{"id":28584,"date":"2011-12-24T13:06:18","date_gmt":"2011-12-24T11:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=28584"},"modified":"2011-12-28T22:17:29","modified_gmt":"2011-12-28T20:17:29","slug":"the-creamery-creaming-it-with-their-ice-creams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/cape-town\/the-creamery-creaming-it-with-their-ice-creams\/","title":{"rendered":"The Creamery: creaming it with their ice creams!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I first had a taste of the ice creams of The Creamery at a recent food market at The Baxter, meeting owner Kate Schrire and her manager Marianne Visser, both passionate advocates for their products. \u00a0Yesterday I went to visit them at their offices and kitchen in Mowbray, to get to know more about how they operate and to taste\u00a0their lovely creamy ice creams. Given their business principles and ethics, they are sure to cream it as they grow.<\/p>\n

Kate started The Creamery two months ago, being an ice cream lover, and having made her own ice cream at home, which her friends raved about when they tasted it. \u00a0Born in the UK, she has lived in this country for twenty years, and trained at the SA Chef’s Academy with Garth Stroebel. She spent four years in the USA, and worked for Alice Waters, a food activist, who created events to educate the public about how food works. \u00a0In Cape Town she joined Slow Food Cape Town and the Mother City branches, and serves on the committee of the latter. \u00a0She was a freelance journalist for Mail & Guardian<\/strong> and The Weekender<\/strong>, writing about indigenous\"\"<\/a> foods, but felt that she would rather like to be hands on with food, and joined the Sustainability Institute\u00a0outside Stellenbosch, connecting people to food suppliers. \u00a0Marianne worked for a film production company, and loves baking and cooking. \u00a0She said her new job ‘doesn’t feel like work’<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Kate wants to feel ‘ethically comfortable’<\/em> with what she eats and produces, and therefore decided to source her products from small family businesses in the Western Cape, for her high quality hand-made ice cream. The milk comes from the Kotze family’s Langrietvlei farm near Hopefield, previously supplying Parmalat, but they are one\u00a0of many farmers who had their contracts cut by this milk product\u00a0producer. \u00a0Reuben Kotze has started marketing his own maas, milk, and drinking yoghurt on the West Coast, and brings these products to The Creamery. \u00a0His mother is a honey producer, having supplied Pick ‘n Pay for 28 years already. Eggs come from Homegrown Eggs; chocolate from Cocoa Fair and coffee from Rosetta Roastery, both at the Old Biscuit Mill; Nowo Organics supplies\u00a0unsprayed strawberries, melons, and chocolate mint; and Kleinjongenskraal supplies\u00a0citrus, stone fruit and blackberries. \u00a0One of their new creations is a beer ice cream, using Darling Brew. \u00a0Mixing cream, milk, sugar and eggs they make a custard, to which they add a pinch of salt, infusing it with their flavour or ingredient, and then churn it for 8 minutes. \u00a0Kitchen waste is collected for composting, and they avoid using non-recyclable products, to minimise landfill waste.<\/p>\n

In the short time of the business’ life they have sold only at markets, and are active on Twitter. \u00a0Today they start with a stand at the Neighbourgoods Market at the Biscuit Mill for the first time, and recently started a pop-up shop on Wednesday afternoons at Starlings Caf\u00e9 in Claremont. \u00a0From 12 January they will be at the Earth Fair Market on St George’s Mall. They now have a Web Shop, and one can order and pay for the products via the website, and choose a collection point, being the offices in Mowbray, or at any of the markets at which they are at.<\/p>\n

Flavours which one can order are chocolate, vanilla, ginger, peanut butter, strawberry, and lemon. \u00a0I tried the lemon (made me think of my mom’s special lemon chiffon, and very refreshing), blackberries (beautiful rich purple colour, making it good for plating, but also very good taste), chocolate (very thick and rich, excellent), fresh ginger (I am not really a ginger fan, but a very unusual ice cream flavour, and probably excellent served with a tart), barley malt (the sweetest of the six I tasted, and a very pronounced flavour reminiscent of Horlicks), and Black Mist Stout (made from the Darling Brew beer, popular amongst the ladies too). \u00a0They are constantly looking for new ice cream flavours, and look to the USA for new ideas. \u00a0Having come from Frankie Fenner Meat Merchants to the Freeworld Design Centre Christmas Market, I had fun brainstorming meat ice creams with Kate, which the new meat retailer is interested in stocking. \u00a0They have also experimented with coriander seed, cardamon, and star anise spices for ice creams, but are still working on getting the flavour balances right. \u00a0Recently I tried their more unusual apricot kernel ice cream, and they told me about their honey, rosemary and peach ice cream. \u00a0New ice cream products are in the pipeline, including ice cream sandwiches and cakes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Creamery ice creams are sold in scoops at markets, and in 500 ml tubs via web orders, at R45. They are looking at doing a 200ml cup, for sale at specialist theatres such as The Fugard Theatre and Labia. \u00a0An Ice Cream Club is to be launched next month, a three month membership offering three tubs in seasonal flavours, with invitations to try new flavours and products. Kate said that they will keep it local and seasonal, making small batches, working with ‘little guys just like us’.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Creamery,<\/strong> 22A Waverley Business Park, Weymouth Road, Mowbray. \u00a0Tel 0722522225. \u00a0www.thecreamery.co.za<\/a> Twitter: @TheCreamerySA<\/p>\n

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com<\/a> Twitter:@WhaleCottage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I first had a taste of the ice creams of The Creamery at a recent food market at The Baxter, meeting owner Kate Schrire and her manager Marianne Visser, both passionate advocates for their products. \u00a0Yesterday I went to visit them at their offices and kitchen in Mowbray, to get to know more about how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[3,124,266,21],"tags":[2085,14447,32378,14453,8824,10228,13806,11530,12542,1462,14450,14455,14444,14451,3738,14448,14445,5970,14452,5954,957,14449,14454,14446,12815,12230,14443,14442,32373],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t