What Went Down At Sapa Bakery & Ulo's Ice Cream Sandwich 'Choux Down’ In Bengaluru

Leave it to SAPA Bakery and Ulo Ice Cream to call their upcoming collaborative pop-up the ‘Choux Down’. As two brands that love to innovate, collaborate and play with puns as they do with ingredients, it is befitting. SAPA is a dedicated artisanal bakery based in Mysore that crafts sourdough breads and fine pastries and has become renowned for their constant experimentation, but also consistent quality. Using the best of Indian flours (partly milled in-house), and their well-aged sourdough culture, they create naturally leavened breads shaped by hand, as well as a host of unique pastries - from tray cakes to experimentally flavoured eclairs to stuffed choux pastry. 

SAPA Bakery in Mysore started stocking and serving the ‘curiously crafted’ ice cream from Ulo earlier this year, along with their delectable pastries. Ulo is a venture that aligns with SAPA in how intentional they are with crafting their products, and as well as the tongue-in-cheek titling for each product and flavour. While Ulo keeps innovating its flavours with time and season, some of the recent flavours featured on their social media include ‘A Star is Corn’ - a sweet corn ice cream with blueberry compote swirls, to ‘Murder in the Snow’ - toasted white chocolate ice cream with balsamic strawberry compote. 

But there is something truly magical in two passionate innovators in their lanes coming together to create something original. This exclusive event in Ulo’s physical outlet in Indiranagar, Bangalore was a fully blown collaboration that highlighted the best of both brands. Crafted with a lot of forethought as well as with patience and love, the ‘Choux Down’ pop-up featured a select but delectable menu of Ice-cream sandwiches that was only available until their stocks lasted. 

The ice cream sandwich takeover boasted four exclusive and innovative flavours that the folks and Ulo and SAPA collaboratively came up with. All the different sandwiches were served in SAPA’s expertly-made choux pastry base. The ‘Elderly Aam-igo’ flavour featured a combination of Mango Sherbet with Elderflower Gel and Feuilletine and made for a tropical yet floral ice cream sandwich experience. Their Tonkastic & Nutty Sandwich was a unique blend of Tonka (think vanilla, but better) Ice Cream and Pista Praline that they call ‘the nuttiest of them all’.

For those who love Chocolate but want a surprise - they had their ‘Choco-Lit Heatwave’ which featured bold chocolate ice cream kicked up with Chilli Sumac and Salt Sauce that offered a sweet and savoury ice-cream sandwich experience. Lastly, there was the whimsical but delightful sounding ‘Berry Berry Brekkie’ that this writer personally would love to try out. This flavour featured Ulo’s Cereal Ice Cream, which was paired with a Berry sauce and Buckwheat Crunch - offering up an ice-cream sandwich that screams ‘breakfast of the champions’.  

While the options of these crafted ice-cream sandwiches were select and varied in a multitude of ways to cater to those with varying tastes, they were all priced at Rs.320 per sandwich. The weekend pop-up commenced by noon on May 26 at Ulo's outlet in Indiranagar and was sold out within merely hours of the doors opening.

Designed to be a ‘sweet weekend treat’ worthy of going out of the way, this SAPA X Ulo pop-up was clearly what the inner gourmand in many people in Bangalore had been yearning for. Selling out all four variants in barely three hours, i.e., 200 ice-cream sandwiches in total, it is completely understandale why the brands chose to call it the ‘Choux Down'. Only those who braced themselves and showed up on time had the chance to experience the pop-up in all it's glory. But fret not if you missed this one, our source at SAPA Bakery let us in on the fact that they are gearing up for a host of inspired collaborations with other Bangalore culinary ventures.

Follow Sapa Bakery here.

Follow Ulo Ice Cream here.

If you enjoyed reading this, here's more from Homegrown:

A Bengaluru Gem: How Corner House Ice Creams Shaped The City’s Culture

Summer Nostalgia: A Mumbai-Based Label Bringing Back Ice Cream Sandwiches

Beat The Heat With 5 Homegrown Artisanal Ice Cream Brands