New ice cream makers: with milk from our own cows, stroopwafel or, yes, lobster bisque

Sander and Deborah Bouma’s cow farm is located on a canal in Workum, on the Elfstedenroute. After Deborah (51) had served the bridge over the canal as an extra income for years, she decided to do something with their milk. She first thought of cheese, but “we already have that on the other side of the village”. After thorough research, she and her husband purchased an ice cream maker. In 2012, they opened an ice cream shop in the barn – customers could see the cows through a glass wall. They called the place Margje, after one of the cows. And so the Netherlands had another ice cream maker.

Making ice cream is a classic tradition, and ice cream parlors like to emphasize that. Venezia in Rotterdam has been making ice cream for five generations, “according to a traditional recipe from our own kitchen”. Venezia in Utrecht has existed ‘since 1930’, Florencia in The Hague ‘since 1932’.

Yet there are also regularly new ice makers. It is a low-threshold profession. You don’t even need to have an ice cream maker’s degree to start a business. For the first principles, the Ice Center in Vlaardingen offers a five-day basic course.

Four ice cream makers share how they got into the business:

Don Gelato

Medemblik

Keith Lalor (52), owner of ice cream parlor Don Gelato in Medemblik, came to the ice cream via a long detour. In 1989 he fell in Mallorca for a girl from Middenmeer. For her he moved from Ireland to the Netherlands, she is still his wife. For years he worked at Schiphol, where he linked lost luggage to the owners. In 2000, he and his wife took over an awning company, owned by his wife’s family. That turned out to be nothing for him. He agreed that he would do it for ten years, and then find something he liked. “I have always found ice cream fascinating. You eat ice cream but taste coffee, or caramel, or cake: how did they manage that?”

Middenmeer is located near Medemblik, a tourist town on the IJsselmeer. There was no ice cream parlor there yet. Before Lalor could jump into that hole, a resident started ice cream parlor Don Gelato. “Since he was already approaching 65, I went for it anyway.” After much insistence, Lalor was allowed to do an internship there one day a week. In 2014 he took over the business, including the name and recipes.

At Don Gelato you see that making ice cream does not necessarily require a lot of space. In a narrow space behind the small shop are the ice cream machine, two pasteurizers and a shock freezer. “When the ice cream comes out of the machine it is soft. You prepare it as nicely as possible and freeze it in the shock freezer,” explains Lalor. The ice cream can then be placed in the storage freezer, with space for three hundred containers. Lalor will store ice cream for up to five months. But that never happens, he says. “Once it starts to run, a container will be on the shelf for a week at the most.”

Ice cream parlor Dam

Utrecht

IJssalon Dam (since 2015) in the Lombok district of Utrecht is a real neighborhood shop. In the back, owner Ahmet Akbulut (44) is working on stroopwafel ice cream. Earlier this morning he made ice cream with rose water, saffron and pistachios, which he wants to sell under the name ‘Taste of The Middle East’.

Akbulut comes from a baker’s family, he also started as a baker at the age of nineteen. At an ice cream fair, which was held at the same time as the bakery fair, he came up with the idea of ​​an ice cream shop. He took a course and did an internship at an ice cream parlor in Rotterdam. “They said: you can ask anything, except recipes.”

The recipe, of course, that’s what it’s all about. Therein lies the creativity of the traditional ice cream maker, with which he can express himself and distinguish himself. Akbulut gets ideas for new flavors from the local shops where he buys many of his ingredients, he says. During Ramadan he makes chebakia ice cream, with the Moroccan honey biscuits that are often eaten at iftars. He does not supply restaurants, sometimes – on request – to cooks. “Sometimes we go into the ice cream kitchen together. I learn from that and so do they. Combining things, seeing if it is even possible: ice cream with orange and cardamom, ice cream with ginger, lemongrass and basil.” Herring ice cream, which some colleagues make, goes too far for him. “I don’t make ice cream that I can immediately throw away because it doesn’t taste good.”

Intelligence

Eindhoven

The Wonderroom of ice cream parlor Intelligentia in Eindhoven (since 2014) is inspired by Marie-Antoinette. There are porcelain cups and saucers on the table. Garlands of pink artificial flowers fall from the high roof.

