For something cool, try ice cream burgers

Ice cream is working overtime during this hot summer. Sales of the frosty treat are on the rise from Las Vegas to New York.

At Morgenstern’s Finest Ice Cream in New York, which has branches on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and in Greenwich Village, sales were up about 30%, according to owner and chef Nick Morgenstern. “We’re doing a pre-pandemic level of business. Lines out the door every day,” he says.

Morgenstern’s is known in the ice cream world for its exquisite flavors and painstaking ingredient sourcing, with flavors like Raw Milk, made without eggs, and Mascarpone Salted Hazelnut. There are never less than five different vanilla flavors and five chocolate ones.

In early June, Morgenstern pioneered a product called the Ice Cream Burger. It’s a sweet part of a new, savory-focused menu that features burgers, fries and pies.

The concept of combining bread and ice cream isn’t revolutionary. Italians fill brioche rolls with gelato. In Japan, Shibuya Toast is a popular snack of an extra-thick bread slice filled with vanilla ice cream and garnished with all manner of sweet things. Morgenstern has served a version of that treat called the New God Flow, composed of Japanese milk bread caramelized with honey and topped with raw milk ice cream since he opened his first store in 2014.

“Bread is smart because it absorbs the ice cream as it melts,” says Morgenstern.

That’s one reason his dessert burger is so well suited to this hot summer.

Morgenstern makes his own buns but says any soft squishy ones work great. He maintains that even Wonder Bread will get the job done, folded over into a taco-style snack.

Making ice cream burgers is almost too easy. First, the buns are lightly buttered and quickly toasted. (You can use a grill that’s already on to cook more conventional burgers, although make sure it’s clean.) Then ice cream is scooped inside the bun. That’s it. It’s scrumptious, super fun and a guaranteed chill out experience. Any additional garnishes – chunks of fruit as a “relish” or a chocolate, caramel or berry sauce that might happen to look like barbecue sauce or ketchup – are up to you.

Ice cream flavors are at the discretion of the cook, too, but I’d recommend two or three different contrasting ones, both for taste and appearance. Fruity flavors are especially excellent in a summery way. I went with peach, in addition to chocolate and vanilla. Next time I make it, I might substitute a caramel-ribboned flavor for the chocolate. Morgenstern says a sorbet or a milk-based sherbet will make it even more refreshing.

And it helps for the caramelized bun to still be slightly warm when you add the ice cream, so it starts softening into the bread, in the way that the best ice cream sandwiches come together in a bite that melts in your mouth in progressive creamy waves of texture.

Have a lot of napkins on hand. If you do it right, it’s not a tidy dish.