By Amy Matthew

Thirty-one flavors? Please. That’s child’s play.

How about 700 — or better yet, 1,000? Now we’re talking. Now we’re in world-record territory, and that’s exactly what two Pueblo natives are aiming for with a sweet quest.

Matt and Mike Casarez own Crook’s Palace restaurant and bar in Black Hawk. The brothers bought the business last year after living in Denver for most of the decade. Both graduated from East High School. Both started their food industry careers working at Rosario’s restaurant. Both attended Johnson & Wales University to study culinary arts.

“We’ve been planning to own our own restaurant for about 15 years,” said Matt. “We saved up our money and this restaurant kind of fell in our laps.”

Mike, 30, is the restaurant’s baker and pastry chef. Matt, 28, is the head chef. Their rule is that the dishes on their menu are homemade. That includes ice cream, which is what has brought them to this daunting, self-imposed challenge.

“We started doing the ice cream, just making different flavors, and it started to catch on,” Matt Casarez said in a phone interview last week. “We decided there’s an infinite amount of flavors we can do, so why not try to break the record?”

Casarez said the official Guinness record for one business is 521 flavors of ice cream, set by a shop in Italy. Another ice cream shop in Venezuela claims more than 850 flavors, though it’s not clear if that has been certified. Regardless, the Casarez duo’s plan is to beat both.

“We decided to just double (the official record) and bring it to America,” said Casarez.

Thus began their Willy Wonka phase. The Casarezes make their own ice cream base so they can easily adjust the ingredient amounts to suit each flavor. From there, they just let the ideas fly.

“We’re always churning ice cream so we always have some base left over,” Casarez said. “We bounce ideas off each other (and) if we have time, we’ll say, ‘Let’s try this one.’ We have a shelf of things you wouldn’t normally find in ice cream and we use those.”

Sure, there are the expected ones: cookie dough, chocolate-covered cherry, strawberry, coffee. When you’re aiming for 1,000 flavors, those standbys are no-brainer additions.

As the list progresses, however, things get curiouser and curiouser. Try a sample spoon of these concoctions:

Ghost raspberry — This combines raspberry with bhut jolokia, the “ghost chile.” A ghost chile measures more than 1 million Scoville Heat Units; by comparison, a jalapeno measures 10,000. ”That’s a pretty popular one, actually,” said Casarez. “It’s one that we try to keep on hand.”

Chocosauersteiner — That’s chocolate, sauerkraut and Warsteiner beer. Matt said there’s actually an old chocolate cake recipe that includes sauerkraut, which is where the idea originated.

Popcorn — Simple. “It’s kind of our flagship (flavor),” he said. “People don’t want to try it, but we put it in front of them and they’re hooked.”

A Day at the Ballpark — Caramel popcorn, peanuts and sunflower seeds. “That’s Mike’s. I told him when he made it I think that’s the new rocky road. It’s absolutely amazing,” Casarez said.

Vegemite — “That’s our delivery driver’s idea. Everyone’s involved in this.”

Triple jalapeno — Three versions of the pepper are used: candied, roasted and dried.

Lox — “Salmon actually goes well with ice cream,” said Casarez. “(Lox) is cured and smoked and those flavors actually aren’t too hard to mix in to ice cream.”

Foie gras brandy — “Foie gras (fattened goose or duck liver) is just a beautiful piece of food, anyway,” he said. “Very flavorful, very fatty. All we’ve got to do is get a little taste of it in there.”

Some of the other flavors are wasabi sesame, avocado, strawberry Champagne, olive oil, honeycomb, lobster Newburg, pear walnut blue cheese, sweet onion, cucumber poppyseed, prune espresso (aka The Laxative), sweet ricotta pistachio, loaded hot dog, coconut curry and Pac-Man (cherries, strawberries, peaches, apples and melon).

Most of their ice creams are smooth; the chefs are more interested in incorporating the flavors than textures.

“We don’t do a lot of mix-ins,” Casarez said. “Ben and Jerry’s pretty much has that covered.”

Casarez swears the point is not to disgust people but to show them how the unexpected ingredients actually can produce a pleasant taste.

“We can talk about ice creams, but until you really taste them . . . It’s just going to open your mind to all the possibilities,” he said.

Record-breaking day is scheduled for July 17, 2011 — National Ice Cream Day. Per Guinness rules, all of the Casarez creations must be on hand for the Guinness representative to see; Casarez said they’ll probably make two pints of each for the occasion.

If you think this would be an interesting process to follow, you’re not the only one. Their friend Jeremy McGovern, another Pueblo native, was visiting from Los Angeles earlier this year when the Casarezes’ sister, Joie, told him about her brothers’ culinary adventure. McGovern, a filmmaker, decided to visit Black Hawk and quickly realized there was a story to be told.

“Jeremy said he wanted to pitch the idea to his (production) team and we said, ‘Great,’ ” said Casarez.

The result is, or will be, “Sweet Dreams,” a documentary chronicling the brothers’ attempt to break the record (see sidebar). McGovern isn’t surprised his buddies created this type of challenge for themselves and is thrilled that they did.

“Mike and Matt are overachievers and they’re in this little mountain town and have to entertain themselves somehow,” he said. “People love this stuff. It’s fun, not so heavy and dark.”

The Casarezes are focused now on expanding their list. It’s up to about 700, though not all of the flavors have been tested yet. Joie recently helped them organize all of their ice cream notes and recipes (more information for Guinness).

Now it’s on with the great dessert experiment. Who knows what tastes await them? Filet mignon, maybe? Sweet potato casserole? Turducken? The keys to this candy store are in their hands.

“Nothing is impossible,” said Casarez.

Originally Published in The Pueblo Chieftain