After years of being obsessed with “everything that is liquid”, Björn Cocu (35) – maître-sommelier, tea sommelier, water sommelier – wanted to start his own business. In consultation with his wife, a lifestyle designer, he opted for ice cream. Not so much because they liked it, but because they thought it could be more adventurous. “Why always the same flavors everywhere? In the top restaurants where I had worked you got a scoop of foie gras ice cream with your dessert. Or a quenelle of ice cream with Japanese iKi beer and a sudachi zest.”

In the top restaurants where I worked you got a scoop of foie gras ice cream with your dessert

Bjorn Cocu (35) maître-sommelier, tea sommelier, water sommelier

Intelligentia is located in the former industrial neighborhood of Strijp-S, ‘the creative heart of Eindhoven’. In addition to twelve fixed flavours, customers can choose from eighteen changing themed flavours. Son James (5) inspired Cocu to Pokémon ice cream. “For example, you have Charizard, an orange dragon Pokémon. Charizard ice cream is made from carrot juice with a yogurt culture and an orange swirl. I added togarashi, a Japanese spice mixture including ginger, cinnamon and red pepper.”

On average, a scoop of ice cream in the Netherlands costs about 1.75 euros. At Intelligentia you pay 1.90 euros for a regular scoop, 2.10 for a premium scoop and 2.60 for signature flavors. The business is open all year round. “It’s getting warmer,” says Cocu. “Ice cream can become a regular part of the diet.” Ice cream will also become healthier, he predicts. His customers are already counting on him to sell low-sugar ice cream and ice cream based on vegetable proteins. “I am also working on techniques to prepare sorbet ice cream without heating, so that the nutrients do not lose their healthy effect.”

Not everyone understands, says Cocu, when he serves lobster bisque ice cream or asparagus ice cream. “Colleagues thought I was crazy. But we see ice cream as an intermediary in which you can translate all smells and tastes. As long as it is scoopable, creamy and delicious. It’s about surprising people, making them happy, spoiling them.”

Margie 24

Workum

Deborah Bouma of farm ice cream Margje 24 has also been declared crazy – by an ice cream master in Italy. “Because we have a very expensive product with milk, whipped cream and butter. They advised us to choose a recipe with egg yolk. But then you have an egg taste, we found.”

Making ice cream with milk from your own cows is not the easiest way. Because she uses raw milk, Bouma has to have her ice cream checked for bacteria every eight weeks in Heerenveen. Every year, the Quality Affairs Control Body comes by for an inspection. The original shop in the stable, where she made ice cream in the back, had to close. “After three years you were suddenly no longer allowed to work with raw milk in areas where customers also come.” And so the shop is now located in a house in the yard.

Bouma does not try to ‘use up’ the ice cream in her bins spectacularly, as is done in many stores. “We are of the basic, not of the frills.” As long as you shovel neatly, she thinks, it will continue to look great. She does not participate in ice competitions. “We are too creamy. Juries don’t like that. But it is just like with horse and cow inspections: who can tell me what is the most beautiful or the tastiest? I see that differently. And even if it doesn’t look perfect, my whole heart is in it.”

New Generation

Are the randomly chosen 21st century ice cream makers in this article at the dawn of new ice dynasties? That opportunity seems to exist. The eldest son (31) of Deborah Bouma has just completed the basic ice cream maker course. Her ice cream project has gotten a little out of hand. In addition to the shop in the yard, she and her husband have opened ice cream parlors in Leeuwarden, Sneek and Bolsward, and they supply Margje 24 ice cream to seven restaurants. “Last year from May to September I was busy making ice cream from seven in the morning until eight or nine at night. Every day.”

Keith Lalor is already in the business in Medemblik with two children. After secondary school, son Darren (25) started successively in civil engineering, environmental science and real estate, but found his niche as an ice cream maker. Daughter Leontien (20) has completed training as a make-up artist and training for the care of the deceased. In the end, the work in the ice cream parlor suits her best. “It’s so airy and cozy.”

Ahmet Akbulut also seems to have a chance of a successor within the family: he has seven children. The oldest is 21, the youngest six months. And yes, one daughter says she wants to take over the ice cream parlor. She is nine.