Three sweet new ice cream shops
The sun is shining in Sacramento and the promise of warmer weather is on the horizon. Ice cream season is officially underway. Whether you're in the mood for a cookie-stuffed scoop between a glazed donut or prefer vegan gelato with farmers' market strawberries, we've found three new ice cream shops in the region worth savoring.
Conscious Creamery
Husband-and-wife team Andrea and Kevin Seppinni launched this pop-up vegan gelateria in January and have begun taking their handmade scoops on the road to events around the region. Dispensing with the traditional eggs and cream used in the Italian ice cream, Conscious Creamery’s vegan gelato gets its velvety base from handmade cashew milk and organic cane sugar. Its creative flavors include staples like crystallized ginger with caramel, roasted banana and caffe latte, along with rotating seasonal scoops fashioned from fruit culled from Sacramento farmers’ markets, like pomegranate, Meyer lemon almond praline and mint stracciatella. During their 30th wedding anniversary trip to Eastern and Central Europe last year, a dairy-free ice cream shop in Vienna inspired the couple to return to California and launch their own vegan venture. Andrea, a Sacramento native who runs the blog PlantChef and teaches vegan cooking classes, says Concious Creamery is all about lessening its environmental footprint by using biodegradable cups and spoons and a generator-free gelato case. How’s that for guilt-free dessert? consciouscreamery.com
Niche Ice Cream
Orangevale resident Dima Tupchiy hopes to open The Niche in Folsom sometime this summer, to fulfill the “niche” market for the popular ice cream-donut sandwich. The shop will serve glazed donuts stuffed with Gunther’s ice cream (patrons can pick one of about a dozen flavors like Oreo, mint chocolate chip and a signature “Cookie Monster” flavor—a blue ice cream with various types of cookies mixed into it—and toppings that will include sweet treats like gummy bears, Nutella and breakfast cereals like Cap'n Crunch. Tupchiy will also introduce the ice cream-stuffed churro—a flat, round churro for which he created his own recipe after encountering the dessert on a trip to Southern California two years ago—at his new dessert destination, decorated in clean, neutral colors, with bench seating for about 20 people, and open late (10 p.m. or 11 p.m. on weeknights, and an hour later on Friday and Saturday). 25004 Blue Ravine Rd. instagram.com/thenicheicecream
The Good Scoop
This new Davis ice cream shop, which began its soft opening in late February, will hold its official grand opening celebration on Saturday, April 2 from noon to 4 p.m. Organized by Sacramento event planning gurus Unseen Heroes, the festivities will include free samples of Good Scoop’s ice cream (which comes from Berkeley’s Tara’s Organic Ice Cream and features flavors like beet balsamic, lavender, carrot cake and salted caramel) and ice cream sandwiches, as well as pizza from the Davis outpost of Hot Italian, which is also celebrating its grand opening and occupies a space around the corner on 1st Street. In between bites, youngsters can partake in activities like creating paper ice cream cones, as well as get outfitted with a twisted balloon animal or hat by Dilly Dally the clown. 130 G St. Davis. thegoodscoopdavis.com
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