It’s a wet, rather dark Chennai afternoon and while most folks in our city are checking on weather updates and pulling on monkey caps, I am happily digging into my second scoop of ice cream at SHMOOZIE’s. Kshama Adka’s (26) gourmet dessert venture launched a couple of months ago puts a new twist on this most beloved of desserts.
Bringing inventiveness and passion to her delicious range of ice creams, the MBA graduate turned food entrepreneur hand-crafts each distinctive flavour for her charming ice cream parlour every day. From her favorite ‘Backyard Mint Refresher’ to my favourite ‘Strawberried’ (made from fresh strawberries), Kshama tells us the secret to her recipe — “Is in the hard work we put in! We make everything from scratch here but the outcome is nothing short of bliss. We pasteurise our mix, cool it for hours and churn it the next day. Apart from the milk, cream, sugar all the flavourings are made in-house. The cookies, brownies, jams added in the ice cream are also made from scratch. You’d never find the same Butterscotch flavour anywhere else. We pot-boil our toffee sauce for more than six hours and it has made our Banoffee Pie Cream a top seller.”
Ice cream, she confesses, captured her imagination since she was a child. “I always dreamt of owning an ice cream truck. It fascinated me more than a lucrative white-collar job. Luckily, a baking stint for a friend and my family’s support gave me the courage to take the next step and start SHMOOZIE’s!” Kshama started experimenting two years ago, creating basic flavours like mint and butterscotch from scratch. “Just using fresh ingredients rather than using the artificial essence made the ice cream so fresh,” the Mangalore-born dessert aficionado tells us.
Her ice creams are vegetarian and devoid of artificial essence. Kshama often combines two, even three zesty flavours to ensure her ice cream’s truly distinctive taste like Ginger/Honey and Molasses and the Coffee/Almond and Cinnamon. We recommend a relaxed evening at her cosy ice-cream palour in Egmore, replete with puzzles, books and crayons, decorated with rustic, refurbished furniture and charming wall art, courtesy her friends and family.
No 3, Varadarajulu Street, Egmore. Prices start at Rs 100. For home delivery: 99401-14387