This recipe is adapted from one submitted by Cheri F. of Sinking Spring, PA during last year’s holiday recipe contest. In Cheri’s recipe, it used Egg Nog ice cream, but we chose to feature it here because you can also use other flavors of ice cream (and it sounds like a great recipe!).

It’s also simple to make… and that’s always a good thing. If anyone makes this, let me know how it turned out! By the way, the photo below isn’t a picture of this exact recipe, but it is a multi-layered ice cream cake and similar to how this might turn out.

CHOOSE YOUR FAVORITE FLAVOR ICE CREAM PIE

CRUMB CRUST  INGREDIENTS & DIRECTIONS

(You can purchase a pre-made crust, but making your own is fun and easy.)

1 1/2 cups of fine crumbs from ground up graham crackers
6 tblsp melted butter (3/4 stick)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Mix all four ingredients and spread evenly in pie pan. Press firmly onto bottom and sides. Freeze for at least an hour before adding filling.

FILLING INGREDIENTS AND DIRECTIONS

Pack approximately half a container of your favorite Turkey Hill ice cream flavor into the shell with the back of a large spoon (you may need to let the ice cream soften before doing this). Sprinkle half a cup of crushed vanilla wafer cookies (or any cookies, if you’d like) over the ice cream. Pack the remaining ice cream (perhaps a different flavor than the first) over the crushed cookies, mounding it in the center. Sprinkle lightly with more crushed cookies. Freeze for at least 2 hours prior to serving. When ready to serve, top with whipped cream if desired.

The two factors that contributed to ice cream’s meteoric rise in availability in the mid 19th century was the invention of machines to make ice and the lower cost of sugar. Prior to this period, ice was harvested from natural sources and sugar was a costly luxury item. Thankfully, we found a way to make both factors more readily available and affordable. Otherwise, we’d all be paying $45 for an ice cream cone today.

It’s time for another edition of ice cream trivia. Considering this month’s Thanksgiving holiday, we thought we’d continue the turkey day theme with trivia questions dedicated to Turkey Hill. Send your responses to icecreamjournal@gmail.com or use the Ask Ernie link on the right. Three people who answer all the questions correctly will be chosen at random to receive some free Turkey Hill ice cream. Good luck, and feel free to use the internet to find the answers!

1. From whom did the Frey family purchase the farm on which Turkey Hill founder Armor Frey first started his business?

2. What TV personality and entrepreneur lived in a spacious farmhouse called “Turkey Hill” for more than 30 years?

3. Which Turkey Hill ice cream flavor contains Keebler Fudge Shoppe Grasshopper Cookies?

4. What’s the total of the following equation (sorry about the math): The year a Turkey Hill delivery truck “took an unguided trip into the pond out back” MINUS the year Glenn, Emerson and Charles Frey purchased Armor Frey’s budding Turkey Hill business PLUS the number of dollars in cost of a Turkey Hill ice scraper MINUS the total number of Venice Ice flavors currently available according to the Turkey Hill website.

5. Which Philadelphia parade did the Turkey Hill Giant Cow “invade” according to a video posted online AND which flavor of Venice Ice are the parade announcers eating while they watch the Giant Cow?

By the way, the answer to which story was fake from last week’s wacky ice cream news is “Whose Got the Sprinkles?” (the one about the ice cream truck accident in Manchester, England). Which means the following stories are true: Yes, there is an ice cream being developed to help patients undergoing chemotherapy; Yes, an 8-year-old boy did get lost and was found indulging himself in the ice cream aisle of his local grocery store and; Yes, a Missouri drug store really is selling ice cream for 5 cents a scoop!

Reading, as they say, is fundamental. (Or FUNdamental, according to the posters you may see in many elementary schools.) Speaking of reading and fun, an elementary school principal in Plattsmouth, Nebraska wanted to reward his students for logging 13,410 minutes of reading in the Scholastic Reading Program, so he let 15 young scholars, whose names were chosen at random, turn him into a human ice cream sundae. Check out the photo below, courtesy of The Plattsmouth Journal and photographer Brent Hardin and the complete story here. Something tells me if our bosses let us turn them into human ice cream sundaes, we’d all be reading a lot more too!

You don’t realize how much weird ice cream-related news there is until you start combing through the archives of the Internet for it. Not old stuff, either. I’m talking about recent weird news. As always, three of the stories below are 100 percent true and one was made up by the Turkey Hill team. Leave a comment with your guess about which is the frozen fake.

