Bring on the Brûlée

Torched Goodness owner Julia Ireland spent most of her life living on the coasts—in Los Angeles and New York—before moving inland to Phoenix, Arizona. There, she founded the city’s first gourmet food truck in 2010, which was an immediate success. The next logical step—Eudora, Kansas. A decade later, Ireland is eager for Torched Goodness’ 6th year based here.

“Moving to Eudora was a beautiful fluke,” she says. “I was ready to have seasons again, and the only place I had not lived was the Midwest.” The area also caught her eye thanks to its combination of small town charm and proximity to Kansas City.

The food truck is best-known for its crème brûlée, a decadent dish of custard topped with caramelized sugar, torched to perfection just before serving. It’s just as popular here as it was in Phoenix: in 2019, The Food Network listed Torched Goodness as the best food truck in Kansas.

When Ireland started the business, she wanted to make this luxurious treat accessible to anyone. “It was something high-end, only from a fancy restaurant. You can’t just go in and ask for a crème brûlée—you’re going to be in for a $50 meal just to get to dessert,” she explains. So she bought a truck and brought it to the streets.

The torching process also adds a touch of visual and olfactory spectacle to the events Ireland serves. “I had the thought of weddings in the back of my head … You don’t get to enjoy the process in a restaurant, to see someone standing there torching it.”

With food truck season running from April through October in the Midwest, Ireland and her partner, Andrew Sexton, had to branch into new ways to serve her sweet and savory goods year round. The catering side of Torched Goodness expanded quickly. “We serve lots of weddings, bridal showers, baby showers, and yearly galas,” Ireland says.

She’s also forged relationships with many local groups with her catering services, often providing food for the City of Eudora, the school district, the fire department, the Eudora Chamber of Commerce, and other community pillars. “That’s what makes this fun for me; it’s different every day,” Ireland says.

Having extra time in the offseason also spurred her to plan a fixed location for Torched Goodness in addition to the food truck—but she had to wait to make it a reality. “I kept looking at 826 Main Street, thinking that would be perfect, and I missed it the first time.” In 2017, she finally got her chance to lease the building.

The allure of freshly caramelized crème brûlée is enough to keep the team behind Torched Goodness busy year after year, but they’re not ready to rest on their laurels. Owner Julia Ireland’s partner, Andrew Sexton, innovates to keep to the business moving forward. “Andrew takes what I already do and makes it better. He is a whiz at techie stuff and does the Torched Goodness website, marketing, design of promotional materials, and is an integral part of building out the new food truck,” Ireland says. Together, they’ve dreamed up more novel ways to have dessert, such as the donut wall and build-your-own s’mores station, which Sexton built last winter. The donut wall is an aesthetically pleasing display of donuts, offering a nice decorative touch without sparing any sugar output. The s’mores station has everything for a hands-on s’mores-building experience. “It has a nostalgia to it—guys love it,” Ireland says.

The kitchen, offering carry-out dinner and desserts, is open on Wednesday nights. “It’s been very well supported—Eudora wants real food,” Ireland says. Hand pies, pot pies, family dinners—and crème brûlée, of course—are hot sellers. The family lasagna is Eudora’s favorite; Bible study groups often order three or four at a time for their midweek meetings. Once, Ireland received a call-in order for a lasagna dinner from one charitable resident so a family in need could pick it up.

But she is also expanding the local palate: “I have a lot of people who will try salads with farro, wheat berries, quinoa—things people aren’t as familiar with here, and they’ll say, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so good,’” she says.

On a typical Wednesday night, about 50 people come through for dinner orders, plus another dozen just for dessert. “I have people that come in every week just for the crème brûlée. Families from Olathe and Lawrence, college girls from Lawrence,” Ireland says. She also serves many regulars at the Lawrence Farmers’ Market, where she gets all of her local fruit and vegetables during the growing season. She also sources some of her eggs from local farmers in Linwood. “If I can get it local, I do, because it’s a better product, and I like supporting local farmers,” she says.

Wednesday nights have been so popular that Ireland plans to open the kitchen on Main Street a second night each week. She recently hired her first employee, a Eudora stay-at-home mom, to help handle the increased baking load. Ireland is excited to grow Torched Goodness’ presence in the community and make healthy food choice more available. Once available only in upscale restaurants, crème brûlée has found a home here in Eudora—but don't forget the salad.

In the 2020 season, Torched Goodness’ crème brûlée will be more mobile than ever. The original food truck, a 1974 Chevy box truck, will be upgraded to a new Dodge Ram ProMaster van. “It’s going to be modern,” owner Julia Ireland says. The ProMaster features more refrigeration space, better fuel efficiency, and a layout better suited to frenetic custard torching. On the first Saturday in May at the Kansas Food Truck Festival, the Torched Goodness truck can serve as many as 1,400–1,500 crème brûlées over the course of four hours—that’s roughly one every 10 seconds.

Torched Goodness cooks up a plethora of crème brûlée flavors, such as:

• Chocolate Peanut Butter • Pumpkin Spice • Root Beer Float • Orange Blossom • Raspberry • Cherry

The most popular, though, is sea salt caramel. “It’s been the #1 flavor for all 11 years,” owner Julia Ireland says.

From top left: The original Torched Goodness truck has served Julia Ireland and Andrew Sexton well, but they'll be upgrading this year; a kiss of flame caramelizes the tops of crème brûlées; Ireland will soon open her kitchen at 826 Main Street beyond Wednesday nights.