Tyler, The Creator and Jeni Britton Bauer launch their new ice cream flavor and the Golf Wang summer clothing line at Tyler’s Golf Wang shop. The two collaborated to create a mint and white chocolate ice cream flavor called Snowflake. | Photo courtesy of Jeni Britton Bauer

Jeni Britton Bauer, founder of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream, was never interested in celebrity for celebrity’s sake. But when rapper, producer and fashion designer Tyler, The Creator personally reached out to her about an ice cream collaboration, Britton Bauer said she was surprised and delighted. 

“Famous people and people like that who have a lot of success, they’re just not like Tyler. They don’t do that,” she said. “They wanna make money on everything they’re doing and so there’s something about Tyler. He’s just really curious and when he wants to do something he just figures out how to do it.”

Tyler paid attention to every carefully placed detail of the Los Angeles Jeni’s store that he often rode his bike to and knew what the company was about before even reaching out, Britton Bauer said. 

The ice cream, called Snowflake, went live in Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream stores Monday, but the unexpected collaboration has been a year in the making.  

After meeting with Tyler in LA, learning about the flavors he liked and testing out different flavors, Britton Bauer created a winner — an ivory peppermint and green spearmint swirl with white chocolate melted throughout and white chocolate flakes to add crunch.

“As much as I love white chocolate chip cookies, I can’t get over the fact that someone made the universal rule that they always have to come with those useless macadamia nuts,” Tyler, The Creator said in a press release. “For as long as I can remember, mint ice cream seemed to always come with every chocolate chip but white. I finally got the two away from their clingy friends and set up a play date for my mouth.”  

From there, Tyler and Britton Bauer discussed what the ice cream would be and what it would look like, with the name and pint design created by Tyler. 

In addition to being sold in Jeni’s stores everywhere and Tyler’s Golf Wang flagship store in LA, the Snowflake Pack featuring one pint of Snowflake ice cream, a Snowflake T-shirt, and two pints of Tyler’s favorite Jeni’s flavors, is available on golflefleur.com and jenis.com for $45. 

Britton Bauer said that despite coming from entirely different backgrounds, the way that both flavors and music are constructed with notes created a common ground for fun conversations with Tyler throughout the collaboration.

“Here I am in Ohio, an ice cream maker,” Britton Bauer said. “And then there he is, this guy who just has such an opposite story of mine and literally in every way couldn’t be similar in any way — and you can see that when you just look at us and where we’re from and what we do — but at the same time, we almost just speak exactly the same language.”

Britton Bauer’s advice? Eat the ice cream from a cone, and lick rather than bite. 

“The flavor will develop and you’ll get all those notes,” she said. 

Snowflake will only be available as long as supplies last, but she said her relationship with Tyler will last much longer. 

Britton Bauer will be at Express Live! for Tyler’s IGOR tour Sept. 22 and said she also plans to show him that Columbus has more to offer than what people from the coast might expect of the Midwest. 

“It’s very collaborative. We’re in a city that hopefully young people can feel responsible for the future of the city,” she said. “I feel like there’s this energy for the future here that’s really quite cool and he’ll lock into that.”