One thing you’ll notice with some ice cream recipes is the last step: Remove from freezer 10 or 15 minutes before serving. That’s important, especially for desserts that have a topping like this one, which can become pretty hard when frozen. Letting it stand on your countertop allows it to soften just enough to allow a fork to get through it without the assistance of a hammer or a crowbar. If you’ve ever put a candy bar in the freezer and then tried to eat it right after taking it out, you’ll know the frustration we’re talking about.

INGREDIENTS
• 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1 (12 ounce) can evaporated milk
• 2/3 cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup butter (no substitutes), divided
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups chocolate wafer crumbs
• 1/2 gallon vanilla ice cream
• 2 cups salted dry-roasted peanuts, crushed

DIRECTIONS
1. In a large saucepan, bring the sugar, milk, chocolate chips and 1/2 cup butter to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 8 minutes. Remove from the heat; stir in vanilla. Cool completely.

2. Melt the remaining butter; toss with wafer crumbs. Press onto the bottom of a 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. pan. Cut ice cream into 1-1/2-in. slices; arrange over crust. Sprinkle with nuts. Freeze for 30 minutes. Spread cooled sauce over nuts. Cover and freeze for 1 hour or until firm. Remove from the freezer 15 minutes before serving.

Turkey Hill’s own Ernie Pinckney was the subject of an article by food columnist Sue Gleiter in today’s Patriot-News. In the story, Sue interviews several local professionals who make a living by tasting various foods: Wine, coffee, cookies and, of course, ice cream. In the article, Ernie talks about his tasting method, how he protects his tastebuds when he’s not on the job, and how much ice cream he tastes in the average day. He also reveals his favorite flavor.

The article starts on the front page of the Life section. You can also read it here. Coincidentally, there’s also a great article about regional ice cream flavors on page four of today’s Life section.

After four months of writing, planning, scouting, shooting and editing, the Duetto TV commercial is finally done. It started airing this week (some of you may have already seen it) and will air through early July in the Harrisburg/Lancaster/York area. In case you haven’t seen it, feel free to check it out below. Any questions or comments about the commercial are welcome. Enjoy!

Next week we’ll post an entry that explains the behind-the-scenes process of filming and painting (yes, painting) the cows.

Last month some members of the Turkey Hill team and our advertising agency went on a road trip through Lancaster County to scout locations to be used in our upcoming Duetto TV commercial. The stars of the commercial will be cows and they’ll be featured grazing in a pasture with a farmhouse and scenery in the background.

We looked at 10 different farms during our trip, all of which were located relatively close to each other (and the dairy) in Manor Township in Lancaster County. All of the locations we visited were beautiful, which should come as no surprise to anyone who lives in Lancaster County or has visited it. Overall, we were looking for a farm that looks somewhat like the one featured on our logo, which means a white barn and white farmhouse.

By the end of the day, we had found the perfect farmhouse for the commercial and the perfect barn. We also saw the perfect silos (those tall cylindrical structures used to store grain or corn). Unfortunately, all of those pieces were on different farms. We sort of assumed that would happen, so we’re going to capture footage of several different locations and piece them together during the editing process to create “the perfect farm.” Some members of the team referred to it as a “Frankenfarm.” The finished commercial will actually include scenery from eight different Lancaster County farms. Trust us, even though it sounds crazy, when you see the final result in June, our piecework will be undetectable!

Below is a photo from our location scouting session. This barn was a favorite of the team and will likely be the one featured in the commercial.

Next up in our “Making of” series: Filming real, live cows in a TV studio. Look for that entry next Monday.

It’s not a new development, but we found this story and had to share it. A team of neuroscientists at the Institute of Psychiatry in London have proved that eating ice cream can make you happy.

Using MRI devices and other fancy machinery, the doctors scanned the brains of people eating vanilla ice cream and found “an immediate effect“ on the parts of the brain that are activated when people are normally engaged in enjoyable activities.

Sure, the findings aren’t that surprising. Everyone knows ice cream is great, but imagine what the results might have been had the subjects been eating our Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough or Tastykake Chocolate Cupcake. Are there any volunteers for that study?

After last week’s event featuring our Giant Cow, we got to thinking about whether she could be the largest cow in the world.

