Head to Maltby for the scoop on creamy frozen treats

Published 1:30 am Friday, July 8, 2016

People in Mukilteo eat New York cheesecake. So why shouldn’t people in New York eat Mukilteo Mudd ice cream?

Makes perfect sense to the frozen treat gurus at Snoqualmie Ice Cream. It also helps put Mukilteo and Maltby on the map.

Mukilteo Mudd is the best selling ice cream overall of the Maltby-based ice creamery that ships products nationwide. Mukilteo is a mouthful of more than chocolate for those outside this region. “People can’t pronounce it,” said Snoqualmie spokeswoman Kelsey Carey.

French Lavender is another popular flavor at the ice cream plant, which has made hundreds of flavors since Barry and Shahnaz Bettinger started creating treats in 1997.

Mixes and tubs are sold to hotels and restaurants. You can also pick up a pint at many stores around Puget Sound.

But why not take it a step closer? You can watch it get made though the glass window at the creamery’s scoop shop in Maltby. The ice cream is vat-pasteurized and made in small batches.

The scoop shop, open May through October, sells cones, shakes, floats, pints and coffee. A fireplace, patio and board games round out the family-friendly shop.

There are 24 flavors at a time for scooping. The hard part is making a choice. Asking for a sample may only make the decision more difficult.

That is, unless you’re 4-year-old Elise Kinney.

On a recent visit, the Bothell girl knew exactly what she wanted: the light blue cotton-candy flavor.

“It’s yum,” she said, as she noshed a cone that took both hands to hold and left blue smudges on her cheeks and chin. “It tastes like blue. I like the color and the taste.”

A lot of research and development goes into ice cream long before it reaches the cone.

“We brainstorm and go from there,” Carey said.

Snoqualmie recently introduced six new frozen custards.

“Custard has 14 percent butterfat and ice cream has 19 percent,” Carey said. “It has more eggs but less butterfat, to keep that creamier richer flavor.”

The new custard flavors are:

Blueberry Cardamom Crisp: Northwest blueberries, oats and cinnamon.

Red Raspberry Cake: Cake batter, raspberry ripples and white cake pieces.

Spicy Banana Brownie: Fudge brownies mixed into sweet banana cinnamon custard.

Brown Butter Sugar Cookie: Brown butter custard and soft sugar cookies.

Brown Sugar Cookie Dough: Brown sugar and extra bites of chocolate-chip cookie dough.

Crispy Marshmallow Treat: Marshmallow flavored with rice crispy pieces.

The crispy marshmallow custard was from suggestions solicited on Facebook. Out of thousands of entries, a Seattle resident came up with the winning flavor, which was inspired by her childhood memories of making homemade Rice Crispy treats.

Other social media suggestions included blueberry mint, apple pie and peach cobbler.

“Rice Crispy treat won on all levels,” Carey said.

I gave the new flavors a try myself. In the name of research. The pints were at Fred Meyer on sale for $2.50, about half the suggested retail price. How could I not buy all six new flavors?

I’d planned to sample them all but my husband ate the entire marshmallow crisp. He said he couldn’t help it. The two cookie custards were my son’s favorite.

The pint-sized custards are packed with flavor and creamy. Very creamy. Sometimes store-bought ice cream has texture issues. These tasted fresh out of a scoop shop. I liked blueberry the best.

To quote Elise: “It’s yum. I like the color and the taste.”

If you go

Snoqualmie Ice Cream Scoop Shop: 21106 86th Ave. SE, Maltby; 360-668-2912; www.snoqualmieicecream.com.

Hours are noon to 8 p.m. Thursday through Sunday through Oct. 2.