Even though they’re made at Somerville’s Forge, the frozen treats Café Da Latte, Cinnamon Maple Sugah, Golden Turmeric Milk and Strawberry Fleur Forever are available only from a small freezer by the door of Cambridge’s Curio Spice shop – the provider of the flavors that make these cups and cookie sandwiches not ice creams, but (sp)ice creams. (Also, one is a nondairy sorbet.)
Curio has many partnerships and products with local businesses (Sofra Molasses Cookie Sugar, for instance, is a collaboration with Ana Sortun’s Sofra bakery that’s useful in many ways: in baking, as a flavoring in hot drinks or sprinkled on oatmeal); the spice creams were concocted out of a yearslong relationship with Forge to draw attention to encourage customers to think about fun ways spices can be incorporated into less obvious foods, said Jana Amin, the events and programming lead at Curio, during a visit to the shop Aug. 27.
“These have been in the process of being developed for months now – and we actually just got our second two flavors this past week, because it took so long to to get the formula right,” Amin said. “We wanted to make sure that you could taste the spice but that it wasn’t overwhelming. And we we spent some time too experimenting with various mix-ins, because it’s always fun to have a little crunch.”
The spice cream and sorbet flavors at Curio are friendly to a lot of taste buds, Amin said:
Café Da Latte: The key here is Da Lat Spice, a blend of Vietnamese coffee and cacao nibs that complements the ice cream’s chocolate chunks.
Cinnamon Maple Sugah: A transitional flavor to take summer into fall that’s made with the shop’s Cinnamon Maple Sugar blend, already “super popular, especially for baking.”
Golden Turmeric Milk: “A very Cambridge style of ice cream flavor.” It relies on a top-selling Curio blend used for turmeric-infused milk – an ancient Indian soothing remedy people call golden milk – that plays well with the crystallized ginger in the ice cream. “Turmeric milk is something you might gravitate toward on one of the snowiest days in Boston, but in ice cream form, it’s really nice on summer evenings too.”
Strawberry Fleur Forever: A very pink sorbet – its base is strawberry and rhubarb – infused with Fleur, a signature blend unusual at Curio in that doesn’t gesture toward a specific place and is instead a combination of floral spices founder Claire Cheney came across while traveling the world. It’s a newer option in the freezer, the product of customer reaction to the initial round of spice creams. “There were so many folks asking us for a dairy-free option,” Amin said.
Whether by word of mouth, a sign outside the store or because the area is primed for bespoke frozen desserts – about a block away is Momma’s Grocery + Wine, which sells a cultishly adored maple creemee soft serve out of a sidewalk window – the spice creams draw customers. “It’s fun to be able to offer people something different seasonally, and it’s been cool seeing even kids come in and ask for a Cinnamon Maple Sugah,” Amin said. “I, for one, have had the Da Latte ice cream far too many times for lunch because it’s just so good.”
“What’s even more special is that this collaboration is between two very mission-driven food establishments,” Amin said. “What makes us the proudest and the happiest at Curio is seeing people enjoy spices that have been cultivated by mostly women around the world,” and Curio and Forge are Cambridge and Somerville businesses led by women.
The spice creams are $4.95 for a scoop or $9.95 for a cookie sandwich, and may be available only for another month or two. “This came about because it’s summer,” Amin said. “We were really excited to offer folks something cold, just a nice little treat in these hot months.”
Curio Spice Co., 2265 Massachusetts Ave., North Cambridge
