Sweet Dreams: Cool Off with Two of Houston’s Best Ice Cream Purveyors

Words by Colin James Sturdevant  Photo by David Leftwich

Ice cream and I go way back. My mother claims it’s one of the few foods I would eat as a child. It’s creamy, cold and the flavors can be bold. Sometimes, it’s a bad relationship, a rocky road in my diet. I’m either all in or all out. It was there for me in the absence of what I can only assume is love. It had my back when I was laid off from my first job after college. It helps me keep cool in the summer.

If I close my eyes, I can remember ice cream being made at home or where I used to work. The whisk scraping the side of a tub, 50-pound bags of sugar releasing a sweet, floral scent when poured and the crisp, clean smell of milk and cream. Humble ingredients transformed into a symphony of solos, choruses and harmonies.

I grew up eating Hank’s. I’ve slung scoops at local mom-and-pop shops. It was something I could sell, learning to cater to people’s tastes. I was often mistaken for the owner because of my passion for ice cream. During those years, I learned a lot about this frozen dessert.

I’ve also fallen in and out of love with certain brands. The popularity of some have blown up to the point that profit is more prized than quality. Others have ignored the safety of their consumers. But in Houston there are several independent shops that consistently crank out high-quality frozen treats.

With temps soon reaching 90° and beyond and local parlors soon having lines out at the door, I wanted to talk about two of my current favorites: Underground Creamery, which only offers weekly limited editions, and Honeychild’s Sweet Creams, which is turning local ingredients into delectable frozen custards.

While I was working at SweetCup Gelato, I exchanged a few words with Josh Deleon, the creative genius behind Underground Creamery, who emigrated from the Philippines when he was 10. He’s as passionate about ice cream as I am and wanted to talk shop. I made the mistake of not trying his creations then, out of loyalty to SweetCup, despite my-then girlfriend raving about them. I wish I’d fallen in love with it sooner. It’s now my favorite Houston ice cream.

Deleon, who has a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Houston, is creating true artisan products, combining both tease and temptation with flavor profiles that expertly surf your palate.

I received a drop, what Deleon calls his weekly releases, from early March 2024. This would probably be a good time to explain how Underground works. It doesn’t have a traditional storefront, instead you receive a weekly text with a link to preorder pints of the two or three flavors offered that week. You then pick up your order at a window next to Pudgy’s Fine Cookies on Shepherd.

Now back to the ice cream. I’ve been in a bind lately due to an apartment fire, moving and other ordeals, so Edible Houston’s editor snagged me some pints of Underground’s Cinna-Shawtea and Choc-a-Lil’. Days later, I skipped dinner, since the kitchen in my new apartment wasn’t fully up and running, and scooped into the Choc-a-Lil’, a salted oreo ice cream with Valrhona Jivara stracciatella. I was hooked by the first bite. The mouthfeel of the cocoa and butter fat was perfect, and the Oreos were crunchy, not soggy.

But the other flavor, Cinna-Shawtea, is the best I‘ve ever had. No question about it. Cinna-Shawtea is an epic adventure. It’s loaded with varying flavors. The cream, reminiscent of Biscoff ice cream, allows the cinnamon to open up on the tongue. It’s imbued with a sauce that perfectly marries the sweetness of jam-like caramel with the herbal notes of Earl Grey tea. And the chunks of impeccable shortbread cookies revolutionize the mouthfeel. It’s an excursion that takes me through a lavender field because of the bergamot, which I know is a citrus oil but it reminds me of lavender. Holy hell, this flavor is beyond perfect.

Pints currently cost $14 but hot damn, are they worth it. I will pay money for good food without batting an eye — most of the time. It’s worth the splurge if you want something life changing. Trust me.

Number two, Honeychild’s Sweet Creams is not technically (at least according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture) serving ice cream — but frozen custard, which is the first product I slung out of high school at the now-closed Sugar Mountain, which was in Meyerland’s Braeswood Square.

What’s the difference between ice cream and frozen custard? Egg yolks. The base for ice cream is milk, cream and sugar, while frozen custard’s base is milk, cream, sugar and egg yolks (officially 1.4 percent or more by weight). The addition of egg yolks tends to give custard a richer mouthfeel and flavor.

Honeychild’s Sweet Creams frozen custards are way better than what I was slinging as a teen. That’s due in large part to the care Kathleen Morgan, who has a degree in Animal and Food Science from Texas A&M, puts into crafting her creations. Since founding Honeychild’s in 2014, originally as a pop-up, she has focused on using high-quality local ingredients such as dairy from Mill-King Creamery and produce from Plant It Forward, Lightsey Farms and Atkinson Farms. After several years of selling her tantalizing custards at area farmers markets and coffee shops, she opened a brick-and-mortar location in November 2021 in the M-K-T Heights development.

I ordered two standard cups with a total of four flavors. The two that grabbed me the most were a brown caramel and Mexican vanilla, though I did like the Texas Sheet Cake as well.

The vanilla is tinted a soft, faint yellow by a floral vanilla from Mexico that blossoms on the taste buds. It expresses hints of Chamomile tea and hay, while also reminding me of the pleasant scents of talc powder, gifted notebooks sprayed with perfume and summer romance. The essence of love is ice cream, and this one takes me to summer breaks spent at my grandfather’s farm in Blue, Texas, and the calming coastal waters of Corpus Christi, where I’d visit with family and indulge in ice cream nightly — so much peace and nostalgia.

My second favorite was a caramel-based flavor. I am not a caramel fan, because some taste like pure sugar. But this custard tempered what could be cloying sweetness into gentle notes of sugarcane and molasses that curved around the palate. It was caramelized divinity with a heavenly, well-balanced mouthfeel.

There’s more I wish I could say about these two purveyors and about ice cream. But I have reached my word limit, so I have gone off to buy some vanilla ice cream to put atop the summer cobbler I plan to make.

To order Underground Creamery visit undergroundcreamery.com.

Visit Honeychild’s Sweet Creams at 600 N. Shepherd Drive and honeychildssweetcreams.com.

Colin James Sturdevant is a poet and writer based in Houston. He is the founder and managing editor of table//FEAST Literary Magazine. He enjoys trying craft cocktails around town, foolishness and at-home cookery.