WHO’S GOT THE SPRINKLES? – Highway crews in Manchester, England are describing it as “a big mess” and ice cream lovers were tempted to stop their cars and grab a spoon when a frozen foods truck carrying more than 10,000 half gallon containers of ice cream overturned on a highway just outside the city. No one was injured in the accident, but it did send half of the truck’s frosty cargo tumbling out onto the three-lane road and bring traffic to a standstill until the melee could be cleared.

THE MIRACLE DESSERT – Researchers at New Zealand’s University of Auckland have developed an ice cream with two active dairy ingredients that combine to address the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy. The helpful treat, called ReCharge, is available in strawberry flavor and is being tested with cancer patients in six New Zealand cities.

LOST AND FOUND – An 8-year-old Australian boy who disappeared from his bedroom in the middle of the night was found a few hours later pretty much where’d you’d expect to find a missing 8-year-old. Melbourne police picked the barefoot boy up at 3:50 am after he’d wandered into a 24-hour grocery store and began helping himself to some chocolate ice cream in the frozen treats aisle of his local grocery store. The child was reunited with his parents a short time later.

IT’S LIKE 1935 ALL OVER AGAIN! – In an effort to bring the old days back to life (and more customers through the door), a drug store in Ava, Missouri has set up an old fashioned soda fountain and has begun selling ice cream for five cents a scoop (limit three scoops per person). As expected, most of the fountain’s customers are kids from a nearby school who are anxious to put their allowance to good use.

Last week, Lancaster County’s local NBC affiliate, WGAL-TV, stopped by the Dairy to tape a story for the nightly news about how it’s “business as usual” for Turkey Hill despite the current economic times. That’s right, as you’ll see in the story, we’re still hiring and doing quite well thanks to our great customers.

The story shows a lot of behind-the-scenes action at the Dairy, including the production of our newest Limited Edition holiday ice cream, Ginger Snap. You might also notice in the story that the names below some of the people are incorrect. The man they say is Ernie Pinckney is really Eric Rotz, and the man they call Eric Rotz is, of course, Ernie Pinckney. That’s a shot of Ernie below from the story (check out the full video here). He loves this kind of stuff!

P.S. – Some of you are asking how we’re judging the recipes in our Ultimate Holiday Recipe Contest. It’s a good question. Here’s how it’ll work:

We’ll review all the entries and determine four finalists (two from each category) based on the creativity of the recipe, simplicity (not too easy, not too hard) and the overall appetite appeal of the recipe. Once we have our four finalists, we will personally prepare the finalist recipes in order to take photographs. Then each finalist recipe and photo will be published on the Ice Cream Journal in its own blog entry from December 7-10. On December 11, we’ll open a poll on the blog and readers will have one week to vote for their favorite recipe. On December 18, we’ll announce our winner!

A lot of people believe in the power of astrology and horoscopes, including several members of the Turkey Hill team here in the office. That’s why it was no surprise when one of our most passionate horoscope reading co-workers found this ice cream-themed Zodiac chart. We’re not sure if the chart was made purely for entertainment (some may say all Zodiac charts are), but it seems pretty accurate for most of us.

For example, it describes Tauruses as loving decadent chocolate-covered ice creams, while Virgos prefer options that cater to their healthier lifestyles. Sagittariuses and Aquariuses like exotic flavors while Pisces sometimes have trouble making up their minds about which flavor to indulge in.  (Don’t we all?)

Check out the complete listing here and let us know if it comes close to predicting your ice cream eating habits.

P.S. – The entries in our Ultimate Holiday Recipe Contest are pouring in! We’ve got more than 60 recipes already, with more arriving every day. To recap, send your best recipes using Turkey Hill ice cream to icecreamjournal@gmail.com. The categories are Ginger Snap (recipes using our Ginger Snap holiday flavor) and Everything Else (recipes using any other Turkey Hill ice cream flavor). Four finalists will be chosen to receive a one month supply of ice cream and one grand prize winner will receive a year’s supply of ice cream. More details can be found here. Good luck!

The following will be sent out via e-mail to our mailing list in a few days, but we thought we’d announce it here on the Ice Cream Journal to give you all a head start!

