Whoever said you can’t eat ice cream all day long? Our love for ice cream always pushes us to try to incorporate the sweet taste into each of our daily meals. And chef Heston Blumenthal has made it easier for ice cream fans to do so, with the announcement of his newest wacky creation – ice cream meat pie – to be featured at his upcoming restaurant in London. It is not yet known whether the pie will be stuffed with creamy ice cream along with chunks of hearty meat, or filled with velvety meat-flavored ice cream. In this case, we’re not sure which would be better.

Known for his dishes that sound more like kitchen disasters, Blumenthal has earned rave reviews for his playful recipes. His creations allow ice cream lovers to enjoy the treat the entire day. Ice cream fans can have smoked bacon and egg ice cream for breakfast (pictured), which is served with caramelized French toast, a sweet and sour tomato and red pepper jam, and a rich caramel sauce. Crab risotto with crab ice cream makes a light lunch choice. And finally, a filling ice cream meat pie for dinner.

These unusual concoctions make us wonder: Would you try Blumenthal’s dishes in order to get your ice cream fix all day? If not, what ice cream creations would you make for each meal?


Banana splits have been on our mind all day, since yesterday was National Banana Split Day. The celebration may have been marked on yesterday’s calendar, but it has reminded us that maybe every day should be celebrated with a perfect banana split. 

This treat allows any ice cream fan to be dazzled by its goodness because you can put whatever you want in it. Whether it’s the traditional Vanilla, Chocolate, and Strawberry ice cream topped with whipped cream and a maraschino cherry or all scoops of Rocky Road covered in gooey fudge and nuts, you name it, you can have it. But of course, don’t forget the banana!

This brings up a good question: What is the perfect banana split? Submit to us your favorite banana split recipe.

You can get soda and coffee from a vending machine, chips and candy from a vending machine, even egg salad sandwiches and soup from a vending machine. So it was only a matter of time until someone invented a vending machine that dispenses custom made ice cream.

That’s exactly what the folks at MooBella have done. We first heard about their creation when they won a Food Network Award in the category of “Icy Innovations” (a category Turkey Hill hopes to win next year for its work with Duetto).

As far as we can tell, the machine exists only in a few markets in the Boston area, but it’s designed for use just about anywhere—malls, cafeterias, museums, universities, living rooms. It uses a touch-screen (below) and a flash freezing method to create 12 flavors of premium or low-carb ice cream with your choice of several mix-ins.

In movies about the future, this would be one of the crazy inventions the main character uses before strapping on his jet pack and zooming off to work. Except this thing is actually real!

That’s right. Due to laws against selling food from the road, the magical trucks with the happy music and delicious frozen treats are prohibited from roving the streets and distributing their pick-me-ups to hungry children and adults. But that may soon change according to a Seattle Times article, as city planners consider relaxing the restriction against food vendors. That’s great news! Who wants a bomb pop?

We’ll choose one comment from all the comments left here on the Ice Cream Journal in August to receive this very cool gift! Good luck!

I’m more than happy to help out, Alex, and I wish you the very best of luck in your contest, but I should point out that my competitive eating experience is limited to Thanksgiving and the occasional breakfast buffet. Although I do eat ice cream for a living, I usually only eat it in very small quantities, so brain freeze isn’t an issue for me. However, one person who does have a lot of competitive eating experience and who knows a thing or two about battle brain freeze is Chicago native Patrick Bertoletti.

Pat, or “Deep Dish” as he’s known on the competitive eating circuit, is ranked #4 in the world by Major League Eating and he even has his own website, Deep Dish Eats. Among his eye-popping (or should I say, gut popping?) world eating records are:

- 47 slices of pizza in 10 minutes
- 21 pounds of grits in 10 minutes (yes 21 POUNDS)
- 11.1 pounds of shoofly pie in 8 minutes (set right here in Lancaster County)
- 42 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in 10 minutes
- 275 pickled jalepeno peppers in 10 minutes
- 55 hot dogs in 10 minutes during the annual July 4 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest (not a world record, but still pretty amazing)

