What’s on the takeout menu at Ruru Baked, a new Bloordale ice cream shop that’s drawing seriously long lineups

What’s on the takeout menu at Ruru Baked, a new Bloordale ice cream shop that’s drawing seriously long lineups

Ronquillo brings out a crate packed with pints from the walk-in freezer.

More Great Takeout

Name: Ruru Baked
Contact: 659 Lansdowne Ave., rurubaked.com, @rurubaked
Neighbourhood: Bloordale
Owner and chef: Luanne Ronquillo
Outdoor seating: None
Covid-19 safety measures: Strict mask policy for staff and patrons, frequent sanitization, Plexiglas barrier at cash, stickers on the floor to indicate physical distancing, max four people inside at a time
Accessibility: Accessible entrance; bathrooms not open to the public

The food

We covered Ruru Baked back when it started as an Instagram-based business run out of a tiny, rented kitchen in Little Italy. This is the brand’s first standalone location, where you can grab scoops and pints of their super-popular ice cream. It’s a major boon for fans—when the coveted pints were only available via pre-order, they would regularly sell out in less than five minutes.

There’s a new machine doing the churning, but otherwise, pastry chef and owner Luanne Ronquillo is sticking to her original formula: preservative-free, custard-based ice cream with a strong focus on house-baked mix-ins and whole ingredients (versus extracts). This kitchen regularly goes through cases of fresh produce, which is why the banoffee pie flavour tastes like real bananas and the mint chip has absolutely nothing in common with toothpaste.

Owner and head pastry chef, Luanne Ronquillo

Ruru’s flavour repertoire currently stands at 34, with 10 on offer at any given time. There are some mainstays, such as raspberry cheesecake, Viet coffee, honeycomb cereal and the aforementioned banoffee pie. New varieties are always under development—look out for a watermelon lychee sorbet in the near future.

Cones—waffle, sugar and regular—are available, including a gluten-free option for an extra buck. Or, take home a pint (or four, which is the maximum number you can get) and savour at your leisure.

A selection of pints near the cash register. Ruru uses a custard base for a luscious, ultra-creamy texture. The raspberry cheesecake (second row from the top) has house-baked, buttery graham cracker crumbs and a vibrant raspberry swirl. $12 each.

 

Wherever possible, Ronquillo uses fresh produce as a flavour base. These blueberries are soon to become the jammy star of the seasonal blueberry crumble flavour, complete with buttery brown-sugar crumble layered throughout.

 

Scooping the 3X Choco, which was designed to be a convenient catch-all for when you can’t decide whether you want milk chocolate, white chocolate or chocolate sauce. Crispy Callebaut milk chocolate pearls give this flavour a delightful crunch.

 

No banana extract here: banoffee pie is made with overripe bananas for a deep, real-banana flavour. With a caramel swirl and crunchy graham crust crumbs, this is a mainstay.
An ultra-nostalgic flavour for those who grew up drinking Ribena: a blackcurrant drink concentrate from the U.K.

 

A decadent double scoop of Deep + Delish and matcha shortbread on a waffle cone ($9). Inspired by the classic McCain Deep’n Delicious Chocolate Cake, this version layers a chocolate ice cream base with rich, fudgy chunks of cake. Buttery house shortbread features in the latter flavour, which manages to pack all the intensity of matcha with minimal bitterness.

 

Here we have a scrumptious scoop of nutty black sesame on a sugar cone ($5.25). Note the tiny flecks of ground sesame seeds.

 

Ronquillo brings out a crate packed with pints from the walk-in freezer.

 

Some of Ruru’s ice creams feature popular cereals (e.g. Cornflakes for crème brûlée, Cinnamon Toast Crunch for the CTC), while others have house-baked mix-ins.
The space

The shop has a minimal, industrial look with high ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows and an open kitchen so customers can see all the ice cream-making action. There’s no seating, and helpful floor stickers keep patrons at a safe distance as they order. Lineups can start as early as half an hour before opening, but they move fairly quickly—you can expect to wait for around 15 minutes, depending on the time of day.

The calm before the storm

 

Thanks, Luanne!