Laloo's lets you get your goat in yummy ice cream
A spoonful of Laloo's (pronounced lay-lose) vanilla ice cream, made with goat's milk, will yield that tangy, almost gamey finish that you either love or hate when you eat goat cheese.
Not so with Laloo's Deep Chocolate, with its rich and dusty Scharffen Berger cacao. Or the Black Mission Fig, whose sweetness hints at red wine but it's nowhere to be found in the ingredient list.
Maybe that's because Laura Howard, a Pennsylvania kid who spent some of her post-collegiate years in Chicago, is now living in the Sonoma Valley in California.
Howard was in Chicago recently and offered a taste test of some of the 14 flavors she's developed -- six of them carried at area Whole Foods stores.
She's touting her brand as a low-fat and lactose-intolerant-friendly alternative to the regular ice-cream-from-cows dessert. She explains that goat's milk contains less lactose than cow's milk, making it easier to digest for those with a lactose intolerance. In addition, it isn't mucus forming like cow's milk can be.
That doesn't mean the ice creams don't have depth. The rich butterfat milk comes from Nubian goats -- raised without hormones on independent farms in Sonoma County outside San Francisco, not commercial factories.
"It gives you a unique cream texture with less than half the fat" of regular ice creams, she explains.
Howard is a bit of an inspiration in these uncertain economic times. She had no formal training, unless you count her years in 4-H, but decided to venture out on her own -- with the help of her supportive husband. She used her kitchen as well as her advertising background to develop flavors she thought the masses might like.
That includes giving demanding coffee drinkers a flavor of their own. On the list of ingredients for the "Capraccino" is an Italian espresso roast.
Laloo's, so named because it was Howard's nickname, retails for $5.99 to $6.99. She also has a line of frozen yogurt on the market.
For further information about her product line and work in the sustainable foods community, go to goatmilkicecream.com.
Curious about an unusual edible or kitchen tool? Want to share some mysteries in your own cabinets? E-mail the Food Detective at ldonovan@suntimes.com.