THE weather can really be confusing. One wakes up in the morning and in just a matter of hours, the sun's rays can be too much on the skin. It lasts until the afternoon and come nighttime, a strong rain lulls us to sleep. It's no longer accurate to declare a dry season from a wet season.
But while we're in the talks on the hot weather almost every morning, let me interest you with the local ice cream brands in Davao City that I have stumbled upon on Facebook.
Blush Ice Cream
What started out as a hobby of making ice cream for their own personal consumption in the second quarter of 2019 has branched out into a full-blown local business. Jenna Mae San Luis is a Food Technology graduate who found a way to make ice creams as a healthier alternative.
"Blush Ice Creams are not as sweet as the regular brands. The current sweetness level is what my family wants. Most of the flavors we have are my favorite flavors. Of course, I am making products that I like to consume. Others were made through research and benchmarking," said Jenna, who also said they have keto ice cream for people who are more conscious of what they consume.
Other flavors they have available are chocolate, cookies and cream, coffee, cheesecake ice cream, peppermint, and strawberries. Most of the flavors she succeeded making were products of experimentation, trial and error, and suggestions from family and friends.
"Later on, I got special requests on milk, sugar, and cream content. I get to know their diet restrictions. I wanted to satisfy their ice cream cravings, that's why I am offering customized products," she said.
The Signature
This young ice cream business of Jim Claveria Mara only started in the middle of this pandemic. He saw the quarantine as an opportunity to explore and create a homegrown product for easy consumption. He decided to call his ice cream business "The Signature" after the name of his personal blog he started in 2014.
"I started through a series of practices of our very own ice cream mixture. We've had 15 to 20 attempts on making the best mixture until we came up with the final one. We also tried various ingredients and applied several techniques in order to make the luscious ice cream mixture that we are now selling," said Jim, who also has a full-time day job in a bank and who sees the ice cream business as a stress reliever and an extra source of income.
Jim, who values the importance of homemade and using local products, offers durian flavored ice cream. They also partnered with local businesses producing tablea as they offer chocolate-flavored ice cream. They also have mango, cookies and cream, strawberry, and ube.
"As they say, nothing beats a classic ice cream flavor. It's simple to make and always a default option," said Jim.
Maura Shore Creamery
I've written about and tasted their ice cream many times already. This family ice cream business started in January 2019 by the youngest in the So family, Joshua Lim So, who is also a writer by profession. His love and interest for the kitchen was seen more with the flavors he was able to whip and successfully come up with for the family and eventually for their friends and customers. Now, the business is being helped run by his siblings and mother.
Maura Shore Creamery prides itself on the different premium flavors that Joshua experimented on through trial and error and taste test with the family and friends.
"He used to experiment with apple and yoghurt. There was a melon-flavored ice cream. We give feedback. There were a lot of experiments. He had a laptop in the kitchen to jot down notes as he goes," Jocy So-Yeung, his sister, shared in a previous interview.
Now, their ice cream comes in different flavors as Brown Butter Pecan, Milk & Cookies, Revel Bar, Fudge & Cashews in Banana, Earl Grey with Pound Cake, Vanilla Bean, Mango Float, Coldbrew Coffee, and Cookie Dough.
Manila Creamery Davao
This ice cream business was started out by friends Paolo Reyes and Jason Go who were based in Manila. Randomly talking of what they might want to pursue after graduation, the two eventually came up with a gelato business. They started with experimenting recipes from an ice cream which fueled their passion for ice cream making. They took it more seriously and studied in Italy to learn to make authentic gelato.
"Bringing Manila Creamery to Davao is part of our mission to make our gelato accessible to all Filipinos. We started our company five years ago during a time where imported goods were perceived to be better than local ones. It's one of the reasons why we wanted to name our brand with a direct name that you can associate right away with Filipinos. We felt this is our way of doing our part and having purpose as a business," said Jason.
Sticking to their goal of supporting local and promoting Filipino food, they came up with ice cream flavors that are uniquely Filipino like Mangga't Suman, Mango Float, Salted Egg Cheesecake, Roasted Milk & Cookies, and Tinutong na Kanin among others.
First impression on the Tinutong na Kanin flavor? WAAAT? For someone who's crazy for tinutong na kanin, I'm curious.
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