Nothing satisfies one more on a hot Texas day than an ice cream cone. In place of familiar flavors like chocolate, cookies and cream, and strawberry, specialty ice cream shop, Cauldron is serving up flavors such as Sun, Moon, and Stars, Earl Grey Lavender, and its most popular flavor, The Cauldron, in a not-so-traditional way. Cauldron is not your mom and pop’s ice cream store from Puffle cones to drinks like the Mocha Dinosaur.
Store Manager Nicole Griffin spoke with The Dallas Express about what makes ice cream lovers flock to Cauldron and why she loves brewing up batches of the delightfully delectable treat.
As you walk into the Cauldron location at 75 and Knox Street, there is a good chance you will run into a cloud of smoke from the liquid nitrogen used for the ice-cold creation.
“When you come in, we will take your order and pour our base into our mixer. Then we are going to freeze it with liquid nitrogen. So you get that fun, cool, smoky effect. And while it’s mixing and getting so cold on contact, [the ice cream] will be a lighter, fluffier flavor,” explains Griffin.
A “Puffle” cone holds the ice cream for even more excitement. The Hong Kong-style egg waffle cone is available in original or a cinnamon-sugar churro flavor. A favorite for those who love an over-the-top experience, the Puffle cone comes in one size and accommodates one and a half scoops of ice cream and as many toppings as you can fit. Regular cones and cups are available for those not as adventurous or with a smaller appetite.
The liquid nitrogen-infused ice cream comes in thirteen flavors, Vanilla Bean, Vietnamese Coffee, Strawbaby, Sea Salted Carmel Crunch, S’mores, Rose H2O, Pineapple Express, Mint Chocolate Chip, Mike and Cereal, Double Shot Chocolate, and The Cauldron.
“It’s a cinnamon vanilla ice cream with Oreos mixed in,” says Griffin. “So think cookies and cream but a little warmer. If you pair that with a churro Puffle, it’s amazing!”
Other signature flavors unique to Cauldron are the Earl Grey Lavender, made with lavender and a drizzle of honey, and the Sun, Moon, and Stars flavor, which happens to be Griffin’s favorite, made with jasmine green tea and Oolong tea.
Obviously, with a name like Cauldron, Halloween is a big deal around this ice cream shop. And the possibility of it being chilly during October does not deter ice cream fans from stopping by.
“Halloween is a big deal around here,” says Griffin. “It’s my favorite holiday. It’s my favorite holiday, all my kids’ (as she affectionately calls her teen employees). So you know, we dress up, we have the music, the atmosphere [is set], [we do] all of it.”
However, it does not have to be Halloween to enjoy Cauldron’s playful aesthetic. There are several art installments throughout Cauldron that will enhance your social media timeline, including a pink neon sign that reads, “It’s not gonna lick itself.”
Griffin has been managing Cauldron since its opening in February 2018. Before whipping up ice cream with liquid nitrogen, the creative food-lover worked everywhere, from Schlotzsky’s to Smoke at the Belmont Hotel. She ultimately fell in love with creating food, which she learned how to do by watching her grandmother in the kitchen.
“The main thing that got me [about my grandmother was her] creativity. She was the type of woman [that would say], ‘We’re not going to run to the grocery store because we need one thing.’ She [would say], ‘Oh, this is what we have; we will make it work.’ My favorite thing that she would do, and has had the most inspiration on me, is every year for my brother’s birthday, she would make a cookie that looked like a pizza. So she would color the dough for each of the different toppings and put it together. She was just super creative and a huge inspiration,” says Griffin.
The innovation Griffin’s grandmother invoked in her was not just found in the kitchen.
Griffin, who employs several high school kids at Cauldron, sees opportunity everywhere and teaches her kids to “squeeze the day,” a phrase taken from an episode of her and her grandmother’s favorite cartoon, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.
“Squeeze the day just means squeeze [the day] for everything it’s worth like just go and do the best you can…[it’s] a little bit more than seize the day,” Griffin explains. “Like we have pigeons that like to come out here. And one of our favorite things is that we will feed the pigeons and name them. Little things like that may be a nuisance to some people, but seeing the good and squeezing the day.”
Griffin and her team will be “squeezing” more out of Cauldron as plans to open up a new location, which Griffin will manage, are in the works in Frisco. Cauldron already has locations in Carrollton and Grand Prairie.
Soon there will not be an area in the metroplex where you can’t get your Cauldron fix, and Griffin is confident about the franchises’ future, “We’re going to be a household name in Dallas.”