Editor’s Note: This story is a part of an occasional series celebrating the summer’s best desserts. While you’re here, get to know chelo chelo.
Pure Barry, says Graham Maclean, is Scottish slang for awesome or brilliant. And wrapping cotton candy around an ice cream cone is, indeed, pretty wild.
Maclean and his wife Karen, both from Scotland, own Dunbri’s Dessert Cafe. And because it’s a little hidden in a Haymarket strip mall, you may have missed the debut of the Pure Barry last year.
This mashup of state fair confections didn’t originate at Dunbri’s; Maclean remembers seeing it a few years ago in England, and hasn’t seen it exploded across the Atlantic, yet.
For Dunbri’s version, Maclean spins out a swirl of pink and blue cotton candy and then circles it around vanilla soft serve in a cone, and decorates it with rainbow sprinkles, rainbow mini-marshmallows and a strawberry wafer. This is the celebration version, with others decorated with Oreos, M&Ms and the like, from the toppings bar.
Cotton candy also seemingly floats above a milkshake, dubbed a cloud shake.
And, one day, Northern Virginia Foodies‘ Paul Tomaselli walked in and asked if Maclean could wrap cotton candy around ice cream for a makeshift burrito. It’s not on the menu, but you can ask for this concoction by name. // Dunbri’s Dessert Cafe: 6410 Trading Square, Haymarket
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