Fresh Churned Ice Cream at Churned Creamery

If you purchase prepacked ice cream, you know what happens to it as it ages. The crystallization process sets in and, over time, the ice cream is no longer enjoyable to eat. I recently learned of Churned Creamery, an operation that makes real churned ice cream in very small batches.

Churned Creamery is located inside the Union Market at The District in Tustin. The District is one of Orange County’s hottest destinations for artisan food and goods. Inside The District is: Portola Coffee Roasters, Cubed, The Dirty Cookie and the Kettle Bar are some of the other businesses located there.

Approximately 14 state-of-the-art stainless steel machines had fresh ice cream or sorbet inside of them. Imported from Italy, these machines maintain a constant temperature and automatically start and stop to maintain optimum consistency of the ice cream.

Tasting the ice cream

Free samples of any of their ice cream, gelatos and sorbets are available for the asking. They also have bite size samples of their cones. The most interesting one is their Tahitian Black Vanilla cone. A single scoop is $4.50 and a double scoop is $6.50.

Milk shakes are made to order using the fresh churned ice cream. Customers can select up to three different flavors to create a milkshake.

That day’s flavors were: Chocolate Cocoa, Dolce Latte, Vanilla Bean, Italian Espresso, Green Mint, Nutella, Oreo, Reese’s Peanut Butter, Salted Butter Caramel and Taro. They also had sorbet flavors: Strawberry, Pineapple and Blood Orange. The ice cream was rich, smooth and creamy. I liked many of the flavors I tasted. My favorites: Salted Butter Caramel, Taro, Strawberry and Pineapple.

CroCream – fresh churned ice cream stuffed in a croissant

One of their more popular items is the CroCream, a Churned Creamery original. They take a freshly baked croissant that has been glazed in butter, split it vertically and stuff it with their freshly churned ice cream. Mine had taro ice cream drizzled with chocolate sauce and had almonds, oreos and jelly beans topping it. I was quite happy with the taste of my dessert.  

Churned Creamery is located inside the Union Market at the Tustin District. Nearby is popular Bill Barber Park and UC Irvine.

Churned Creamery has other locations in: Cypress, Irvine, Murietta and Canoga Park.

Churned Creamery, 2493 Park Ave #21, Tustin, CA 92782
http://www.churnedcreamery.com/