How videos during lockdown went viral on Tik Tok and led to upturn in ice cream sales and a cookery book deal for Barnsley mum and daughter team

“We fell in love with the concept and realised that there was hardly anything like this available in the UK,” says Charlie.

Her mum Janine was dissatisfied with her job, and Charlie had no real idea what she wanted to do whilst at college.

"So we made the decision to venture into business together as a mother-daughter team.”

They ordered an ice cream pan machine from China and dedicated countless hours at home in the kitchen to master the art of creating ice cream rolls. “We were very naive and had no real idea what we were doing. We spent hours trying to figure out how to make then – it was a lot more difficult than we imagined,” says Charlie.

"After persistent efforts, we succeeded in creating the recipe, and "Ice Queenz" was born." The following summer they took our ice cream rolls on tour. "From visiting different food festivals, we brought Ice Queenz to customers all across the UK, including our home town in Barnsley. My mum and dad have worked on Barnsley Market all my life so it just seemed like the perfect place.”

Their mobile success made them realise they needed a more permanent home for their business in Barnsley and so they move into a large unit "We didn’t really think it through,” adds Janine. “It was a big learning curve.”

They quickly realised they needed to expand their offering.

“We knew we couldn’t just have a shop selling ice cream rolls in the middle of Barnsley, in winter. So we decided to include other desserts such as waffles, crepes and cookie dough along with coffees and milkshakes,” explains Charlie.

"However, as time went on, we realised that ice cream rolls weren’t quite the right fit – they were so time consuming to make and the brand as a whole felt kind of childish we wanted to move the business towards a new direction.”

So they went on a course to master the art of making gelato and fell in love with it.

"With this newfound passion, we made the decision to transition from ice cream rolls to gelato and it’s the best decision we ever made.”

“Again we were a bit naive,” says Janine, “We had a tiny machine on a table top making one pan at a time As that’s all we could afford to do.” They also decided that with the change of direction they needed a rebrand and Dolly’s Desserts was born names after the family’s beloved pet cockapoo Dolly.

And their timing couldn’t have been better as Barnsley Town Centre started construction on the new Market Kitchen.

"Seizing the opportunity, we opened the first Dolly’s Desserts location. We closed down our Ice Queenz location and opened a pop-up style kiosk style location in the market kitchen, along with other independents serving up food from all over the world. This is where our passion for baking was sparked."

They started by buying baked goods to supplement their gelato offering but this perfection driven couple were never 100 per cent happy and so decided to start baking in their kitchen at home.

Janine worked tirelessly tweaking and perfecting the brownie recipe until she was happy with it. “Mum’s brownies were a huge hit with our customers we sold out every week,” says Charlie.

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However, just as the new business started to fly Covid struck and they were forced to close their doors, indefinitely. Like so many small businesses, there was uncertainty of what the future would hold for Dolly’s Desserts.

It was during this time that Charlie decided to try out using social media – in particular TikTok – posting videos of their bakes and desserts.

"I knew nothing about marketing. It was never the intention to promote the business I just liked making the videos. I had no idea that a few videos could get such a following,” says Charlie whose videos went viral and gathered Dolly’s Dessert more than a million followers on the platform.

When restrictions eased and businesses could offer takeaway services, Charlie shared behind-the-scenes glimpses of their desserts and the inner workings of the business.

“When we could reopen properly people from all corners of the UK were flocking to our store to try our treats for themselves having seen them on TikTok. We just got more and more popular.”

As their social media presence continued to grow and the shop became increasingly busy, they decided they needed to reach even more people by selling online and so they developed a range of cookie dough and other baking kits. This has expanded into a TikTok shop which also sells their ice cream sauces and bakes.

But, as demand grew, they started to outgrow their home kitchen. With Barnsley’s brand new Glass Works refurbishment taking place, it was clear that the natural next step would be to open their very own sit down store. And in December 2022, just a week before Christmas, they opened the doors and have never looked back. The premises is over two floors, including a kitchen and bakery, and a cafe with a cabinet selling 36 different flavours of gelato all made on site. “Barnsley people like ice cream,” says Janine.

They make all the gelato and bakes on site – although Janine can still be found experimenting from home – employ more than 20 staff and now have their own cookery book.

With seven chapters of recipes, Dolly’s Desserts is a celebration of everything sweet; from chocoholics to fruit fiends, there’s something for everyone. The book has recipes for all the classics, such as Sticky Toffee Pudding and Shortbread, but also has loads for those who are looking for something new including Janine’s Brownie recipe.

"People had been asking us for our recipes on every single video and I had wanted to do a cookery book for a while and so when we were approached by Meze (publishing) we jumped at the chance.

So what is the best seller? “Vanilla still seems to come out top but with the large number of families we get in here bubble gum is proving really popular with children,” says Janine. As for Charlie her favourite is Nutella. They are constantly developing new seasonal flavours including mince pie and sticky toffee pudding.

Janine and Charlie may have seen a whirlwind success but they never sit on their laurels. “I don’t think we’ll ever sit here and think we are super successful as we are so critical of ourselves – we always feel we could be doing better,” says Charlie.

Dolly’s Desserts £25 is available to purchase from www.mezepublishing.co.uk as well as bookshops including Waterstones, and Amazon.