Although summer has already come to an end, there is still time to take advantage of ice cream season. Pastry chef Cora Cotrim’s ice cream shop Queen of Cream opened their second location on Sept. 21 at the Plaza on Ponce, near Urban Outfitters and Insomnia Cookies.
Queen of Cream, known for its homemade scoops with a uniquely complex flavor palate, features a wide variety of ice cream delicacies. My friends and I all opted for eccentric flavors in classic cake and sugar cones, and made sure to take advantage of the free taste-testing.
We each sampled three of the 12 available flavors. The shop offers eight classic flavors, including vanilla, chocolate, and cookies and cream, alongside their signature flavors such as sprinkle cookie, black pearl, lavender honeycomb, and brown butter pecan, and cold-brew coffee and cocoa nibs. The shop introduced their limited-time seasonal flavors: s’mores, tres leches cake, mango coconut and persian road.
Unfortunately, the waffle cones that day were not homemade since the shop had run out. To make up for this mishap, they were generous in their scoops.
I had a kiddie-size sugar cone of sprinkle cookie, described by Queen of Cream as one of “the simple joys of childhood” with its vanilla flavor, rainbow sprinkles and large chunks of sugar cookies. Much to my pleasure, there was a little fun in each bite, with the addition of cookies and sprinkles nicely distributed throughout the whole scoop. But the ice cream lacked distinct flavor other than vanilla with a granular texture.
Meanwhile, my friend got a small waffle cone of cookies and cream. We noted that the small size seemed only fractionally bigger than the kiddie size, and the price difference was a little more than a dollar. Despite the seemingly unfair price of $4.18, this nostalgia-inducing flavor featured an abundance of plain chocolate cookie crumbs sprinkled perfectly throughout the scoop which reminded us of a fresh batch of homemade cookies. Because of the excellent ice cream to cookie ratio, the velvety vanilla ice cream guaranteed chocolate cookie pieces with each bite.
My second friend, arguably the biggest fan of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream, was eager to try a local spot similar to her favorite. She was the only one who got a seasonal flavor and opted for a small sugar cone of S’mores. The vanilla-based ice cream was speckled with pillowy toasted marshmallows and crunchy honey graham crackers. An integral part of any s’mores cookie is milk chocolate, which made a few appearances in the flavor. My friend noted that she only tasted a few chocolate chips. Her final verdict was that it tasted just like vanilla was small elements of a special surprise.
My third friend, a self-proclaimed chocolate connoisseur, ordered a kiddie cake cone of one of their signature flavors, deep chocolate. Compared to other chocolate flavors she has had, Queen of Cream’s stacked up as “more flavorful than just plain chocolate, … [and] overall, pretty good.” The chocolate, made from milk chocolate, perfectly fit Queen of Cream’s description of the flavor as being “the chocolatiest of chocolates” — rich, creamy and easily the best flavor out of the four we tried.
The interior was very lively and colorful, featuring a neon pink sign out front, a graffitied window and a bright orange mural with the name of the store, perfect for taking an Instagram picture of your aesthetic cone.
Although ice cream was scrumptious no matter what, we were a little disappointed in the simplicity of what they brand as unique flavors. All in all, the three flavors that were more than just cream, tasted as though it was just the base flavor with something extra in it. Additionally, they were out of waffle cones, our favorite type of cone, that day and did an inadequate job of advertising toppings and special treats, such as milk shakes, ice cream sundaes, and the like.
Queen of Cream satisfied our after-dinner ice cream cravings and, compared to other ice cream shops in Atlanta, each scoop was well-priced at $3 to $5. None of my friends and I are vegan, but Queen of Cream has dairy, gluten and egg-free flavor options while also doing an adept job of labeling their allergens.
Our ice cream excursion across Atlanta gave us an adequate sweet bite to end the night. All in all, ice cream is ice cream, so we could not complain.
3/5
