Salted Caramel Cupcake (v): Renewal Mills is on a mission, and an incredibly delicious one at that. In an effort to fight food waste, they craft upcycled superfood flours and baking mixes. Their dark chocolate mix features okara flour, made from soybean pulp generated during soymilk production, and creates the most decadently fudgy cupcakes. Generous swaths of salted caramel frosting top the cupcakes, before being crumbled into fleur de sel-spiked oat ice cream. Who knew doing good could taste so incredible?
