Almost everyone has screamed for ice cream at some point in their lives.
Dominque “Dom” Airington and Alejandra “AJ” Zorrivas love ice cream so much that they traded their graduation trip for a $1,000 ice cream machine and created Ice Creamed Myself, a company that aims to provide vegan and dairy-based frozen desserts that are made from scratch.
Airington and Zorrivas met at El Paso Community College’s culinary program and fell in love with making ice cream. “Whenever we would make ice cream in class, I was like ‘Yes, this is it. This is so fun,’” Zorrivas said.
Ice cream allows the duo to be creative and express their artistic abilities.
“Ice cream is such a blank canvas that it allows us to do so many things with the flavors,” Airington said.
The two worked at a franchise ice cream store so they could learn how to run their own business for about a year, and worked at a local bakery shortly after for another year.
“It allowed us to figure out that (baking) is not where we wanted to take our culinary career,” Airington said. “(Frozen desserts) alleviate us from being in a hot kitchen and baking.”
“I don’t have to make a chocolate cake, I can make chocolate cake ice cream,” Zorrivas added.
In 2014, the duo sold their first batch of ice cream outside at a grocery store parking lot. Now, the owners of Ice Creamed Myself sell their products at several local farmers markets including the Downtown Art and Farmers Market and the Eastside Farmers & Artisan Market. They also make their ice cream at an industrial kitchen at a daycare center that they sublease.
“Our very first batch of ice cream, we made 12 pints of ice cream. We took an ice chest and we were like the tamale ladies for a day and hustling ice cream at a Walmart parking lot. Twelve pints turned into 24 pints–three years later, here we are,” Airington said.
Ice Creamed Myself was nominated for Best Dessert on What’s Up’s Best of the Best list for the second year in a row.
Zorrivas and Airington, who are both vegan, try to purchase ingredients that are made ethically and locally grown in order to provide a product that tastes as good as it looks for the vegan community in El Paso.
Ice Creamed Myself aims to make and sell products that aren’t “just good for being vegan,” but happen to be “vegan and just plain good,”
“It’s really important that we can provide vegans an option and be a company that provides delicious healthy vegan options without compromising flavor or quality,” Airington said.
One of their most popular items is the Trojan bar, a made-from-scratch vegan take on a Magnum bar.
Zorrivas, who does most of the cooking, enjoys making vegan desserts more than dairy desserts.
“You’re turning something that shouldn’t be ice cream into ice cream. It’s more interesting,” she said.
The Ice Creamed Myself owners also collaborate with other local bakers to make their products.
The café con churros flavor is made with churros from Savage Goods, a local bakery that makes vegan and gluten-free baked goods. Their Gracie coffee cake sandwiches are made from vegan coffee beans that Blushing Buffalo provides.
Fifty percent of their tips go to the Pay It Forward campaign run by One Grub Community, a local business that sells planet-based vegan meals, and provides meals to people in underserved communities across town.
Airington and Zorrivas are currently selling their desserts from a bike cart and dream of one day opening a storefront, but they said they are being patient and are saving up to buy more equipment to make their products.
Ice Creamed Myself will be at the 10th anniversary of the public arts festival, Chalk the Block this coming weekend and can be found online on Facebook and Instagram at @IceCreamedMyself.
