Ice Cream

[mycroft.livejournal.com]

There are a few things I would humbly suggest about the ice cream making process:

1) Use a different labeling mechanism. The clipped on index cards were too prone to falling off. It's also not clear to me that some of the containers were ever labeled in the first place. It's a little more expensive, but Sharpie on colored gaff tape would be a lot more robust. [See addendum.]

2) Have a full ingredient list. One idea I had for this is to use a rolodex. When the ice cream is mixed, it gets numbered, and a rolodex cards gets filled out with the ingredient list. [See addendum.] People can flip through this at their leisure. When the ice cream is served, the card is pulled out and affixed to it at the serving table (or perhaps affixed to the table). Anything without a number doesn't get frozen.

3) What ever happened to the ethereals? Have they been tried with LN2? ISTR they were popular back in the day.

4) Pack some dry ice in the freezer(s) to get things cold. This will require some careful planning so the ice cream isn't too hard at serving time, but it should be workable.

I'm willing to implement any or all or the above.


Addendum:

1) There have been various suggestions of how to affix labels better. Phil's idea (the billboard covering material), in particular, is worth following up on.

2) After some discussion, I think I'm leaning toward putting the ingredient lists in a binder instead. The pages can be taken out and pasted to the tables before serving begins. Again, anything without a number/list doesn't get frozen or served.

3) If someone sends me the recipe(s), I'll try out ethereals and consider reviving them next year.

Also, a point I mentioned in a comment: I suggest doing away with the large buckets, and instead splitting the popular flavors and serving them at multiple tables. I think this would reduce congestion at least a little.

Comments

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

Labels: Flavor title, presumably a mnemonic hint to contents. Must be brief and easy to read in twilight.

Ingredient List: Entire cast of characters in the recipe, even down to whether it's dairy or not. Probably does not fulfill the requirements of "Labels" above.

Categories: like musical genres, this is of appealing but dubious use. Keeping sorbets, ices, gratines and other dairy-free items in one category appears useful, right up until somebody watches Iron Chef and gets inspired to make a prawn sorbet, triggering the kosher and allergic folks. Likewise, some can eat cooked fruits but not fresh fruits, etc. By the time every category which is important to an attendee has been identified, we run the risk of having as many categories as flavors. Still, there may be some use in the concept. But it is no substitute for providing the recipes for general perusal.

[mycroft.livejournal.com]

I really don't think classification is feasible. There are simply too many potential sensitivities. The only way to deal with that is to have everything labeled with the ingredients. Of course, we can't guarantee these are accurate either -- it's really up to the people mixing the flavors.