Udder Delights is an up-and-coming Gilbert ice cream shop looking to expand its dessert menu. Tracy Dempsey is perhaps the Valley’s best-known pastry chef and has a few months of free time on her hands.

A perfect match? Udder Delights co-owner Casey Stechnij (pictured above) thinks so.

When he heard Dempsey recently left her position with Peter Kasperski’s Old Town Scottsdale restaurant group (Cowboy Ciao, Digestif and Kazimierz World Wine Bar), he contacted her.

For Dempsey, the timing was perfect. She plans to open her own dessert restaurant, Galette, by the end of the year. In the meantime, though, she was looking for a challenge.

The idea is for Dempsey (pictured left at Digestif) to develop what Stechnij calls a “tapas-style dessert bar” menu to complement the two dozen homemade ice creams at Udder Delights.

“We’re talking about playful twists on some of the classics,” says Dempsey, who will unveil her first few creations at the store this weekend.

Over the next few months, she will experiment with a number of dishes, the best of which eventually will be incorporated into the permanent menu.

Dempsey has a lot to work with. The shop offers such ice cream flavors (pictured below) as its best-selling white birthday cake, blueberry muffin, banana cream pie and even potato chip.

“I call Udder Delights a flavor laboratory,” says Stechnij.

The Gilbert native splits his time between the strip-mall shop, which he opened in 2007 with friend Sherene Robinson, and Superstition Farm, his family’s dairy operation in southeast Mesa.

Stechnij and the farm are actively involved in the Valley’s slow food movement emphasizing locally produced meats, produce and dairy products.

Udder Delights, Stechnij says, just got approval to make its own butter and cheeses, which will be available soon.

The opportunity to build on her relationships with the local-food community was a draw for Dempsey, who hopes to stay involved with Udder Delights after her own restaurant opens.

In the meantime?

“I see it being my obsession for a couple of months,” she says.

After five years of creating some of the best-known and complex  desserts in Scottsdale, Dempsey is excited about trying to invent simpler but just as delicious dishes that will appeal to families and children in the southeast Valley.

“It’s not that different,” she says. “It’s just tailoring a menu to meet the needs of the concept and the demographics.

“It’s a good challenge to see if I can do this and still be ‘Tracy.’”

Udder Delights
Where: 1385 E. Warner Road, Gilbert (southwest corner of Warner and Val Vista Drive)
Open: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday
Prices: Single-scoop cone $3.50, pints $5.99, quarts $7.99
Info: (480) 507-3859 or udderdelightsaz.com