Must-have: Cafe de Abuelita scoops at Cosmic Ice Cream

Why yes, it's still ice-cream season.

In my world, anyway, that season never ends. No nip in the air dulls my enthusiasm for one of mankind's greatest inventions. Especially when I am faced with a double scoop from the estimable Cosmic Ice Cream shop in Spring Branch.

Cosmic is quartered in the same Long Point retail strip that houses Feges BBQ, the Blind Goat, a location of Hando sushi rolls, Jinya Ramen and...in a corner of the huge parking lot...Stuffed Belly, the sandwich shop from Christine Ha and John Suh that I wrote about earlier this week.

The businesses are the most concentrated testament to the growth of the neighborhood's condo communities and upscale housing developments. In the late-afternoon quarter-hour I was there, one gleaming SUV after another pulled up to Cosmic so moms could buy the kids some after-school cones.

Lucky them. Every time I visit this family-owned scoop shop, I am startled anew by the exceptionally thick, satiny texture of their ice creams. Run your vividly hued spoon through it, and I'd swear the stuff practically stretches, it's so dense and creamy.

Then there's Cosmic's new seasonal flavor I tried out, Cafe de Abuelita. That's "Grandma's Coffee" in translation, and it's a marvel of delicacy: the gentlest cafe au lait barely touched with cinnamon and flecks of chocolate.

It would have been so easy to overdo this sly tribute to the Mexican cocoa tablets Houstonians know and love, make it a galumphing ride of coffee, chocolate and cinnamon. But Cosmic owners Camille and Julian Haynes, who started their mini-chain of three scoop shops down in Clear Lake, understand subtlety. My first impression of their skills came two years ago, when a staffer at the Blind Goat (which uses Cosmic's fantastically pure, dense vanilla on Christine Ha's famous Rubbish Apple Pie) tipped me to the Lemon Poppyseed Muffin flavor that was running that month.

I was skeptical. I am the kind of purist who does not want chunks of baked goods or lumps of candy to get between her and her ice cream. Which means these days, I am swimming against the mix-ins tide.

But lo: Cosmic refrained from adding actual muffin chunks to the formula. Instead, the ice cream showed the same degree of delicacy that animated the Cafe de Abuelita. It was an ethereal citric breeze—a transformation of batter rather than cake— livened with tiny pings of poppyseed. I hope it's on offer when I return.

I'd happily revisit the Speckled Chocolate Mint flavor I tried back then, too, its rich satin smoothness mined with evanescent splinters of dark chocolate. There were other surprises: notably several revolving vegan, dairy-free flavors that achieved a remarkable creaminess, including a Toasted Coconut ice cream and Dark Chocolate and Mango Sorbets.

Part of the pleasure here is drinking in the Armando Castellan wall mural of dairy farms and flying saucers, which I described back then as having a "21st-century Grandma Moses charm." I loved it so much, I cribbed the saucer and farm landscape for my header image on the Bluesky social media platform, where I post as @alisoncook.bsky.social. As a child of Vermont, it still makes me smile.

So did Cosmic's Cafe de Abuelita flavor, one of their recurring eat-local collaborations—this one with Slowpokes coffee shops. Get it while it lasts. No matter what the temperature is outside.