Best Of CLE: Dessert-On-A-Stick

Step aside cake pops, there’s a much cooler dessert-on-a-stick in town. Pop Culture CLE’s creme brulee popsicle ($4.50), a sublime frozen vanilla custard that’s creamy, light and sweet, hides a rich caramel inside. At first, owner Nicole Dauria tried an iteration more like the classic dessert the pop is inspired by — a custard base covered with a caramel coating — but something wasn’t right.

“It didn’t quite look or taste the same,” she says. So she tried putting the caramel inside. Her method requires filling each mold with custard, flash-freezing it, then pouring out the still-soft center. She fills it with a special caramel that won’t freeze, then adds more custard to seal it, which means each of these dreamy treats is created by hand one at a time.

“When you come up with your recipe, it’s How can I make it different, where’s the wow factor?” says Dauria, who sells her gourmet desserts from a pop art-decorated cart at private and public events. “With food it’s all about the experience of taste, texture and presentation.” 216-245-7316, popculturecle.com

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