After a great summer and fall season, we will be closing Steve’s Bryant Park tomorrow, Friday, December 2^nd.  On behalf of the Staff at Steve’s Craft Ice Cream, we thank you for your patronage and support.

Don’t despair!  You can still enjoy your favorite Steve’s flavors by picking up a pint from your local retailer; visit our website to find a retailer near you!  And just as the weather warms up, you can come visit us in Brooklyn, where we’re planning to open a location next summer… see you in Brooklyn!!

Sincerely,

Steve’s Craft Ice Cream Staff

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For the latest updates on flavors, store openings, and events follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook!

PS We will be putting EVERYTHING on sale today and tomorrow at our Bryant Park location so come by and stock up on heavily discounted artisanal treats!!

“Lined the bowl with chocolate hazelnut spread that I brought back from Italy, then a layer of bananas, then the salty caramel ice cream and topped it off with bacon peanuts from the Redhead and more chocolate hazelnut spread.  So good!”

J+I: Thank you for sending in the details of your Steve’s-based dessert.  This sundae sounds FANTASTIC and will be recreated in our test kitchen asap (as we are now all obsessed with this bacon/hazelnut chocolate/salty caramel combo).  Good work!

The day began with our Pint Mash-Up Pop Up Stand in the front of 61 Local, where we served Scoops and Ice Cream Sandwiches. The ice cream sandwich listed here:

…  was every bit as delicious and amazing as it sounds.

And then there were the ice cream floats. You can’t just create ice cream floats without tasting them first. So we had to line up all of our proposed floats (many different Beer + Ice Cream pairings, Brooklyn Soda Works + Ice Cream Pairings, Kombucha Brooklyn + Frozen ‘Buch pairings) and yes, taste them (we know, TOUGH JOB!!).

After our taste test, we narrowed down our favorites and created our ice cream float menu; a collection of completely original and unique pairings that would float anyone’s boat.

Our before noon choice was this Kombucha Float: Red Ginger Frozen ‘Buch in KBBK’s Lemon Drop Kombucha.

Everyone who bought an ice cream float was entered into a raffle to win gift baskets full of local goodies.  And the spread of goods pictured above just got larger throughout the night – we added Kombucha Brooklyn starter kits, Steve’s Ice Cream Pints, One Girl Cookies certificates, and the list goes on…. by the end of the day, we gifted three combinations of prizes from the following :
Ovenly * Liddabit Sweets * Sixpoint * Anarchy in a Jar * KBBK
Cut Brooklyn * Brooklyn Butcher Block * Oslo Coffee * Mast Brothers *
One Girl Cookies * Mike’s Hot Honey * Taza Chocolate * The Stand
Plowshares Coffee * Early Bird Granola * Dave Castaldo

At 11pm, the bar was PACKED and the 61 Local bartenders climbed up table-top to call the raffle. Our friend Wen-Jay (founder of the Local Roots CSA) won a prize!!

Immediately after the raffle, the 61 Local bartenders worked quickly to chalk-up the bar…

… and competitors wrapped themselves in panchos as they geared up for the game.

The first ever Bar-Top Pint Shuffle commenced as players from the Pro-Brewing and Home Brewing teams hurled full pints of beer down the bar and *tried* to score points by NOT sliding their pints of beer off the bar and landing in one of the marked score boxes…. Lets just put this way, there were more beers spilled and glasses broken than points scored. But at the end of the game, the HOME BREWERS won by a landslide and…

…were presented with this three tiered ICE CREAM TROPHY CAKE made by Ovenly and yours truly.

Fritz Fernow (Home Brewer Team Captain) braved the sparklers to retrieve the trophy cake topper and…

…took a celebratory photograph with his winning team.

Everyone at the bar then proceeded to eat ice cream cake! We were too busy eating the cake to actually take a photograph of how beautiful the slices were (layers of cake, ice cream, and buttercream)  - oops.  Let that be testament to its deliciousness!

And finally, everyone went home very full of beer, ice cream, cake, and for a lucky few, PRIZES.

Thank you 61 Local for hosting this amazing party in celebration of our two favorite things (BEER + ICE CREAM) coming together as new Steve’s Ice Cream flavors.

If you missed out on the Pint Mash-Up, don’t worry! Our new beer ice cream flavors will be in stores later this month!! Look out for : BKLYN Blackout * Beer Pretzel Caramel * Maple Porter Pecan

Look for Sweetery’s two special Weather Channel trucks (pictured above) – they’ll be at 8 different locations throughout the day. Be sure to track them down and grab a treat, compliments of the Weather Channel! (The truck schedule is listed below).

