Burlington creamery takes dipped summer treats to a whole new level

Ice cream lovers may be familiar with a traditional dipped cone - but one Burlington shop has taken the formula to a whole new level.

“The concept of chocolate-dipped ice cream isn’t new, but it’s unknown to this market. We’ve brought in a real soft vanilla ice cream, not a soft serve, and all imported chocolate dips,” says Steven Hewson, who co-owns  La Crème de la Crème Creamery on John Street with his wife, Marie. 

He explains that, technically, soft-serve isn't actually ice cream as it doesn't meet the required threshold of cream.

"The product we’re getting is coming from Tillsonburg and is around 13 per cent," he said. "It’s legit, rich, soft ice cream. We took the dipped ice cream thing and elevated it to a completely different level, which lives up to our name, La Crème de la Crème, which is the best of the best.”

La Crème de la Crème, which recently celebrated its fifth anniversary, goes through about 6,000 pounds of imported Belgian chocolate dips every summer and comes in 18 different flavours of white, milk and dark chocolate.

“Salted Caramel is definitely our most popular flavour," said Hewson. "One that’s become very popular - due to my self-promotion because it’s my favourite - is the Milk Rocher, and kids love the colourful ones, like blue Cotton Candy and pink Bubble Gum.” 

In addition to Belgian chocolate-dipped ice cream, La Crème de la Crème Creamery also features handcrafted, small-batch chocolates, all made in-house by Marie, who trained at the Chocolate Academy in Montreal.

After some trial and error, she has perfected the complicated process. Like the chocolate-dipped ice cream, the chocolates are created using the highest quality ingredients, part of the couple’s mission to ensure what they’re providing is just a little bit over the top quality-wise.

From June to September, the shop features Emma's Pick, and donates $1 from every small, medium or large Emma's PIck cone sold to charity.

Emma’s Pick is named for the Hewsons' youngest daughter, who came up with a creative way to partner with community groups across Halton. June’s Pride Cone raised $1,400 for the Reach Out Centre for Kids (ROCK).

Emma's Pick for July and August is the Piña Colada cone, which is vanilla ice cream with a white chocolate coconut dip and a slice of pineapple - it's the most popular cone they create. Proceeds will go to the Burlington Food Bank, where Steven and Marie volunteer.

“There’s such a major food insecurity in Burlington right now. People think of it as a posh, rich city, but being part of the Food Bank for over two-and-a-half years, the increase in demand would blow your mind,” said Hewson. “The families we see coming in, it’s quite shocking. We just want to make sure we’re playing our role and doing what we can to create awareness and support them financially.

"I implore all the businesses downtown to step up and do their part. What we do isn’t any kind of a big deal, but the difference it makes is tangible. It really does
make a difference in our community.”