Comstock's magazine 0919 - September 2019 | Page 105

SEE VIDEO OF CONSCIOUS
CREAMERY AT
COMSTOCKSMAG.COM
PHOTOS BY FRED GREAVES, CAPTION BY SHOKA
A GOOD DESSERT
The walls of Conscious Creamery’s commer-
cial kitchen in Sacramento’s Del Paso Heights
neighborhood are lined with stainless steel
freezers, constantly humming loud and keep-
ing chef Andrea Seppinni’s plant-based gela-
to frozen. Seppinni, who runs the business
with husband Kevin Seppinni, uses cashews
as a base, and has created at least three-doz-
en flavors with fair-trade and in-season in-
gredients. Each product is hand-crafted, and
gelato bars and chocolate-dipped tacos take
about five days to make (they also sell pints).
The first steps — soaking cashews overnight,
blending them with filtered water and churn-
ing — take three days. Then Seppinni and
employee Creed Dennis squeeze the freshly
churned gelato from orange silicone piping
bags into molds and waffle-cone taco shells,
level them and place them in quick-freezing
hardening cabinets. After they harden, they
are dipped in chocolate, sprinkled with nuts
and packaged in clear plastic wrappers. Sep-
pinni says they make about 500 bars and
140 tacos a week. Conscious Creamery prod-
ucts are available online, at pop-ups around
Northern California, and several restaurants
and stores in the region. The Seppinnis, who
have been vegan for 13 years, launched the
company in 2015 after an anniversary trip to
Europe during which they saw people waiting
in a long line at a vegan ice cream shop and
Andrea realized, “All those people standing
there in line are not vegans. They’re standing
there because it’s good.” n
September 2019 | comstocksmag.com
105