The really cool neon sign below is from Gunther’s Ice Cream Shop in Sacramento, California. It’s probably much cooler at night, when you can watch the man’s right arm (is that Gunther himself?) flipping the ice cream into the cone in his left hand. Supposedly the ice cream shop is something of an institution in Sacramento. Can’t argue with that. If there were a place with a cool sign like this in your neighborhood, wouldn’t you go there? They also make all their ice cream fresh on the premises. That helps too.

We know nothing beats some Turkey Hill at home, but it seems every neighborhood has its favorite ice cream hangouts. A little ice cream stand down on the corner where the Little Leaguers go for a scoop after a game perhaps? Maybe an old mom & pop shop where you take the family for a treat? It’s okay to admit it…we won’t be offended.

Gina C. from Harrisburg, Pa. recently e-mailed us. We were chatting about ice cream cones (including why more people don’t enjoy cones at home) and she offered the following tip:

“On a hot summer day, a drippy ice cream cone can make mess of shirts and other clothing. I’ve read that if you stuff a mini marshmallow in the bottom of a cone, it will not only stop the dripping, it’s also a nice treat at the end!”

If anyone has tried this one, let us know if it works. And, if you have any tips of your own, feel free to send them to us at icecreamjournal@gmail.com or via the Ask Ernie link below the poll.

Just in time for the hottest grocery shopping days of summer, we’ve chosen six comments at random from the month of June and are giving each commenter the “cooler shopping bag” we profiled last month. Below are four of the winners (we’re still waiting to hear back from the other two). Remember, in honor of National Ice Cream Month, this month’s prize is a YEAR’S SUPPLY of Turkey Hill Ice Cream. Four other commenters will win one month supplies of ice cream.

Adrian W. (Rural Hall, NC)

Thomas C. (Phillipsburg, NJ)

Sara E. (East Brunswick, NJ)

Hope M. (Portsmouth, VA)

Meat loaf is good and ice cream is good, so an ice cream loaf must be really good! We’ll admit, this one doesn’t sound that exciting, but we like any ice cream recipe that resembles another food. This one would go well with ice cream baked potatoes (look for that recipe later this month).

INGREDIENTS
• 1/4 cup chocolate wafer crumbs
• 1 tablespoon butter or margarine, melted
• 1 pint vanilla ice cream, softened
• 1/4 cup chopped peanuts
• 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 3 tablespoons evaporated milk
• 2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine

DIRECTIONS
1. Cut a piece of foil into 12-in. x 3-in. rectangle. Line the bottom of a 5-3/4-in. x 3-in. x 2-in. loaf pan with foil, so that the foil comes up over the ends of the pan. Combine wafer crumbs and melted butter; press onto bottom of prepared pan. Spoon ice cream over crumbs; smooth with a spatula. Sprinkle with nuts. Freeze until firm.

2. In a small saucepan, combine the remaining ingredients; bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to simmer. Cook and stir for 4 minutes or until thickened. Refrigerate mixture until completely cool, stirring occasionally. Spread over ice cream. Cover and freeze until firm. Remove from refrigerator 10-15 minutes before serving.

Roger M. from Norristown, Pennsylvania writes:

Dear Ernie - What’s the difference between “ice cream” and “ice milk”?

Thanks for your question, Roger. The term “ice milk” used to refer to any light or reduced fat ice cream. Today it’s no longer used, unless you’re referring to a glass of milk which contains ice cubes or a container of milk which has been allowed to freeze. 

Believe it or not, up until the 1980’s if the butter fat content of the product was less than 6 percent, the product had to be called “ice milk” while its full-fat cousin retained the title of “ice cream.” Needless to say, with a name like “ice milk” it wasn’t a big seller no matter how hard our marketing team tried.  During the 80’s, the ice cream industry was successful in petitioning the Federal Government to drop this nomenclature. We now use names such as reduced fat ice cream, light ice cream, low-fat ice cream, and non-fat ice cream. Lots of choices for everyone, and now a much better seller as a result of the name change.

I’m off for a bowl right now!
Ernie

A while ago, CN8 brought their TV cameras to the Dairy to get an inside look at our ice cream making process. One of the segments they filmed was with Ernie. As many of you know, Ernie is our resident ice cream expert. He oversees the daily ice cream making operations here at Turkey Hill (you can ask him a question using the link on the right). He’s also our official ice cream taster. Yeah, he gets paid to eat ice cream.