Last year we asked you to send us your best recipes featuring our Limited Edition holiday flavors and you answered the call by submitting more than 150 recipes. We called it the Ultimate Holiday Recipe Contest (the best recipe got a year’s supply of Turkey Hill ice cream!) and it’s back again this year.

Here’s how it works. All you need to do is create a holiday recipe for either of two categories:

1) Recipes using our new Ginger Snap holiday ice cream flavor (in stores soon)

2) Recipes using any other Turkey Hill ice cream flavor

Your recipe can be anything you’d like – a drink, a pie, or something entirely different! The only requirement is that it includes Turkey Hill ice cream, preferably as the main ingredient.

E-mail your entries, along with your name and address, to icecreamjournal@gmail.com before Monday, November 30 to be entered to win the grand prize – a one year supply of Turkey Hill ice cream. The best recipes will be featured on the Turkey Hill website and the four finalists (each of whom will receive a one month supply of ice cream) will be posted on our blog, the Ice Cream Journal. Blog readers will then vote to determine the winner!

Good luck and feel free to submit as many recipes as you’d like!

P.S. – For inspiration, check out the ice cream recipes page of the Turkey Hill website.

We’re a day late with this announcement, but we wanted to wish a very happy third birthday to the Ice Cream Journal. That’s right, three years ago the Journal burst onto the scene as one of the only all-ice cream blogs in existence and it’s stronger than ever today thanks to thousands of ice cream loving readers! And with that, here’s a another edition of Ask Ernie:

JANICE K. OF SCRANTON, PA ASKS: What was the first ice cream flavor ever?

Good question, Janice. We’d all like to think it was chocolate chip cookie dough or Moose Tracks, but that’s not the case.

We know in the 4th century B.C. that Roman emperor Nero sent servants into the mountains to retrieve snow, which was then flavored with honey, nuts and other fruit toppings, but that’s not really ice cream because it contains no milk or cream. Some of the earliest frozen treats to use milk and cream originated in the Middle East around the 10th century A.D. These desserts (I’m assuming they were eaten for dessert) were also flavored with fruit and nuts.

But if you’re looking for the first modern ice cream recipes — the stuff that most closely resembles the ice cream we know and love today — you’ll have to go back in time to 18th century England and America. It was then that one of the earliest ice cream recipes was printed in a book called Mrs. Mary Eale’s Receipts. Mrs. Eale describes making ice cream with “Cherries, Rasberries, Currants, or Strawberries.”

It was around this time, or maybe a little earlier, that Europeans were working hard on perfecting the art of freezing flavored cream. They, too, added fruits to their recipes, but they also added grated cheese and candied orange flower. According to the article “Asparagus Ice Cream, Anyone?“, not all of their creations were successes, as in the case of the aforementioned pureed asparagus ice cream and foie gras ice cream (yes, duck livers).

So, it’s likely that the first ever ice cream flavor was some sort of fruit flavor. You’d be inclined to think the first flavor was vanilla, because vanilla is the base for so many other flavors, but that would require early ice cream makers to add vanilla bean or vanilla extract to their iced cream concoction and there’s no evidence of that in the earliest days. Still, vanilla was one of the first widely produced and enjoyed flavors of the modern era (19th century to the present). Even today, vanilla is the number one selling flavor in the world, which is quite an achievement considering all the other great flavors in existence!

There’s a holiday coming up tomorrow, but I can’t remember what it is. Oh well. Last night was kind of strange in the neighborhood. Kids kept knocking on my door and asking for treats (or tricks, but I didn’t know any). And oddly enough, they were all dressed in costumes. At one point, two witches, a zombie and a Power Ranger paid a visit and they all seemed so enthusiastic that I finally dug through a drawer in my kitchen and found some tic tacs to give them. They didn’t seem pleased with that treat, but it was all I had.

Wait! This happened last year around this time (and the year before if I remember correctly). That must mean that it’s HALLOWEEN! Ahh, it all makes perfect sense now! Well, Happy Halloween to everyone. I’d suggest giving out Turkey Hill ice cream to your michevious visitors, but I don’t think that would end too well.

P.S. – We’re very close to reaching a milestone here on the Ice Cream Journal. To date, our cozy little ice cream blog has attracted 1,979,904 visitors, which means we’re a stones throw away from reaching TWO MILLION visitors! According to my calculations, we should surpass the two mil mark any day now. To celebrate, I’m going to give away a special prize (to be announced later) to our two millionth visitor. Could it be you?