“Ice cream kind of found me,” says Lokelani Alabanza, a Nashville-based pastry chef.

Growing up on the West Coast, Alabanza remembers hearing the sound of the ice cream truck, getting together her “couch money,” and running out to buy a Chaco Taco or strawberry shortcake bar (or the occasional Fudgesicle). Despite her love of the dessert, though, she never considered how it was made: “I had no idea people made ice cream. I had no idea that there were ice cream makers.”

Decades later, Alabanza has become an expert not only in the craft of making ice cream, but also in the role Black Americans played in shaping the treat’s evolution. All of that work comes together in her debut cookbook, Ice Cream Queen: Flavors from Black America’s Past, Present, & Future, which is out now.

Long before she became a cookbook author, Alabanza dreamed of becoming a chef, going to culinary school in Vermont. Yet the lack of Black representation in that world was glaring: “I didn’t see a lot of Black women being chefs when I was coming up,” she says.

Her culinary education omitted the work of Black culinary figures, which she began to seek out and study on her own, building a collection of first-edition cookbooks by authors like Edna Lewis, Dori Sanders, and Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones. “Toni Tipton-Martin’s The Jemima Code was a really big inspiration for me,” Alabanza adds, noting that she learned about the book from an episode of The Southern Foodways Alliance’s Gravy podcast.

After culinary school, Alabanza worked in the kitchens of Campanile and Grace, two influential Los Angeles restaurants, as well as in Japan and at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon in Las Vegas. Then, about 11 years ago, she moved to Nashville, where she became culinary director of a creamery and fell in love with ice cream as a vessel for flavor experimentation.

In 2018, Alabanza learned about Sarah Estell, a free Black woman who ran a successful ice cream saloon in Nashville in the 1840s and became known as the “Ice Cream Queen.” She felt connected to Estell, whose trailblazing legacy inspired Alabanza to continue looking into the history of Black America and ice cream. “Black hands have been touching this for centuries,” she says. “Ice cream became this perfect tool to tell a story about joy.”

In celebration of Juneteenth, here Alabanza shares a recipe from her new book.

Juneteenth Sorbet

Makes about 1 1⁄2 quarts

• 1 1⁄2 cups sugar
• 1 cup dried hibiscus flowers
• 1 1⁄2 pounds fresh or frozen raspberries
• 1 1⁄2 cups tapioca syrup or light corn syrup
• 1 1⁄4 cups fresh lime juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

On June 19, 1865, two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in the midst of the Civil War, Union army forces finally arrived in Galveston, Texas, to formally enforce it. Since then, Juneteenth has grown from a small celebration at Black Texan churches to a federal holiday. Among the many traditions associated with the holiday, like picnics, festivals, and even rodeos, the color red plays a very significant role, symbolizing the blood shed by the millions who were enslaved. At a Juneteenth celebration, you will find many versions of red foods and drinks, from red velvet cake to red whiskey. You’ll also find hibiscus tea, which has roots in the foodways of Western and Eastern Africa. Bissap, a common tea in Western Africa, features the boiled leaves of roselle, a type of hibiscus, and is both tangy and floral.

June is the peak month of berry season, especially raspberries. Pureeing the tart, bright berries makes a perfect sorbet base that pairs well with hibiscus—flavors for our past, present, and future.

In a small saucepan, combine the sugar and 4 cups water and bring to a boil over medium heat. Turn off the heat. Add the hibiscus flowers and steep for 15 minutes, then strain.

Working in batches as necessary, blend the raspberries and 1⁄4 cup water in a blender until smooth. Strain into a medium bowl and discard the seeds. Add 1 cup of the hibiscus syrup, the tapioca syrup, lime juice, vanilla paste, and salt. Whisk until combined.

Pour the mixture into an ice cream machine and follow the manufacturer’s instructions to freeze until the mixture thickens, 20 to 30 minutes depending on your machine.

Scoop the sorbet into a freezer-proof container. Cover with parchment paper or plastic wrap to prevent ice crystals from developing on the top of the sorbet and close with an airtight lid. Freeze for 4 to 6 hours or overnight before scooping.

Note: The leftover hibiscus syrup can be added to sparkling water or used to sweeten tea.

Excerpted from Ice Cream Queen: Flavors from Black America's Past, Present, & Future. Copyright © 2026 by Lokelani Alabanza. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.