Lambing means tenderness
It is the word for the way a lola sets a bowl in front of you before you ask. We named the kitchen after it because that is how we want to make ice cream, slowly and for someone in particular.
“If I can’t name the farm,it stays out of the pint.”
Isabel Ocampo, founder
It started with a carabao in Laguna
Isabel grew up spending summers on her uncle’s dairy in Santa Cruz, where the milk arrived warm in the morning and was kesong puti by noon. She trained as a pastry cook in Manila and Lyon, came home in 2021, and could not find the ice cream she wanted to eat.
Lambing opened in Poblacion in March 2023 with one churner, four flavours and her uncle’s milk. It still runs on that churner and that milk.
The farms
We buy directly, pay on delivery and put the farm on the lid. These are the people who do most of the work.
- BoholKinampay ubeTubod Farmers' Cooperative, Ubay
- SorsogonPili and burnt caramelDioneda family, Bulan
- GuimarasCarabao mango sorbetGaitan orchard, Jordan
- DavaoCacao 72Puentespina estate, Calinan
- BatangasKapeng barakoCafé de Lipa growers
- LagunaKesong puti and guavaOcampo Dairy, Santa Cruz
- MindoroCalamansi and pandan sorbetNaujan growers
- NegrosMuscovado and toasted pinipigBago cane growers
How we make it
Carabao milk has nearly twice the fat of cow’s milk, so our base needs less cream and less sugar to feel rich. We pasteurise it low the morning it arrives, age the base overnight, and churn twelve pints at a time.
Ube is roasted, not boiled, so it caramelises. Pili is toasted in small pans the same day. Cacao is ground into tablea in the kitchen. There are no stabilisers and no colouring, so the pints melt a little faster than supermarket ice cream.
