Milk’d brings small-batch, homemade ice cream to Baton Rouge

The first time Megan Howard sold ice cream to the public, she didn’t have much of a setup. 

She borrowed a tent and table from her brother, used a freezer from the kitchen she was renting and showed up to Hot Art Cool Nights with her gourmet, small-batch ice cream. 

“The only thing that I really had that was wholeheartedly mine was my ice cream, my recipes,” Howard says. 

Now, she’s working to turn her business Milk’d into something bigger. 

Howard started Milk’d after years of baking and working in restaurant kitchens. She currently works a 9-to-5 as an executive assistant at a healthcare clinic, making ice cream by night at CounterspaceBR, a local bakery that offers a shared commercial kitchen. 

Howard heads to CounterspaceBR around 7 p.m. and can stay until around 1 a.m., making batches of ice cream and other desserts. Because of her irregular hours, she says her family jokes that she’s Batman. 

Her interest in baking comes from her family. Her grandmother was the designated dessert maker for family holidays and get-togethers, while her mother made cakes on the side for extra money. After her grandmother passed, Howard and her sister went into her kitchen the next day and baked everything they could find. 

“That was very healing for me. It was kind of the first moment where I was like, ‘This feels right,’” she says. 

While she was in graduate school, Howard worked at Mansurs on the Boulevard, where executive chef Barrett Meeks asked if she would be interested in helping with desserts. The two eventually developed an ice cream to feature on the restaurant’s menu. 

There was one detail servers liked to tell customers about Howard’s ice cream: She couldn’t eat it herself. 

Howard is allergic to dairy, so she relies on smell and the occasional taste test from a friend when she’s unsure. She also says she’s always cooking with her grandmother in mind. 

“I’m in there, and I’m talking to my grandmother. I’m talking about football and my aunt Annie, and we are whipping up recipes together,” she says.

When Howard graduated from graduate school and moved on from Mansurs, she took her recipes with her. She started out making ice cream for friends and selling it through Instagram. As more people tried it, she began to wonder if it could become a real business. 

Customers can now order Milk’d through Instagram or through a request form on its website. Howard makes deliveries and is beginning to take on more private events, including dinners, weddings and business events. 

She has also held pop-ups at local businesses and events, including Cypress Coast Brewing Co. and CounterspaceBR.

The current fall menu features The Pumpkin Patch, a pumpkin spice ice cream with cheesecake chunks, and Bonfire Bash, a toasted marshmallow ice cream with chocolate chips and graham cracker pieces. 

The flavors often come from memories and familiar desserts. Her strawberry shortcake flavor is based on her grandmother’s recipe for homemade strawberry ice cream and shortcakes, which she named From Mawmaw’s Kitchen. Another coffee and beignet flavor is inspired by mornings spent getting coffee, milk and beignets from Coffee Call with her grandmother and father. 

She also enjoys taking classic desserts and giving them a different spin. Her Halloween flavor, Billy Loomis, is inspired by the horror franchise Scream, with cookies and cream and red velvet cake chunks. 

She once experimented with a Louisiana-inspired seafood boil ice cream, but the flavor did not make it past the kitchen. 

“It was definitely a miss. I guess some things just aren’t meant to be desserts, and that’s OK,” she says. 

For now, Milk’d is relatively small, with Howard balancing her full-time job. She typically features two or three flavors at a time and applies for vendor slots at local markets and events.

The Baton Rouge community has been especially welcoming for the business, with customers often asking what flavors she will make next. 

“I did not realize how vulnerable it was to have people try your food, but every time I serve someone a scoop, I linger to see their response,” she says. 

For Howard, Milk’d is more than selling ice cream. She hopes to make the business her full-time job and eventually open a brick-and-mortar store. But she also hopes to use the business to help other entrepreneurs get started and give back to the Baton Rouge community. 

“A year from now, I would definitely like to have booked a couple of weddings and maybe even have a steady business that comes to me for staff appreciation,” she says. 

Long term, she hopes Milk’d can become a community hub where other entrepreneurs can get their business off the ground, similar to how CounterspaceBR has been for her. 

“Baton Rouge is its home, and it will always be. Everything that this business will do is meant to help Baton Rouge and the community members in it,” she says.