One of the daily tests he does is a visual examination of the ice cream. To do this, he takes a very large knife and cuts the container in half to make sure all the inclusions (fudge, pecans, cherries, cookies, cookie dough, etc.) are dispersed evenly. Here’s a video of Ernie performing that inspection for the CN8 cameras and talking about the blog. (If the video box doesn’t display below, just refresh your browser window.)

 

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Happy Independence Day! We hope everyone finds a safe and fun way to celebrate this July 4th. We suggest a cookout with friends and family members. As for dessert, you’re on your own (but we can think of a few ideas). Speaking of patriotic things, here’s an entry about “astronaut ice cream” that originally ran back in January.  

It’s hard to imagine life without ice cream. That’s probably why the folks at NASA developed freeze-dried astronaut ice cream. Believe it or not, the freeze-dried version starts out as real ice cream. The process is a little technical, so we’ll let the description below from Wikipedia.com cover it:

“The ice cream is placed in a vacuum chamber and frozen until the water crystallizes. The air pressure is lowered, creating a vacuum, forcing air out of the chamber; next heat is applied, vaporizing the ice; finally a freezing coil traps the vaporized water. This process continues for hours, resulting in a perfect freeze-dried ice cream slice.”

Yeah, after a long, hard day of collecting moon rocks or repairing space stations, there’s nothing better than a nice brick of freeze-dried ice cream. Well, nothing better except for maybe the real thing.

Astronaut ice cream (the standard Neapolitan flavor) was first consumed by Neil Armstrong on the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969. Freeze-dried ice cream is supposedly still used by astronauts today and also by U.S. troops while in the field.

Here’s a fun link to a short story about the history of food in space. According to this account, real vanilla ice cream was stocked in a freezer in the Skylab spacecraft from the 1970s. If you want a taste the space life for yourself, here’s a link where you can buy some.

Even though he’s in charge of the company, we couldn’t resist sharing this baby picture of Turkey Hill’s president and CEO, Quintin Frey. This photo was taken back when Quintin’s father and uncles owned the Dairy after inheriting it from Quintin’s grandfather, Armor Frey. Quintin’s hair has changed a bit since his toddler days, but every now and then he still gets that same look on his face.

Every now and then we’ll define technical ice cream related terms in a recurring entry we call the “Ice Cream Dictionary.” This one is about inclusions. Speaking of inclusions, it looks like peanut butter cups is leading the way in this month’s poll (in the sidebar on the right). If you haven’t voted yet, feel free to sound off.

The term “inclusions” is just a technical way of referring to all those delicious, chunky, chewy things that are added to plain ice cream to create new flavors. Cookie dough, toffee bits, cherries, chocolate chips, peanut butter cups and assorted nuts are all examples of inclusions.

But as fun as it sounds, the addition of inclusions is actually a very precise process. Visual appeal, the eating quality of the inclusions when they are frozen and shelf life are all considered. Too many or too few inclusions can radically change the composition and flavor “experience” of ice cream. For that reason, we try to keep the weight of these additions to between 10 and 15 percent of the total weight of the finished product.

As for which bits and pieces go better with various ice cream flavors, some are better with vanilla ice cream and some pair better with chocolate ice cream, but it’s really just a matter of personal taste. If you have any ideas for new inclusions, we’d love to hear them. You never know if your idea might become the next Turkey Hill flavor!

HAPPY NATIONAL ICE CREAM MONTH! It’s officially here. That means this is the first entry of the month, which will be followed be a new entry every day, so be sure to check back often (either by signing up on the right to have entries e-mailed to you or by bookmarking this page). The following subject was initally discussed back in March, but we thought we bring it back for a second scoop because of all the great comments about homemade ice cream we received on our “Old School Ice Cream” post earlier this week. Enjoy!  

The art of making ice cream didn’t start in big factories — it started at home. Many people still enjoy homemade ice cream, which is why there’s no shortage of machines designed to help you whip up your very own batch of Super Dooper Chocolate Fudge Chunk.

Some are expensive and some aren’t, but the Ice Cream Ball from L.L. Bean has been getting a lot of buzz lately, mainly for its unique and easy-to-use design. You can also find them on Amazon.com in a variety of colors and sizes.

We love this thing for several reasons, but mostly because it’s fun, which is a feature a lot of at-home ice cream machines lack. Like the website says, all you need to do is “fill the bottom of this durable, lightweight Lexan plastic ball with ice and rock salt, add ice cream ingredients to the top and just shake, pass or roll the ball around your campsite.” Twenty minutes later, you’ve got ice cream!

If anyone has ever used the ice cream ball, let us know how everything came out.

Just imagine, making and enjoying ice cream while camping. This could be the greatest thing to happen to fireside desserts since the mountain pie maker!