Here they are all wrapped up and ready to go:

THE FLAVORS:
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Steve’s Salty Caramel Ice Cream with Chocolate Chip Cookies
***
Steve’s Mexican Chili Chocolate Ice Cream with Double Chocolate Chip Cookies
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Steve’s Strawberry Ricotta Ice Cream with Snickerdoodle Cookies

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The Weather Channel promotional truck schedule:

*** TRUCK 1 ***
8:00am–9:30am:
825 Seventh Ave. and 53rd Street
10:00am–12:00pm:
1675 Broadway and 52nd and 53rd Streets
12:30pm–3:30pm:
498 Seventh Ave between 36th and 37th Streets
3:00pm–5:00pm:
1440 Broadway, between 40th and 41st Streets
*** TRUCK 2 ***
8:00am–9:30am:
One Court Square, Long Island City, NY
10:30am–11:30am:
42nd Street between 6th Ave. and Times Square
12:00pm–2:00pm:
Hudson and King Street
2:30pm–4:30pm:
50th St between 6th & 7th Ave

***
BEER PRETZEL CARAMEL ice cream
with CARAMEL cake + SALTY CARAMEL frosting
***
MAPLE PORTER PECAN coconut creme
with MAPLE cake + PORTER frosting
***
BKLYN BLACKOUT cake
with CHOCOLATE STOUT cake + DARK CHOCOLATE frosting
***

We’d like to send a huge THANK YOU to our chef, Matt, and our partners/heroes at Ovenly, Agatha + Erin, for making this happen. We could not have done this without you.

Don’t miss out. Arrive by 11pm. The Ice Cream Trophy Cake will be presented immediately after the (soon to be infamous) Bar Top “Pint” Shuffle showdown between Home Brewers and Pro Brewers. Only one team will be crowned winner, but everyone will eat cake.

And our friends at Susty Party will provide compostable tableware so we can enjoy the cake like civilized people:

Thanks Susty Party!

* Beer Pretzel Caramel * Maple Porter Pecan * Bklyn Blackout *

Checkout the invite. Details below. Bring your friends. Bring your neighbors. Bring everyone you know.

*** THE GUEST LIST ***
There will be GOODS, GIFTS, and/or APPEARANCES from:
Ovenly * Liddabit Sweets * Sixpoint * Anarchy in a Jar
Kombucha Brooklyn * SCRATCHbread * Salvatore Bklyn * Cut Brooklyn
Local Roots * Barrier Brewing * Brooklyn Butcher Block * Oslo Coffee
One Girl Cookies * Mike’s Hot Honey * Taza Chocolate * The Stand
Hudson Valley Fresh * Plowshares Coffee * Early Bird Granola
Brooklyn Soda Works * Susty Party * Brooklyn Brewery
Kelso of Brooklyn * Kickstand * Dave Castaldo

*** THE DETAILS ***
The day kicks off at 11am when we set up a Steve’s Ice Cream pop-up ice cream stand at 61 Local. In addition to 61 Local’s locavore craft beer and food menu, Kickstand Coffee will roll in with their bicycle coffee cart to serve iced coffee all afternoon. Steve’s will be serving Ice Cream Floats made with all things on tap (Beer. Soda. Kombucha.), scoops and ice cream sandwiches. Every float is served with a raffle ticket. So buy a float and win a chance at gift baskets choc-full-o local goodness like Cut Brooklyn, Mike’s Hot Honey, Liddabit Sweets, Ovenly Bar Snacks, The Stand Syrup, Anarchy in a Jar Jam, Brooklyn Butcher Block and KBBK Kombucha. Present your ticket for the grand prize, drawn at 11pm.

It gets better. From 6pm to 1am, we will serve FREE SAMPLES of our new flavors:
BEER PRETZEL CARAMEL Sixpoint Brownstone ice cream swirled with Liddabit Sweets Beer & Pretzel Caramel
MAPLE PORTER PECAN maple syrup and porter ale with toasted pecan pieces
BKLYN BLACKOUT milk chocolate ice cream swirled with Ovenly’s chocolate stout cake pieces and dark chocolate pudding

And then there’s the entertainment…
A true test of beer skills and finesse will commence after the raffle is drawn in a bar top shuffle. This is a competition for the ages pitting the ultra competitive pro-brewers of Sixpoint Craft Ales and Barrier Brewing Co against the lovable and affable Brooklyn Home Brew Crew. Each competitor will score points by sliding full pints of beer down the bar without spilling or falling off. On the line – Glory! Bragging Rights! And a multilayered ICE CREAM TROPHY CAKE (more about this cake later. we really can’t remember we the last time we more excited about anything) by Ovenly and yours truly featuring all three of our new BEER flavors. Mmmm…ice cream. The real winner: anyone who remembers eating the cake in the morning.

