Bautzen: first place in ice cream voting Bautzen: on chili ice cream at Gruners am Bärwalder See

1st place in Bautzen ice cream voting: on chili ice cream at Gruners am Bärwalder See

The Gruners ice cream parlor on Saxony’s largest lake has itself become a tourist attraction. Bautzen residents love homemade ice cream.

Bautzen. To see where the Gruners Eiscafé ice cream is produced in Uhyst am Bärwalder See, you need to take a small tour of the village. From the attractive icy terrace, nestled in the shade of many thick oak trees, right on the village square, you pass the old savings bank building. Christian Groner used to make ice cream there before the space got too small. After the Gasthof Drei Linden, which is run by Christian Gruner’s cousin, he goes past Gruner’s parents’ house to the new building of the savings bank, which has long since left the city.

This is where the ice cream machine is located, which produces more than 100 types of ice cream that end up in Gruners sundae parlor. Tonka bean and vanilla ice creams are currently in production, the latter with “a bit of lemon zest for freshness,” owner Christian Groner revealed.

The ice cream is made locally in the old Sparkasse building

Every 20 minutes, employee Susannah Raed fills two compartments of the machine with a self-blending milk base made from the natural ingredients skimmed milk powder, dextrose, inulin and dry glucose. This heats the milk ice cream to 85 degrees for a few seconds to kill microorganisms and germs. It is then cooled to about six degrees below zero and mixed with many other homemade ingredients when removed from the machine.

Customers taste the difference with industrially produced ice cream. Not only does the line in front of the ice cream parlor stretch across the village square on a Sunday afternoon – Gruner’s ice cream parlor also reached first place in the Bautzen ice cream vote by sächsische.de. And this despite the fact that, strictly speaking, it is already in the Görlitz district.

Natural ice cream without artificial additives

But Gruner’s customers are convinced of the quality. 22% voted for him, i.e. 616 out of 2,750 votes cast. “Our ice cream is natural, with no artificial flavors and no preservatives. Our ingredients are fresh and we make almost everything ourselves,” says Groner. For example, lactose-free strawberry ice cream has a very high fruit content of about fifty percent and can be Also use it as iced drinks, i.e. frozen fruit puree.In addition to chocolate and vanilla ice cream, it is one of the best-selling ice cream varieties.Classic coffee is the best-selling.

Another thing that makes this place so special: the family atmosphere. For Christian Groner, family always comes first. The 66-year-old mum bakes cake for the café, and his brother and cousin help out occasionally, but he also considers the team of seven part of the extended family. Customers also feel that familiar charisma is speaking to them.

On sunny Sundays, tourists line up

The cafe has become a real tourist attraction. On some Sundays it can be half an hour before it’s finally your turn. The Bärwalder See contributes to this, as the beach can be reached within a 15-minute walk. “Before, people lived off the lake, and now the lake lives on us,” Groner jokes. Schoolchildren and students help the café to handle the influx of customers, especially during the summer holidays. Gruner says about half are tourists, and the other half are regular customers.

The café has been around since 2014. At that time, the trained tourism specialist had done a course on food and also went to a seminar on ice cream near Dortmund. There he is suddenly satisfied with his teacher’s homemade mango ice cream. “The next day I called my mom and said, ‘Mom, I’m going to open a coffee shop.'”

Mobile ice cream counters for school entrance ceremonies

With his three portable ice cream counters, Christian Groner now travels around the district, often at school entrance ceremonies. It also supplies businesses with fresh ice cream, and it’s not uncommon for it to be in the ice cream machine at 3 in the morning.

“I’m a little proud that we won the vote against the ice cream merchant,” Gruner says, after a gentle sideways swing in Bautzen’s direction. The famous ice cream factory in the city center ranked third. Gruner says he loves to go to the ice cream shop frequently, and liver sausage ice cream is also on his to-do list.

Chocolate mint, cola plant or mango avocado chili?

But even at the Bärwalder See, the ice creams on offer aren’t old-fashioned. Chocolate mint, for example, from which small green dots stand out next to roughly chopped pieces of chocolate – 60 grams of fresh mint for ten liters of ice cream. Or cola ice cream, which has absolutely nothing to do with unhealthy soft drinks, but comes from the cola plant. Or quark ice cream with sesame caramel. Gruner’s latest creation is mango avocado chili ice cream. The slight spiciness only emerges slowly in the mouth when mango and avocado find their way out long ago. For the men, there’s ice cream with dark beer shortly after the men’s day, and a Cuba Libre sundae for the ladies. “Women are more willing to try things,” Groner says. “Men tend to ask for chocolate and vanilla.”

Here’s another tip for all ice cream lovers: The top three places in the vote for ice cream in Bautzen can be nicely integrated into an “ice cream route” as a car or bike tour: starting at the ice cream parlor in Bautzen town center (from 12pm, closed on Saturdays ), via Café Jeremias in Großdubrau (closed on Sundays and Mondays) to the end at Café Gruners and in the Bärwalder See (until 6 pm, no days closed).

This article was written with Magdalena Vetter. you learn in Philipp Melanchthon Bautzen’s Gymnasium He is currently completing a student internship in the editorial staff of Bautzen SZ.