Edible Food Finds: Melt Homemade Ice Cream, Salem
Photos by Emily Bernardi
“I love finding new people to partner with,” says Christiana Kroondyk, whose Salem shop, Melt Homemade Ice Cream, includes flavors made with locally made tea, chocolate, coffee, toffee and brownies. Christiana began making ice cream as a hobby seven to eight years ago, experimenting with ingredients to create unusual flavors for her friends and coworkers. Three years ago, she quit her job in the corporate world and opened Melt Homemade Ice Cream.
About the same time, Jodi Bradbury was opening Jodi Bee Bakes. Kroondyk didn’t have the space to make her own brownies, so she asked Jodi, “What if I used your brownies?” Now Kroondyk incorporates gluten-free brownies from Jodi Bee Bakes into one of her most popular flavors, Salted Caramel with Sea Salt Brownies.
She uses Taza Chocolate chips for both Taza Chip Cookie Dough and Vegan Peanut Butter Taza Chip, steeps MEM Tea to create Earl Grey with Cardamom & Pistachios, adds That Nutty Redhead’s sweet and salty nut mix for the flavor Nutty Almond and brews locally roasted coffee beans to make Atomic Coffee.
Twice a year, Kroondyk makes birthday cake ice cream with cake and frosting from Blue Ribbon Cake in Salem. Her most recent collaboration is with Harbor Sweets, whose Sweet Sloop toffee is crushed and added to vanilla ice cream with a caramel swirl.
Kroondyk says the best time to visit her ice cream shop is when they’re making waffle cones, during the first hour they’re open and later while they prepare for the after-dinner rush, around 5 to 6pm. “It smells amazing inside,” she says.
This story appeared in the Spring 2019 issue.