These local ice cream makers get straight to the pint: Jasmine Mangalaseril
Of many delicious icons — buttery corn on the cob, grilled kebabs, tangy-sweet strawberry-rhubarb pie — ice cream is the taste of summer for many.
Here in Waterloo region and Wellington County artisanal ice cream makers and small dairies allow more people to enjoy iconic and creative flavours while highlighting local ingredients, and revisiting nostalgic tastes.
Four All Ice Cream, Kitchener
Ajoah Mintah founded Four All Ice Cream in 2016, creating menus that offer plant-based options made with coconut milk, coconut oil and oat milk. Everything (including brownie chunks and cones) is gluten-free.
Mintah's chemical engineering background comes in handy when creating non-dairy ice creams.
Ajoah Mintah opened Four All Ice Cream eight years ago and uses her chemical engineering degree to help her create non-dairy options in the shop. (Jasmine Mangalaseril/CBC)
"In a great ice cream, you have to have a balance of fat, of sugar, of water, of solids," explained Mintah. "When broken down into components, what I realized was that I can get those components from other ingredients that are not dairy. So really, it's the science that really helps us make a great vegan ice cream."
Aura-La Pastries + Provisions, Kitchener
Owner Aura Hertzog said Aura-La uses locally-sourced ingredients, including fruits and herbs, and house made chocolate, cookies and mini kouign-amanns. And like Four All, they use Waterloo's Eby Manor Guernsey milk. It's an A2 milk, which many with dairy sensitivities find easier to digest.
Here, staff helps pick the flavours, allowing new flavours to appear regularly.
At Aura-La Pastries you can find a rotating offer of unique ice cream flavours created by the staff. "We really love giving our team the ability to suggest something,” says owner Aura Hertzog. (Jasmine Mangalaseril/CBC)
"We really love giving our team the ability to suggest something …We figure out how to make it and we're not stuck with a flavour for the next three months. If they're popular we can be switching them out almost every week," said Hertzog.
Kapow Ice Cream, Guelph
Pao Ming Lee started Kapow in 2021, a small-batch ice cream company. The kinesiologist turned ice cream maker sells her products from her ice cream-cycle in different spots around the city (live updates of where she will be can be found on her Instagram page), at the Guelph Farmers' Market, and online.
Many flavours are children's favourites; others are more sophisticated, like coffee-stout and black sesame. But her kulfi is nostalgic to her Kolkata upbringing.
Pao Ming Lee can be seen riding her Kapow ice cream-cycle around Guelph. Her small batch, handcrafted ice cream and popsicles come in unique flavours that are made with simple ingredients. (Jasmine Mangalaseril/CBC)
"I grind up the cardamom and saffron and let it steep overnight, so it really absorbs all the flavours," explained Lee. "I use rosebuds instead of rose (water), so it's not overpowering … I find that it imparts a really nice flavour. Subtle and not cloying."
Other local independent ice creameries- Mapleton's Organic Dairy – Mapleton
- No Udder (plant-based) – Cambridge (available at Flight Café, Galt)
- Scoop – Elora
- Two Farmers and a Cow – Elora (available at The Hive, Guelph)
- Udderly Ridiculous (goats milk ice cream) - Bright
The rocky (road) history of ice cream
For thousands of years, fruit and wine ices have been enjoyed around the world. Some Indigenous communities whipped berries, fat, and sweeteners with snow. Others made "Indigenous ice cream" (sxusem) from whipped soapberries.
Sorbetto, sorbet, and sherbet's origins can be traced to sharab, a Middle Eastern drink.
In Asia, Tang Dynasty (618 to 907) rulers had an ice milk made of fermented milk, rice, and flavourings and 16th Century Mughal rulers enjoyed kulfi.
Along with their handcrafted ice cream, Kapow also offers ice cream sandwiches like choux au craquelin with London Fog ice cream and kulfi, a traditional Indian ice cream. (Jasmine Mangalaseril/CBC)
Meanwhile, dairy ice cream didn't take hold in Europe until later, possibly because some in the 16th and 17th Centuries believed eating cold foods triggered blindness and heart attacks.
North America's temperance movement encouraged sober treats like ice cream sodas.
But the U.K.'s temperance movement portrayed Scottish ice cream shops as dens of iniquity.
About a century ago, etiquette dictated ladies do not lick ice cream cones in public.
The invisible ingredient
In 1893, William Neilson was Ontario's first wholesale ice cream maker. Within decades, his company became the British Empire's largest ice cream producer.
Ice cream sandwiches at Aura-La Pastries + Provisions (Jasmine Mangalaseril/CBC)
The University of Guelph offered its first ice cream technology short course in 1914, about the time when mechanical freezers allowed Canada's commercial ice cream industry to start.
Doug Goff, who's taught the course since 1987, explained how ice cream makers achieve that perfect creamy texture.
"[It] really comes from three different structural components," said Goff. "The fat gives us creaminess … If it wasn't for the air [incorporated during whipping], it would be hard frozen like an ice cube … A really good ice cream freezer is going to create very, very small ice crystals. You won't feel them in the mouth. All you'll feel is that cold creamy texture."
