Hopefully everyone’s holidays are going well. One more left (that would be New Year’s) and then the countdown to warmer weather begins! You can’t blame us for being “warm weather people.” After all, we sell ice cream and iced tea and even though they taste just as good on a cold, snowy day, there’s something about a warm, sunny afternoon that makes them taste a little bit better.

But we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves. All of the winners from our 12 Days of Ice Cream celebration have been selected and contacted with the good news about their prize. So far, 10 of our winners have replied to our emails. We’re still wait to hear from our Day 1 winner (”Everybody Loves Ice Cream” book) and our Day 6 winner (”The Full Scoop” book). Guess no one’s really excited about books.

We also haven’t heard back from the winner of our grand prize — the one year supply of ice cream. Some of you may remember, it took a little while to make contact with the winner of the year’s supply of ice cream back in July too. We’re not sure how long we should wait, but we’ll keep you all posted.

In the meantime, here’s a list of our 10 winners so far. Congrats to all!

Day 2 (Cuisipro ice cream sandwich maker) - Lisa L. from Lykens, PA

Day 3 (spaghetti ice cream maker) - Rosemarie W. from North Huntington, PA

Day 4 (ice cream magnets) - Betty S. from Baltimore, MD

Day 5 (battery powered ice cream cone) - Denise W. from Silver Spring, MD

Day 7 (Smart Snacks rainbow colored cones) - Pam M. from Cincinnati, OH

Day 8 (Kitchenaid ice cream spade) - Janet S. from York, PA

Day 9 (Me! bath ice cream) - Michelle H. from Cleveland, OH

Day 10 (scientific explorer’s ice cream kit) - Maggie G. from Sunbury, PA

Day 11 (ice cream pastures puzzle) - Jack A. from Wayne, PA

Day 12 (aluminum ice cream bowls) - Tony H. from Hockessin, DE

The following  was originally posted here on the Ice Cream Journal back in July, but this record is so amazing, it deserved a second showing.  

Did you know that the world record for the most ice cream eaten is held by 22-year-old culinary student Patrick Bertoletti of Chicago, Illinois? On May 26, 2006, he ate 1.75 gallons of vanilla ice cream in 8 minutes during an ice cream eating contest in Brooklyn, New York. It should be noted that Bertolleti is a professional competitive eater whose other eating records include 19 slices of pizza in 10 minutes, 11.1 pounds of shoofly pie in 8 minutes and 177 pickled jalepeno peppers in 15 minutes. For now, we’d be happy with the ice cream title.

Just to keep everyone posted, tomorrow we’ll be choosing the winners for each of our 12 Days of Ice Cream prizes AND our grand prize winner (a one year’s supply of ice cream). Good luck to all!

This is it. The 12th day of ice cream. Thanks to all of you for celebrating the holidays and ice cream with us during these last two weeks. It’s been a lot of fun chatting with everyone!

For all of our new readers, we hope you decide to check in on a regular basis. To help you stay in touch, feel free to sign up on the right to have new Ice Cream Journal entries automatically emailed to you. After today we’ll go back to our normal posting schedule of about three entries per week and, while we won’t give out prizes with every new entry, we will continue our usual tradition of giving away prizes to a few readers at the end of each month.

Speaking of giving things away, the winner of the biggest prize in our 12 Days of Ice Cream celebration will be chosen tomorrow. That’s when we look back on all of the comments left during the 12 Days of Ice Cream celebration and choose one – completely at random – to win the one year’s supply of Turkey Hill ice cream. Good luck and Merry Christmas!

TODAY’S PRIZE: Some people think we saved the best for last, and maybe we did. What can we say? These aluminum ice cream bowls are just plain cool. They’re admittedly retro, and remind us of something grandma used to have in her cupboard, along with the matching aluminum cups, of course. 

This picture is actually part of today’s prize: the “Ice Cream Pastures” puzzle. We like it because it reminds us of a scene straight out of Lancaster County…except for the psychedelic cows. Although they do sort of remind of us of our Giant Swirly Cow.

More ice cream is sold on Sunday than on any other day of the week. It makes sense. There’s no better way to end a relaxing weekend than with a cone at your favorite stand or a big bowl of ice cream at home.

TODAY’S PRIZE: What kid wouldn’t want this? It’s the Scientific Explorer’s Ice Cream Kit. Like it says on the box, it’s pretty much a crash course in how to make your own ice cream. It’s also says “invent colors and flavors.” Who says this prize is only for kids?

Meet Oreo. She’s a puggle puppy (that’s a mix between a pug and a beagle) and, as you can see, she really loves her cherry Duetto. Thanks to Audrey B. of Brigantine, NJ for sharing this photo with us! Audrey is a puggle breeder, so if you’ve fallen in love with Oreo and want an Oreo for yourself (or someone else), feel free to email her at puggles4shore@comcast.net.

TODAY’S PRIZE: Two scoops of Me! Bath Ice Cream. According to the Me! website, you just drop one or two of these things in the bathtub and let the relaxation begin. We wonder what would happen if you ate ice cream while using the Me! Bath Ice Cream? There’s only one way to find out!

Here’s another reason to wish for a white Christmas. It’s snow ice cream (just add sugar, vanilla and cream). We should preface this recipe by saying that we’ve never actually tried it, so if anyone has done this or does it in the near future, please let us know how it goes!

SNOW ICE CREAM

1 gallon snow (or just a big bowl full)
1 cup white sugar
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
1 cup cream or milk

DIRECTIONS: Get a large bowl of fresh clean snow (feel free to put a few bowls out on the lawn to catch it while it’s coming down). Stir in sugar and vanilla to taste. While stirring, add just enough cream until it reaches the desired consistency. Serve immediately.

TODAY’S PRIZE: To help you scoop effortlessly for future recipes, we’re giving away the KitchenAid ice cream spade. This thing is heavy duty and built for digging through hard ice cream (and getting all the good stuff in the corners at the bottom).

Some of the most popular flavors of ice cream were only invented a few decades ago, which is weird because they’re so good and it’s hard to imagine life without them. Take Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough for instance. That heavenly concoction was invented in 1991.

Or Cookies ‘n Cream. In 1983, that flavor was invented using real Oreo cookies and quickly climbed to number five on the list of best-selling ice cream flavors. Its meteoric rise in popularity makes Cookies ‘n Cream the fastest growing new flavor in ice cream history!

TODAY’S PRIZE: Ice cream (even fake ice cream) can be used as a learning tool for young children. With that in mind, today’s gift is the Smart Snacks Rainbow Color Cones. The kit comes with one cone and eight brightly colored soft rubber scoops of ice cream which tots can stack on top of each other to learn colors and develop fine motor skills.

This photo of our Giant Swirly Cow was snapped by a quick-thinking passerby during our visit to Buffalo earlier this year (thanks to tonyolm over on Flickr for letting us use this shot). She actually looks somewhat less imposing with those building jutting up behind her. Still, she greeted the citizens of Buffalo with her head held high, because even though the city’s architecture may have dwarfed her, she was still the only giant red and white cow Buffalo had ever seen.

TODAY’S PRIZE: Today’s gift is a children’s book titled, “Ice Cream: The Full Scoop.” According to the description, this book “delivers the scoop on ice cream history, ingredients, innovations, and the mechanics of its small- and large-scale production.” Even though it’s a children’s book, we’re pretty sure you’ll want to read it yourself before giving it away as a gift.