Make This Spiced Ice Cream Sundae From a Brooklyn Scoop Shop Founder

Is there anything more joy-inducing in the summer than ice cream? It’s Pooja Bavishi’s treat of choice: As the founder of ice cream company Malai, Bavishi uses ice cream as a palette to play with all sorts of creative flavor combinations.

Malai’s ice creams are sold out of the brand’s Brooklyn scoop shop (these days, Fridays-Sundays from 12-8pm) and also online (locally and nationwide). Malai is known for incorporating aromatic spices and South Asian ingredients — including the popular rose with cinnamon-flavored almonds, a flavor Bavishi initially thought might not find a wide customer base. (“New York audiences always prove me wrong,” she told Eater NY.)

For a summer treat you can make yourself, Bavishi took over Eater’s Instagram as part of Eater at Home to demo the perfect ice cream sundae. “For an ice cream sundae, we need a couple of basic things: good ice cream, something crunchy, a sauce, whipped cream, and sprinkles,” says Bavishi. Building atop the beloved rose-flavored ice cream, Bavishi shared recipes to get that sauce, crunch, and whipped cream for your own at-home sundae below.

Coconut White Chocolate Ganache

1 13.5-ounce can of full fat coconut milk
2 cups of white chocolate chips
1.5 teaspoon of rose water (optional)
Pinch of salt

Place chips and salt in a heat proof bowl. In a small pot, bring coconut milk to a boil. Pour over white chocolate chips and wait for 1 minute, and then mix together until smooth and incorporated. Let it come to room temperature and mix in rose water, if using.

Cocoa Nib and Cardamom Shortbread

This recipe is based on an Indian shortbread called nankhatai, and uses ghee instead of butter. If you don’t have any ghee on hand, feel free to replace it with softened butter!

200 grams of all-purpose flour
75 grams of powdered sugar
35 grams of semolina
2.5 grams of salt
5 grams of ground cardamom
160 grams of ghee
30 grams of cocoa nibs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Sift together dry ingredients: flour, sugar, semolina, salt, and cardamom. Add ghee, and mix by hand or with a mixer, until all dry ingredients are incorporated and a cohesive dough has formed. Then mix in cocoa nibs until well distributed.

Scoop out tablespoon-sized portions, roll into balls and flatten slightly by pressing with your hands. Place cookies on prepared pans, leaving an inch between each cookie.

Bake for 13-15 minutes until set, and just barely turning brown. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.

Cardamom Whipped Cream

1 cup of heavy cream
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of ground cardamom
Pinch of salt

In a large bowl, pour in cream and whip until soft peaks form. This can be done using an electric mixer or by hand.

Sprinkle sugar, salt, and cardamom on top and whip for 30 more seconds.