Someone Pinch Me: My Ice Cream Collaboration with Salt & Straw Is Out!

A masa-thickened ice cream, and one inspired by a jammy tamal

Never in a million years that I think I’d have my very own ice cream flavor. Let alone two ice cream flavors.

The cherry on top? Made in collaboration with my favorite ice cream shop of all time: Salt & Straw from Portland, OR.

Someone.

Pinch.

Me.

Here for your ice-cream-loving hearts, I made these two spirited flavors in honor of Día de Muertos:

Chocolate Champurrado with Sesame Toffee

Honoring Mexico’s rich cacao tradition, we brewed a delicate, spiced champurrado using Portland’s own bean-to-bar Cloudforest chocolate and then thickened it with masa. The champurrado ice cream is then showered with shards of palanqueta de ajonjolí (traditional Mexican-style sesame toffee). The crunchy toffee makes it a real textural celebration that blows up with skull-popping fireworks.

Blackberry & Masa Tamal Sherbet (v)  

One half masa coconut cream sherbet, one half juicy marionberry sherbet, this tasty treat is a tribute to Michoacán’s tamal from the Purépecha region. It is all vegan, creamy, and simply delicious. Look at those jammy swirls!

If you know me, you know Portland is my former home and where I first landed in the U.S. when I immigrated from Mexico. It was fate, destiny, and pure magic that I ended up in the city “where young people go to retire” as Portlandia famously nicknamed the city. Portland is where my curiosity for food turned into passion and led me to change the course of my life forever. It was in Portland where I crossed paths with Tyler Malek, the mastermind and the heart behind Salt & Straw.

We were both creating flavors and developing recipes at a sterile food innovation laboratory. I was conducting sensory testing and large-scale taste tests for anything in the range of vegan granola bars and the preferred diet for hamachi raised in Hawaii (nothing to see here, just nerding out), while Tyler was creating the first flavors for what would be one of Oprah’s ice cream picks, and ok ok ok, one of the best ice cream brands in the country.

My signature Dia de Muertos flavors will be available as a part of Salt & Straw’s October series, which is available from September 29 – November 3, in all shops, for local delivery and pickup through third-party delivery apps or through their website, and for nationwide shipping here. Follow Salt & Straw on Instagram for special news on these spirited flavors.

It’s not lost on me that Dia de Muertos is a sacred celebration and I hope that this ice cream layered with the traditional flavors found in ofrendas guides you to celebrate it in your own special way.

Gracias Tyler and Kim, David Briggs, and the entire Salt & Straw team for making this collaboration an absolute dream, but most importantly, for joining me in honoring this tradition.

P.S. Subscribe to get the recipes for my upcoming newsletter drops inspired by these ice cream flavors that I conjured for you.

xoxo

The Blackberry & Masa Tamal Sherbet (v). Photo Credit: Salt & Straw

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