How Salt & Straw's head chef found solutions to ice cream's biggest problems

Ice cream has problems. Big problems. You may not have noticed because, c'mon, it's ice cream. But think about it. Often, the chocolate chips are too waxy, the cookie dough is too frozen, the caramel is not carameling...

Fortunately, Salt & Straw chef and co-founder Tyler Malek sought solutions and you can find them in his new recipe book, Salt & Straw: America's Most Iconic Ice Creams.

He joined Austin Cross on AirTalk, LAist 89.3's daily news program, to talk about some of the chain's outlandish flavors — Wild-Foraged Berry Slab Pie, Chocolate Chili Crisp Peanut Butter, and so many more — and how he found solutions over the years to the (we admit, few and far between) drawbacks of 'scream.

The flavor trinity

Take caramel for example. What makes caramel taste so good? Malek says it's not just the combination of salty and sweet. You need a third flavor profile to complete what he calls "the flavor trinity."

"A good caramel is salty, sweet and bitter," he said.

This is a guiding principle in so many of his flavors. Coffee and Love Nuts is a popular one at Salt & Straw. The trinity? Coffee, candy-coated nuts and a little bit of fruitiness.

Tyler Malek's new book "Salt & Straw: America's Most Iconic Ice Cream" is out now

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Tyler Malek

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Cookie dough tune-up

A common problem with cookie dough ice cream? The dough is too dang hard. This is true for other mix-in ingredients.

"You can't just buy cookie dough or brownies off the shelf and put them in ice cream," Malek said. "They're not meant to be frozen."

The first solution? Making all his ingredients in-house so he can tailor them perfectly for the ice cream. Malek makes a concoction of what he calls "edible anti-freeze," which involves specific amounts of salt and sugar to resist the solidification of the cookie dough. The type of sugar you use makes a difference too, he said.

Freckling

If you like chocolate in your ice cream, you might be familiar with the often waxy, crunchy texture of the chocolate chips.

This is a common problem for ice-cream makers with an uncommon solution: freckling.

According to Malek, it's an old-school technique where you drizzle melted chocolate directly into your ice cream machine. The chocolate freezes and disperses into flakes that look like freckles. The result — chocolate chips that melt immediately when they hit the tongue.

Unleash your creativity, one scoop at a time

Tyler Malek's new cookbook

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Tyler Malek

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Malek's new book is filled with tips and tricks for ice cream lovers. Want to add potato chips to your ice cream while preserving the essence of the chip? Try coating it in coconut oil to create a barrier and maintain the crunch!

Admittedly, Malek is obsessed with ice cream — the flavor profiles, the science, but also the opportunity to connect with others. People will stop him in the street and suggest flavor ideas to him all the time.

"Ice cream is just so freeing," he said. "It's inherently creative."

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