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hey steve’s ice cream,

I just wanted to drop you a line to tell you that you are AWESOME. my roommate and I recently noticed your ice cream in stock at our local food coop (park slope food coop in brooklyn), and I said, hey, I know that brand, I used to go to herrell’s all the time when I was a smith college student in northamtpon, MA! so we grabbed some coffee cinnamon and brought it home, and swooned over it for an entire weekend. But that’s not even the truly amazing part. the truly amazing part is when I went back and bought another pint yesterday, and while I was scooping it, I happened to notice something that I almost couldn’t believe: this shit was VEGAN. and we had absolutely no idea. I am telling you, we are two hardcore food snobs, and we do not confuse vegan ice cream for the real thing, ever. but your coconut creme non-dairy ice cream was so insanely delicious, and has such an incredible, rich & smooth texture, that we were 100% fooled. And, I mean, now that we know, it’s not like it even matters– it’s still just as delicious! and it’s nice to know we can serve this to our vegan friends, too. Kudos to you, sneaky vegan ice cream champions. I never thought it could be done.

- Jenny

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This is how Steve’s first met Ovenly. It was awesome. We talked food for 2 hours, and by the time our meeting ended, we were all gung ho about collaborating on a new flavor. It’s safe to say that the Steve’s team “hit it off” with Agatha and Erin of Ovenly (pictured below).

Long story short, the good thing that came from that 9am meeting (besides scones and beer marshmallows) was the decision to create Bklyn Blackout Ice Cream. We had all recently read this story about the cake in Edible Brooklyn and became instantly excited (maybe too excited) about creating our own version of the infamous Ebinger Baking Company dessert in ice cream form. The original cake was made of 3 layers of dark chocolate cake that were filled with AND frosted with dark chocolate pudding and then topped with tons of dark chocolate cake crumbs. It’s as if it were begging to become an ice cream!

Within a few days we were picking up Dark Chocolate Stout Cake and Dark (DARK) Pudding from Ovenly to make our 1st test batch of Bklyn Blackout Ice Cream… Did we mention that (even without pudding or ice cream) Ovenly’s Dark Chocolate Stout Cake is one of the tastiest things we’ve ever had the pleasure of eating!! Another lesson: Good things come from making desserts with beer.

We swirled Ovenly’s Dark Chocolate Stout Cake crumbs and Dark Pudding through our milk chocolate ice cream. The contrast between the dark pudding and creamy ice cream was beautiful. Beautiful to look at and beautiful to eat; always a winning combination.

We packed our 1st test batch into pints for a taste testing…. and are EXTREMELY pleased with the results. It’s decadent. It’s indulgent. And we think that after a couple more test rounds, it could be our best flavor yet.

When you decide to create your own version of a cake that has a legacy, it is no small task. We’re confident from what we’ve read about the original cake, that ours is a good (okay, fantastic) representation. We’d like to think that our new flavor pays homage to a magnificent dessert that came well before our time, while respectfully adding an Ovenly + Steve’s twist (i.e. beer + ice cream!).

Did we mention the space is beautiful? A true neighborhood feel – communal tables, events that highlight the connection between food and community, and they’re a pick up location for the Local Roots CSA that starts in June (PS it’s not to late to sign up!).

It also happens to be run by the nicest guy we’ve ever met – more about him HERE.

Long story short, we love this place. So when they became the first restaurant/bar to serve our ice cream it was a truly exciting, validating, and proud moment:

One the menu: Steve’s Bourbon Vanilla Ice Cream in a Beer Float. You pick the beer.

We like to drop by and try the float with different beers as 61 Local’s menu of craft beers on draft changes. If anything, it’s a great excuse to hang out at our favorite neighborhood bar… not that we need one

We scooped some of our boozier flavors at the big MCC Opening Gala last Friday… talk about a party.

The evening started with guests donned in “salty black tie” apparel lined up from the corner of 42nd Street and 5th Avenue all the way up the stairs of the New York Public Library, where the Gala was held.

It’s not a stretch to say that the crowd was good-looking, well dressed, and very thirsty! As for the library, we’ve never seen it look more beautiful or swanky (the lighting + live music helped a lot).

There were more cocktails and types of cocktails, and bartenders making cocktails than you could imagine.

And there we were, amidst all these expertly concocted adult beverages serving expertly concocted adult ice creams.

We stepped it up a notch for this party.

Each ice cream flavor had its own garnish.

Our people wore bow ties (side note: we really like this look… thoughts?)

And yes, we served our ice cream in mini martini glasses!

After tasting our ice cream, guests moved onto more cocktails…

…and as the night progressed, things got increasingly more exciting (debaucherous)…

…and yes, playful.

It was a great evening…

…followed by 4 days of cocktail events and finished with an “Anti-Gala” in Brooklyn where we served Absinthe + Burnt Sugar Ice Cream to a large group of people who had consumed many cocktails over the previous few days. Most of them were in costumes. We’re still not sure where the costumes came in, but it seemed as though they all enjoyed the ice cream!

Farewell MCC, see you next year! And thank you bethalee.com for many of the above photos.