Most importantly, Mr. Bertoletti holds the world ice cream eating record with 1.75 GALLONS of vanilla ice cream in 8 minutes during a contest in 2006. That’s more ice cream than I eat in an entire month, and I eat a lot of ice cream! As you can see, Pat has a pretty impressive eating resume, which is why I reached out to Pat to get his professional ice cream eating opinion. Here’s what Pat had to say:

“As far as eating it fast I would suggest using a warm or hot liquid to aid in faster consumption.  Stirring the ice cream up so it’s not rock hard also helps.  I don’t suffer from brain freeze but have heard that flipping the spoon upside down protects you from the dreaded after effects (more like using your tongue to scrape the ice cream off the spoon and keeping the spoon in between the ice cream and the roof of your mouth).  I hope this helps!”

So there you have it. Some great advice from one of the greatest competitive eaters on the planet. Did I mention that Pat has won over $160,000 dollars in eating contests since his professional debut in 2004? Yup, this guy knows a think or two about making food disappear. If anyone else has any advice for Alex for how to win his upcoming ice cream eating contest or how to avoid brain freeze, please share your tips with a comment!

Today is National Root Beer Float Day, which is the perfect excuse to stop by the grocery store tonight to buy some ice cream and root beer and whip up a bubbly treat tonight. (Don’t forget the straws!)

Of course, since it’s root beer float day, you might feel compelled to put root beer in your float, but no one will blame you if you decide to break tradition by opting for an orange soda float or a cola float or any other flavor of soda. But while the soda varies, for some reason vanilla ice cream is the go-to float topper. Not chocolate, not strawberry, not even cookie dough. It probably has to do with the versatility of vanilla ice cream and the fact that it’s a timeless classic.

Which leads us to two questions. Do you use root beer in your floats or do you sometimes use other flavors of soda? And if you decided to get wild and crazy and choose another ice cream flavor besides vanilla, which flavor would you choose?

Of course, the recipe for Moose Tracks is supplied by our good friends at Denali Flavors, who invented Moose Tracks a long time ago. Since then, Denali has invented more than 30 more ice cream flavors, including Bear Claw (chocolate ice cream with chocolate covered cashews and Denali caramel), Caramel Caribou (toffee flavored ice cream with caramel cups and Denali caramel), and Otter Paws (vanilla ice cream with choco coated paw prints and luscious Denali caramel).

Now the folks at Denali have invented a new flavor and they’re asking for your help in naming it. According to the Denali press release, the flavor consists of “a tasty blend featuring rich, creamy chocolate ice cream, ribbons of signature Moose Tracks fudge and peanut butter cookie dough pieces.”

That’s right, peanut butter cookie dough. All sorts of names for that flavor come to mind, but we’ll let you think of your own. You can submit your ideas on the Moose Tracks Facebook page between August 2 and August 13. Denali will pick five finalists and then they’ll post a Facebook survey on August 16 to determine the winner. The winner will be announced on August 27 and will win a year’s supply of Moose Tracks ice cream! Good luck!

This photo was submitted by Bob K. of Olney, MD and Chris B. of New London, MO. Thanks for the pic, guys, and thanks for ending National Ice Cream Month on a delicious note!

BOB WROTE: Wouldn’t you like to receive this on a special occasion? A bouquet of six ice cream cones that contain your favorite flavors. I am not sure how it would be delivered (hopefully in something to keep it frozen). To Turkey Hill lovers this would be better than a dozen of any kind of flowers. Would you finish them all at once or eat one now and save the rest for later? The choice is yours. Enjoy the picture and dream of what could be.

CHRIS WROTE: Ah, summertime…memories of family times at the pool, at the zoo, at the park…and at the local ice cream shop!!  As a child, I grew up in a small town without an ice cream parlor, but I remember sitting on the front porch with my grandfather, eating ice cream and watching the lightning bugs in the front yard.  There are certain things that I HAVE to do with my boys during the summer, and a few (dozen) trips out for ice cream is on that list!  This picture, of the ice cream cones tied together with a red ribbon represents a couple of things for me.  1) The gift of delicious ice cream!!  and 2) The gift of great family memories for my family!  I LOVE that there is Mint Chocolate Chip in the center, because that’s one of my favorite ice cream flavors!!