After a few minutes of research, we found out she’s not. The honor of “World’s Largest” goes to “Salem Sue” in New Salem, North Dakota (that’s here on the left). She stands 38 feet tall, 50 feet long and weighs six tons. To put it in perspective, our Giant Swirly Cow is a mere 13 feet tall and weighs two tons.

And then there’s “Chatty Belle” in Neillsville, Wisconsin, who takes the title as the world’s largest talking cow. She’s just a hair bigger than ours at 16 feet tall and 20 feet long. For 10 or 25 cents (the price varies from website to website), you can hear Chatty’s lecture, during which she’ll introduce you to her non-talking, life-sized son, Bullet, who stood next to her until 2003. Sadly, he was removed that year after falling over several times and becoming a victim of vandalism.

Here’s a website that lists several oversized bovines across the USA. Who knew there were so many? Perhaps someday the Turkey Hill Giant Cow will take a road trip and visit each one to show off her status as the World’s Largest Traveling Cow.

Some of you may remember Augie's recent guest entry in which he reminisced about his days as a young movie theater ice cream vendor back in 1940. Well, we really liked the break from writing (and we just like to hear from you guys), so we're putting out an official call for more guest entries.

If you've got a story about ice cream—whether it's recent or a distant memory, humorous or nostalgic—we want to hear it. And, since a picture is worth a 1,000 words, if you've got a great picture involving ice cream, we'll take that too. No writing necessary for that one. Just point, click and e-mail.

Feel free to send all stories or pictures (or stories with pictures) to icecreamjournal@gmail.com. You can also send them to Ernie via the “Ask Ernie” option in the right column.

Layered desserts like this are always fun because you can do different things with each layer, like changing the colors of the ice cream to match the season or holiday. Imagine red, white and blue layers. All you need is some vanilla ice cream and food coloring.INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup miniature marshmallows

• 3/4 cup evaporated milk

• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

• 1/4 cup butterscotch chips

• 1/4 cup milk chocolate chips

• 10 vanilla wafers

• 2 pint butter pecan ice cream, softened

• 9 pecan halves, toasted

• 4 maraschino cherries

DIRECTIONS

1. For fudge sauce, in a saucepan, combine the marshmallows, milk and chips. Cook and stir over low heat until mixture is melted and smooth. Remove from the heat and refrigerate until chilled.

2. Line the bottom of a 6-in. springform pan with vanilla wafers. Top with about 1 cup ice cream; press into a smooth layer. Top with a third of the fudge sauce. Freeze for 30 minutes or until set.

3. Repeat layers twice, freezing in between layers. Top with pecans and cherries. Cover and freeze until firm. Remove from freezer 10-15 minutes before serving.

Today we presented our 75th Anniversary Sweepstakes Grand Prize to Kimberly Karas of Forest Hill, Maryland, about 30 miles northeast of Baltimore. Her prize was her very own 13-foot-tall Turkey Hill Giant Cow. (We’ve got three of them, so we figured we could spare one.)

We towed the Giant Cow down to Forest Hill and presented Kimberly and her husband Peter with their prize in a ceremony at their house. We gave her a choice: keep the cow or take the cash value equivalent ($18,750). She chose the cash. To be honest, we sort of figured she would.

Kimberly also won an ice cream party for her family and 100 of their friends, which she’ll be taking later this summer. Said Kimberly afterwards, “As tempting as it was to be the only family on our block with a giant cow lawn ornament, the money was too good to pass up.” She and her husband plan to spend some of the money on an overseas vacation. Can’t argue with that!

We just wanted to let everyone know that this Saturday (May 5) from 8 am to 2 pm Turkey Hill will be holding its annual Country Classic in the lawn area adjacent to the Central Manor Church of God (387 Penn Street, Manor Township in Lancaster). More info about the Country Classic can be found here.

If you’re in the area, you should definitely stop by. For those who aren’t familiar with the Country Classic, it features all sorts of running and biking races for kids and adults but it also features a variety of games and free food, drinks and ice cream. Donations are accepted and all proceeds go to the Lancaster Farmland Trust, an organization that works to preserve farmland in Lancaster County.

The Giant Cow will be there and our annual Baby Derby will take place at 10:30 am. Trust us when we say you’ve probably never seen babies crawl this fast—unless you were at last year’s event (at right is a shot of that photo finish race).

According to Weather.com, the weather is supposed to be perfect (68 degrees and sunny). Sounds like a good day for some free ice cream and cow races to us!