April 19, 2021
Well-made Ice creams also melt well and their flavours don’t dissolve into a watery sludge, dismissing doubts about ingredient quality. It is simply good old ice cream; not a refined-oil-infused frozen dessert. Right now, the ice creams that are being talked about are churned in the kitchens of home chefs and packed in small batches by brands that took off during the pandemic.
One examples is Ritu and Mridu Gupta, a mother-daughter duo from Gurugram, Haryana, started MG’s Homemade Ice Cream last year. During the lockdown, they began to experiment with food and then started tinkering with ice-cream recipes too. After several trials, they got a basic recipe right. Tentatively, they shared it with neighbours. It was an instant hit. Flavours like coffee Bailey’s liqueur, rich Belgian chocolate, and the winter special, orange, and rum, were all lapped up. For Diwali, they launched ice-cream hampers. This month, they introduced fresh berry flavours.
Their popularity can be attributed to several factors—home-made, preservative-free, unique flavours. But Ritu also unknowingly tapped into a prevailing sentiment during the lockdown—boredom. Their ice creams offered a break from the lockdown-induced ennui. This, coupled with the promise of “safe” food, is a recipe for success as the world grapples with a global health crisis.
In Bengaluru, Omm Nom Nomm offers premium, French-style handcrafted ice creams. A classic French version has a custard base of milk and eggs that holds the elements together. These ingredients function like stabilizers and emulsifiers. Omm Nom Nomm intended to go completely natural. With the custardy base of eggs, milk, cream, and sugar, they add compote, cookies or brownies made in-house. With ice creams like south Indian kaapi with Belgian couverture chocolate, wild berry cheesecake and banana caramel butter crunch, their menu spells indulgence.
The small-batch ice-cream brand was launched in January 2020 by the husband-wife duo of Patros Kuruvilla and Cyndia Thomas. Instead of starting it from a home kitchen, they opened a manufacturing unit and considered starting a parlour. But then the lockdown was announced and they adopted a delivery-only model when restrictions were eased. Despite the initial fear of people avoiding ice creams to prevent colds, however, demand soared when home deliveries were allowed. At the time, a lot of the restaurants were closed or were offering limited menus. Omm Nom Nomm, listed on Swiggy, had a wide playing field.
In Mumbai, Farah Ladhabhoy follows a similar formula—small batch and unique flavours. Her ice-cream brand, The Burrow, has just three options: cinder toffee, salted caramel, and chocolate. She has a full-time job in an advertising design firm, and whipping up desserts is a hobby. Once restrictions eased last year, she started sharing her cakes, cookies, and ice creams with friends. Buoyed by their encouragement, she launched her ice-cream label in November from her home kitchen. Her ice creams retail at ₹500 for 500ml.
Timing, as they say, is everything and for small-batch, ice-cream production uses churners of varying capacities: “Commercially manufactured ice cream uses a continuous process manufacturing unit that usually does a few hundred litres at a time. Small batch machines do anywhere between half a litres to 20 litres at a time on average. They offer 19 flavours, at prices starting from ₹265 for 200ml.