Ruru Baked, a small-batch specialty ice cream shop, brings fun and unique flavours to the traditional frozen treat.

Founder Luanne Ronquillo opened the Bloordale location in January 2021 after finding much success doing pop-ups and online deliveries. Their second location opened in April 2023 at Pacific Mall.

Much of that success can be largely attributed to the ice cream, which is unlike anything you would find on the grocery store shelf.

"We specialize in a French-style custard, which uses egg yolk. So the egg yolks act as the stabilizer and the emulsifier. So it just gives the ice cream a nice, rich, dense, sort of mouthfeel," Ronquillo expertly explained.

Compared to the custard base, American (or Philadelphia-style) ice cream has a much more icy and coarser consistency as it's made with milk, sugar, cream and relies on added stabilizers.

Another factor I learned key to the ice cream making process is the amount of air incorporated.

"American ice cream has about 100 per cent or more air turned into it, so you end up eating a lot of air, whereas gelato is turned anywhere from 12-30 per cent. Our ice cream is around 22 per cent.”

And you can easily spot and taste the difference - Ruru Baked ice cream has a soft, spreadable consistency of gelato with the decadent, creamy, and satisfying taste of the custard base.

The ice cream is produced in small batches in-house to ensure every scoop is of the highest quality. Each tub and pint is hand-filled with a generous amount of freshly baked mix-ins and layers. This process also allows for greater versatility when it comes to flavour.

Tired of always being met with the same classics like mint chip and bubblegum and underwhelmed by the lack of Asian ice cream flavours in the city, Ronquillo sought to create new and exciting flavour combinations herself.

Ruru Baked has over 80 distinct flavours. About 12-14 flavours are featured weekly on their rotating daily menu.

Popular tried and true flavours include Banoffee Pie, Viet Coffee, Vegan Tofu Fa, Burnt Honey and Cornbread, and Super Baked.

Banoffee Pie, inspired by the British dessert and Ronquillo's time spent living in London, is made with overripe bananas, caramel, and crunchy graham cracker crumble. It's a heavenly combination that tastes like banana bread and was my personal favourite. It's so good you'll want to keep a pint in your freezer ($14).

Burnt Honey and Cornbread is a sweet and savoury flavour with pure sweet honey and big chunks of nutty, tender cornbread throughout ($6).

Another favourite was the Matcha and Shortbread, infused with the popular green tea without the usual bitterness. This was sampled alongside Cookie Butter, a sweet, slightly spicy ice cream made with Biscoff cookie chunks, that truly tasted as smooth as butter. It's a great flavour to mix and match with (2 for $9).

You could also never go wrong with a scoop of the deeply nutty, slightly sweet Black Sesame ($6).

Surprisingly, Ronquillo's favourite ice cream isn't even ice cream, but the grapefruit sorbet.

"The grapefruit is just so light and refreshing, and I love citrus," she laughed. But that's not to say she doesn’t love all the dairy flavours, with Sea Salt and Gianduja being a top contender.

To come up with new flavours, the team at Ruru Baked will often pick a day once a year to pitch new ideas, and then select a few to test, get feedback on, and test again.

If you're a regular customer, you might have the chance to even frequent one of the shop's coveted tasting parties.

Ronquillo's last tasting party saw 120 people show up to the Lansdowne store to taste, try, and gather. The guest list was composed of all their highly valued top customers, family and friends, and a few lucky giveaway winners from Instagram.

If ice cream isn't what you're craving, Ruru Baked also sells several baked sweets - including Hawaiian butter mochi, cheddar scallion scone, brown butter Skor sea salt cookies, or sticky toffee cake.

Although the sticky toffee cake with caramel sauce ($5) is definitely something you should get with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. Warm, fluffy, moist, and made with traditional chopped dates, it pairs perfectly with classic vanilla bean.

You can also choose from a wide selection of toppings to customize their dessert ($0.50) with options such as sprinkles, Oreo crumbs, sponge toffee, pecans, candied cornflakes, caramel sauce, or cocoa sauce.

While there are so many flavours to choose from, Ronquillo's tried to design the space in a way that helps customers make a decision.

Unlike a traditional ice cream shop where you might see the flavours behind a glass display, all the ice cream is hidden behind the counter, so it's less overwhelming.

If after reading the daily menu of scoop flavours, you're still unsure of what to get, just ask for a recommendation!

This also keeps things efficient, which is perfect for those looking to grab and go.

But if you want to stay a while, there's bar seating along the front window, where you can watch the team go to work preparing new batches in the industrial-sized kitchen.

Ruru Baked has endless flavours of creamy, cold scoops to try. They are also working on ice cream cakes.

Ruru Baked is located at 659 Lansdowne Ave. just south of Bloor.