Ice cream treats from The Greenery Creamery include Vegan Orange Creamsicle with hibiscus crystals and rose crystals, Cookie Monster with toasted coconut and Oreo crumbles and Vegan Ube cake batter ice cream with Fruity Pebbles. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)

“There is something so satisfying about making your own ice cream at home versus getting it at the store,” says Marie Mercado, co-owner of The Greenery Creamery.

Not that she’s discouraging your visit to its downtown Orlando or Sanford locations, mind you. Amid its ever-rotating flavor, you’ll find many unique dairy and vegan options like strawberry yuzu lemonade, black ash coconut, the citrus, herb and berry delight that is “Summer Picnic” — and mango, which was the flavor on which Mercado’s entrepreneurial efforts were built.

Marie Mercado inside her downtown ice cream shop where she makes delicious vegan and milk-based treats. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)

“We had from-scratch mango ice cream year-round in our house,” says Mercado, whose parents’ friends gave them an abundance of fruit from their prolific trees and figured out the perfect way to use them all. “And then because we’re Filipino, we’d also make some ube ice cream, too, and entertain our guests with this homemade ice cream.”

Mercado moved to New York City for a while, and came to Orlando in 2015. Amid figuring out her path, she began considering the things she missed about living up north.

“In New York City, it seemed like on every single block there were shops with funky, cool flavors of ice cream,” she explains. “Around this time, Kelly’s was opening up and they were doing a great job with all the classic, parlor-style flavors that are very nostalgic — cake batter and brownie. Everything was really good, but where can I get that funky matcha ice cream with the beans in it? Where can I get sesame ice cream? Where can I get Earl Grey?”

The answer: nowhere. Mercado had found her niche. She bought a little Lello ice cream maker on Amazon and a whole bunch of books about ice cream and began experimenting. She began reading recipes and researching what brands like Salt & Straw, Jeni’s and Van Leeuwen were doing.

Mouth-watering Vegan Orange Creamsicle ice cream with hibiscus crystals, basil crystals and a caramel stroopwafel on a black vanilla chia cone from The Greenery Creamery. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)

“But I had no food service experience whatsoever. I needed to get some before I could even think of opening an ice cream store.”

Gigs in places like Viet-Nomz and the Grand Bo location of Starbucks helped her rack up customer service skills and served as solid tutorials in both indie and corporate ways of doing things. The latter, with its influx of customers from City Hall, provided even more in the way of connections that got Mercado’s business adventures off the ground. In fact, it was meeting the right people that after six months of hoping got her a small space in the building where the downtown location still sits today.

“It was kind of a ghost town back then, no one walking around after 2 p.m.,” Mercado recalls, “but I felt really good energy from this place and just trusted my intuition.” Save a Menchie’s, there was nothing in the area near to her concept, “and I liked that there were a lot of small, women-owned businesses here. I just felt like if I built it, they would come.”

Since opening its doors in 2018, The Greenery Creamery has grown — and with creative pivots like home delivery to places as far as Kissimmee and other fun twists — even during the pandemic. A testament not only to creative thinking — but a creamy-delicious, artisan-level product you won’t find in many other places.

From-scratch ice cream is a rarity in this town.

“There’s no definition in the industry for what ‘homemade’ is,” Mercado explains. “So as long as you’re making the ice cream in your facility, it’s considered homemade, even if you’re starting with a boxed mix or base.”

Citrus Poppy ice cream with rose crystals and caramel stroopwafel from The Greenery Creamery. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)

Mercado and her small team churn their ice cream one gallon at a time.

“It’s micro micro-batch,” she says, laughing. “There’s only a handful of people across the country who do it this way, which is incredibly time-consuming, but I’m glad we do.”

Custard-style ice cream employs eggs, the tempering of which is probably the most challenging part of the process, she notes.

“But don’t be intimidated, because in doing it once or twice, you learn what goes into the process and once you make it, it becomes addictive and like a really good pie crust or a great loaf of bread, it becomes sort of addictive, and you just want to make more.”

The magic of ice cream isn’t really magic, she notes, but science.

Marie Mercado, owner of The Greenery Creamery, separates the egg whites from the yolks as she prepares her scratch-made ice cream at her ice cream shop in downtown Orlando. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)

“It’s the balance of the air and the fat that makes it creamy and scoopable ... but it’s a fine balance that, depending on what you want to add in, requires precise ratios.”

The base for this citrus poppy seed ice cream recipe would be ideal for mix-ins, like crumbled cookies, chocolate chips or chocolate-covered pretzels, extracts, herbs or zests, “but it would need to be refined for something like true fruit flavors because the water would throw off the balance.”

So, if you want to play outside the box — do so within the bounds of the recipe and you should be fine for fun experimentation for National Ice Cream Month. And if you just want to celebrate without the work: Hit up one of The Greenery Creamery locations and keep an eye out for Mercado’s new concept, Sampaguita, a Filipino ice cream and dessert shop slated to open at 1233 E. Colonial Drive in Orlando sometime next month.

Marie Mercado, owner of The Greenery Creamery, zests lemon into the scratch-made ice cream at her ice cream shop in downtown Orlando. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)

Its ice cream will be made the same way: one tiny, from-scratch batch at a time.

“It’s time-consuming, yes,” she admits, “but before I opened Greenery Creamery, I didn’t even know buying mixes and bases was a thing. I don’t think most people know. I often wonder — if I’d known, would I even do it this way?”

She laughs at her own hypothetical.

She hopes you’ll give it a try, too.

The Greenery Creamery: Lake Eola, 420 E. Church St., Unit #112, in Orlando; Henry’s Depot, 212 W. 1st St. in Sanford; thegreenerycreamery.com

The Greenery Creamery co-owner Marie Mercado holds her Vegan Orange Creamsicle ice cream with hibiscus crystals, basil crystals and a caramel stroopwafel on a black vanilla chia cone. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)

Want to reach out? Find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram @amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com. For more fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group or follow @fun.things.orlando on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.