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New
England dining >>> Spruce Pond Creamery, Franklin, Mass.
Spruce Pond Creamery makes
heavenly ice cream
by Alicia
If you really love wrapping
your tongue around great ice cream, you shouldn't miss any opportunity
to visit Spruce Pond Creamery in Franklin, Mass. Trust me: this
is the stuff you've only dreamed about, if you haven't tried
it yet.
My personal favorite is Chocolate
Chip Cookie Dough: enormous chunks of rich cookie dough and the
biggest chocolate chips I've ever seen. This isn't vanilla ice
cream with a few spoonfuls of dough thrown in for looks. This
is to-die-for ice cream the way you'd make it yourself, if you
were poised over the ingredients on the hungriest day of your
life.
What makes Spruce Pond ice
cream so unbelievably delicious? Head ice cream maker Marc Bluestein
says the secret to success is to handcraft the very best ingredients
in small, five-gallon batches, and "don't skimp". A
dairy makes the cream to his specifications. Only all-natural
ingredients and flavors are used. In what he calls old world
style, they make their own chocolate bases, chop their own chocolate
and other candy, and hand mix everything. Hand mixing ensures
that every cone or dishful of ice cream contains a generous amount
of its own particular flavorings. It also allows them to maintain
a "low overrun", i.e, a low proportion of air in the
mix. For you and me this means a richer, denser ice cream than
can generally be found elsewhere. Anyone who's sampled a lot
of ice cream around the region, or even around the world, will
not fail to be gloriously impressed.
I'll mention just a few tempting
flavors here. There are many more. Some are always available,
others are available on a rotating basis with similar flavors,
and new ones frequently appear on a trial basis.
Black Strawberry: black raspberries,
strawberries, and flecks of chocolate.
Raspberry Chocolate Truffle: need I say more?
Honey Graham: caramel base with graham crackers. (And the milk's
already "in there"!)
Baci: Frangelico and hazelnuts, with white/milk/dark chocolate
chunks.
Vanilla: ever popular, this delight gets its taste from real
Tahitian vanilla beans.
Black Forest: double dark chocolate base, walnuts, burgundy cherries,
and cherry Kirwasser liqueur.
Peanut Butter Cookie Explosion: this is a new flavor, not always
available, but popular when it is.
Sorbets of various flavors, made with generous amounts of real
juice.
Spruce Pond ice cream seems
to be one of the best-kept secrets in Massachusetts. However,
Rhode Islanders honored it three times in their "Best of
Rhode Island" awards. It's the ice cream of choice at Capriccio's
(a fine-dining restaurant in Providence), the Brown Faculty Club,
and Maximillian's, which is Spruce Pond's "sister"
restaurant in Providence. There, I understand, the ice cream
is simply called "Maxie's".
But Massachusetts is gaining
a better appreciation for the high quality treat in its own backyard.
Recently, the new PGA golf course in Norton chose Spruce Pond
to supply the ice cream for their clientele. Because Spruce Pond
not only makes an outrageously delicious ice cream, but can create
any flavor for any occasion, including unusual variants as lavender
or green tea, I can only wonder where their fabulous homemade
creations will pop up next - and look forward to being wherever
that is.
Spruce Pond Creamery is located
on King Street, Franklin, just a minute or two north of King
Street Exit 16, route 495. Look for the friendly, light-colored
building with the wraparound deck overlooking the pond. It's
a great location to enjoy a wonderful home made meal, or ice
cream, or both. Note: all the cooks are certified chefs, and
all the food is made with the same attention to quality ingredients
and customer satisfactions as the ice cream.
Spruce Pond Creamery
King Street
Franklin, Mass.
Tel. (508) 520-7900
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