Ice cream lovers won’t see flames on the average ice cream container, but as a sweet treat with a kiss of heat, Bonfatto’s Spice Cream is anything but average.
Spice Cream was created by Bonfatto’s restaurant owner David Letterman as a way to beat the heat at an outdoor show. But at an event featuring hot sauces, vanilla ice cream just didn’t make the cut. “We mixed it with a couple of my fruit-based hot sauces and we thought it tasted pretty good,” Letterman said.
After returning home, Letterman talked with a friend who owns an ice cream shop in Lewistown about the idea of hot sauce-infused ice cream. After sampling the hot ice cream once more, Letterman decided to take a chance.
He worked on perfecting his product for two years, creating three all-natural, vanilla-based ice creams infused with his fruit-based hot sauces. Made with Bonfatto’s Razz-hab, Rolling Berry Blastoff combines the sweetness of raspberries and the spiciness of habañero sauce with premium vanilla ice cream and chocolate covered peanut butter cups.
Sweet Peachy Heat Wave features Bonfatto’s Peaches ‘n Scream hot sauce, vanilla ice cream and homemade granola.
Featuring Bonfatto’s apple pepper jack wing sauce, Jumping Jack Apple Splash Spice Cream combines the flavors of cinnamon apples, Blackstrap molasses and a splash of Jack Daniels whiskey with vanilla ice cream and pecans.
Recently, Letterman’s hard work paid off, as he earned four medals for his sweet and savory desserts at ZestFest 2013 Firey Food Challenge, a national spicy food convention and expo held in Irving, Texas. His awards included a first-place Best Zesty Sweets Award for Rolling Berry Blastoff and a third-place Best New Product: Consumer Ready Food for Spice Cream.
With more than 700 entries for ZestFest, Letterman is proud of his awards. “I think it speaks volumes of what the product is like,” he said. Letterman said though the judging panel had never heard of anything like Spice Cream before, the dessert was an instant hit. “In fact, one of the judges decided he wanted a whole container for himself, so he did that,” Letterman said with a laugh.
Some though, unlike ZestFest judges, are a bit wary to try the hot-sauce-infused ice cream. Letterman said that because the sauce is fruit-based, it’s not overpoweringly hot. After trying the ice cream, he said many are pleasantly surprised. “They taste the flavors and they say ‘I don’t see it’s hot. Oh, there it is.’ It’s just a subtle little heat,” Letterman said. “Then there’s other people who think this is the greatest idea since the ice cream cone. They just love it.”
As a self-sufficient creator, Letterman and his employees manufacture, pack and label all three ice creams and the seven different Bonfatto’s wing sauces themselves. Though all the hot sauces are made at the restaurant in Bellefonte, the ice cream is produced at a special facility in Lewistown.
Letterman hopes to get to the point where he can justify the expense of equipment for his hot sauces to also be made in Lewistown. For now, he is happy with production and the reaction his productions receive. “It’s rewarding to have people like something that you do. I believe in the products,” he said. “We do work really hard and put a lot of time developing the sauces and ice cream and packaging them.”
On the market since June, Spice Cream is currently carried by Bonfatto’s restaurant, Weis Markets in Bellefonte, State College and Lewistown, McLanahan’s, Lykens Market in Bellefonte and Way Fruit Farm in Port Matilda.
Letterman is working to distribute Spice Cream to ShopRight stores in New Jersey. He also recently sent samples to the country of Trinidad.
“The goal is to see it as a nationwide product. I would also like to be able to export to other countries. Down the line, there are a couple other ones that I would like to do that I have in my head,” he said. “You can only do so much at one time. I would just like to really branch out.”
To learn more about Bonfatto’s Spice Cream, please visit spicecream.com.
