New Sunrise scoop shop: Behold the macaron ice-cream sandwiches that won a trophy
Last June at the regional Dessert Wars competition in West Palm Beach, Joel Franklin felt intimidated by the frenzy of competitors cooking sauces and deep-frying doughnuts in the booths next door.
His Phuse Cream business had already finished prepping Franklin’s adventurous new treat the night before: macaron ice-cream sandwiches.
He needn’t have worried: Dozens of ticketbuyers queued up to sample the sweet creations — literally a scoop of ice cream between two French macaron shells — before these melted and, by festival’s end, Dessert Wars crowned Phuse Cream as its People’s Choice Champion.
“We were the new kids on the block, but our line was very long and fast, and very hectic in a good way,” Franklin recalls. “Dessert Wars taught us we had something special on our hands that most people never tried before.”
Franklin’s ice-cream trophy is on display as the centerpiece of his brand-new Phuse Cream shop in Sunrise, which is having its grand opening on Friday, March 29. It’s Franklin’s second location, after his flagship opened in October 2022 on the corner of State Road 7 and Broward Boulevard in Plantation.
At 1,200 square feet, his latest ice-cream emporium sells 40 flavors, eight of them in macaron sandwich form: cookie butter, pistachio, strawberry cheesecake, cotton candy, toasted coconut, chocolate, cookies ‘n’ cream and cookie dough.
Franklin, 33, is quick to point out that his macarons are so nontraditional that a classically trained French baker he hired once to test his creations became visibly upset when he described the recipe.
“He was so against the flavoring of the shells,” he says, laughing. “He was like, ‘That is not a macaron. That is adulteration!’ ”
A typical batch of delicate macaron cookies is built with almond flour, egg whites and confectioners’ sugar, and — once baked — filled with jam, french buttercream or ganache. Franklin’s idea involved flavoring the individual macaron shells while swapping out the filling for a thick disc of rich ice cream.
“If you add vanilla extract to the macaron before baking it, it becomes a vanilla macaron,” Franklin explains. “I know flavoring macarons is kind of sacrilege, but I liked the taste better. That’s why we’re called Phuse, because we don’t stick to the traditional ways of desserts, even if it’s frowned upon.”
A Florida Atlantic University graduate, Franklin became an ice-cream entrepreneur two years ago, after a career as an event producer throwing weekend pool parties for FAU students around Boca Raton. After running a nightclub in Pompano Beach, Franklin opened smoke shops in Broward County and in 2019 cofounded the Black Pepper Food & Wine Festival in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood, a showcase of Black Floridian chefs, cooking demonstrations and live music, with proceeds supporting Florida International University’s Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management.
Black Pepper is a point of personal pride for Franklin, who has helped grow it, along with cofounder Alexis Brown, from 25 to 40 vendors last August.
“The Black community itself benefits from being able to spread the dollar in the community,” Franklin says. “I didn’t see a lot of young Black peers in the industry my age, and I wanted them to have some of the same success that I had.”
In February, Franklin’s success with Phuse Cream and Dessert Wars climaxed with an appearance at The Cookout, an event saluting the cuisine of Black chefs at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival.
Franklin says his fascination with uncommon ice-cream mashups was inspired by local treat shops like YoNutz in Sunrise, which sandwiches ice cream between two halved glazed doughnuts.
“Now that I’m a father, owning smoke shops is less appealing,” Franklin says. “Having a daughter obsessed with sweets made me want to open ice-cream shops everywhere as a dedication to her.”
His scoop shop in Sunrise feels like walking through iridescent clouds of blue cotton candy. Blue feather tufts spill out from the carpet and walls, which are arrayed in neon-blue Phuse Cream lights. Franklin thinks it leans more “masculine” compared with his Plantation flagship, which features a carnation-pink interior of flower walls, neon signs and pink shag carpeting.
At the order counter, deep freezers offer tubs of by-the-scoop ice cream ($5 for one scoop, $7 for two, $8 for three), all made with 14% to 16% butterfat. A separate deep freezer carries individually packaged cubes of macaron ice-cream sandwiches ($5), each the size of wooden toy blocks.
Future plans include more Phuse Cream locations and more ice cream-themed mashups.
“We’re adding milkshakes to the menu eventually and ice-cream nachos later this year,” he says.
The new Phuse Cream is at 2806 N. University Drive, Sunrise. For more information, go to PhuseCream.com.