Custard-style ice cream served in Leander

With the tagline "Keep Leander Chunky," Chunky Cow Creamery owner Allen Lewis said he hopes to attract attention to his handcrafted ice cream flavors and array of dessert offerings.

The ice cream shop, which also sells milkshakes, malts, pies, birthday cakes, brownies and frozen yogurt, opened in Leander in April. Lewis said about 40 unique ice cream flavors such as Tropical Tease, Peanut Butter Sandwich and Pumpkin Pie—made without artificial ingredients, flavors or dyes—set Chunky Cow apart from similar businesses.

"When we make strawberry ice cream, it has a pinkish color to it. When you puree strawberries and work them into the custard, that's what you get," he said. "With my background as a chef, I'm pretty picky about what we make. We get lots of ideas, but I only make it if I think it sounds good."

Lewis said he makes batches of custard-style ice cream daily and in gallon-and-a-half portions to keep options fresh. The core ingredients are hand-selected by Lewis, he said, and hail almost entirely from Texas.

"I don't believe that the bottom of the ice cream, two weeks later, is going to taste as good as the top. This way, we serve it for a day or two, and then it's gone," he said. "We use Oak Farms [cream] because all of their cows are in Texas and our eggs are from Texas. I also have a secret supplier of honeycomb just down the road."

Guests can add unlimited toppings such as fruit slices, nuts, cereal, syrups, sprinkles and candy to their ice cream scoop for $1.50.

Brownies, cookies and pies, made by Lewis' wife, Ashley, can also be mixed in.

A variety of dairy-based frozen yogurt flavors made by Honey Hill Farm are available from machines on the wall.

"We do [sell] yogurt, but it's the ice cream that we are getting known for."

During the next two or three years, Lewis said he hopes to get pints of Chunky Cow Creamery ice cream into local grocery stores.

"Our philosophy is this store, and then we want to do wholesale. We have a few wholesale accounts, but going into next year, certainly getting into the H-E-Bs and Walmarts is our focus," he said. "This store is going into our first winter, so we will have to weather the storm for the next few months. This time next year when it starts slowing down again, we are really going to put that into motion. And when it gets to summer, we'll be booming."

Chunky Cow Creamery, 11880 W. Old FM 2243, Ste. 202, Leander, 512-259-1996, Hours: Mon—Thu. noon–8 p.m., Fri.–Sat. noon–9 p.m., www.facebook.com/chunkycowcreamery