Minneapolis Vegan Ice Cream Crawl

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A group of us were talking at dinner a few weeks ago about how we should do a vegan ice cream crawl in Minneapolis. Sample all the vegan ice cream places in Minneapolis in one day? Could we do it? Laura and I really liked this idea, and this is the result.

We focused on places that had a retail location and actually made vegan ice cream. We excluded restaurants, sorbets, and frozen yogurts. Those might end in a future post instead.

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Because of geography, we started with Izzy’s Ice Cream in Saint Paul. They make several flavors of vegan soy ice cream and sorbets. We focused on the soy flavors. The flavors rotate regularly we were lucky to get soy chocolate and soy peanut butter (my fave).

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Their sugar and cake cones are vegan. Sadly the waffle cone was not.

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I ordered a scoop of the soy peanut butter with a free izzy scoop of the soy chocolate on top all jammed into a sugar cone. I really enjoyed it. The soy peanut butter has the right balance of sweet and creamy. I like they use real peanut butter in the ice cream. Laura got a scoop of the chocolate in a cup with an izzy scoop of their lime basil sorbet.

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Ok, what is this izzy scoop stuff? Check out the photo below. You can get one regular scoop and then an izzy scoop on top for free. Awesome way to try two different kinds.

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The next stop was Franklin Freeze on Franklin Ave. I had heard they had vegan ice cream. We could even see it in the display case. Sadly, they were closed. We arrived during their posted business hours. The lights were on, but no one was home. The doors were locked. We waited around for a while to no use. Other people showed up as well; they were just as confused and disappointed as we were.

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Over to southern Minneapolis to check out Pumphouse Creamery then.

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They have two flavors of coconut milk based ice cream. None of the cones were vegan, however, the employee working there was vegan. Very cool!

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We each ordered a scoop in a cup. Laura got the coffee flavor and I got the chocolate. The ice cream was good, and we were glad for choices. I thought mine wasn’t as rich as Izzy’s. It didn’t taste as creamy and the chocolate flavor wasn’t very strong.

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I think our vegan ice cream crawl was a success. We found several places serving ice cream and were able to sample four different flavors.

We are scheming what our next vegan food crawl should be. Pizza? Cake? Tacos? Leave a comment below with your suggestions!

3 comments:

  1. I think I am jealous you have at least one place that sells vegan ice cream. Our closest would be Back to Eden in Portland for their soft serve. Sigh, guess we'll have to stick with the supermarket .

    The ones you tested all look yummy. I like the Izzy scoop idea.

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    Replies
    1. It is nice to have choices. I saw Minneapolis was listed in the top ten vegan places in the country along with portland and SF.

      Back to Eden is awesome... I miss that place.

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  2. Franklin Freeze is reported as closed now :(

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