It started every Saturday morning with a blueberry bagel and a drive down 95 to TIC Gums, a company that specializes in food texture and stability, to learn how to make and market ice cream. The program, called Ice Cream University is partnered with and based off of Cornell University’s Food Science 101 course.

Starting at 9 a.m. every Saturday for five weeks, sixteen Harford County students including myself, filtered through the doors at TIC Gums in White Marsh. Each day we were met with smiling faces from various mentors. We heard from a variety of people including food scientists, marketing specialists, and ice cream entrepreneurs. We learned how much actually goes into making and commercializing something that seems as simple as ice cream. Every week brought a new experience to us. The first week we tasted how vastly different various vanilla flavors can taste. It seemed that they had infinite amounts of different brands for us to try. All in all I think we tasted somewhere close to 15 vanillas, which all tasted shockingly different. The first half of class always focused on teaching us something either about food science, marketing, or the process of commercialization.

The second half was left to us students, it was the time we had to experiment with two flavors each day. Over the four days and eight possible flavors we could make, my group of myself and three other Harford County students experimented between three flavors, eventually choosing ‘Holy Cannoli’ as our final flavor. Working to perfect our flavor was a tedious task full of interpreting what ingredients put together really made our ice cream taste like the classic Italian treat that so many are familiar with. Finally confident with the recipe and genuinely enjoying our flavor, we started to think of ways to market our product. We made a google slides presentation that was both informative and aesthetically pleasing and made the final batch of our cannoli ice cream before judging.

The fifth Saturday we faced the panel of judges and the three other groups going against us. We presented our ‘Holy Cannoli’ flavor, going against ‘Maryland Madness’ which was made from Old Bay and sweet corn, ‘Fire&Ice’, a Crème brûlée flavor, and ‘Sweety Pie’ a sweet potato pie flavor. We presented our marketing plan while the judges tasted and scored our flavor, and we waited anxiously as the rest of the groups went, wondering how our presentation and flavor stacked up against the others. After all groups had went, the judges excused themselves to another room to talk about what flavor they thought should win. All the room was almost silent as we waited for what seemed like exorbitant amount of time for the judges to come back. About five to ten minutes after the judges left they returned, and one by one filed back into the room and sat back in their seats. Tim Andon, the man running the class since day one began talking to us all and thanked us for our participation. All we wanted to know at this point is who won, and he finally announced that ‘Holy Cannoli’ had won the contest and would soon be produced at Brooms Bloom Dairy. My group was ecstatic and I can remember some camera flashes going off while my mouth hung agape from shock. The rest of our last class followed in a blur as pictures were taken and we were all sent home with our own ice cream maker.

About a week or so later I received an email that our group would soon be going to make our flavor at Brooms Bloom. On April 20, we went and made ‘Holy Cannoli’ at Brooms Bloom and decided to debut the flavor that weekend starting on April 24. Over five gallons of our ice cream was made and will be on sale for the general public starting April 24 and hopefully throughout the rest of the summer if it is popular enough.

Overall my experience at Ice Cream University was nothing but positive. It is a program that allows you into the world of marketing and food science. Without the program, students would never get a chance to do anything even remotely like it. I highly recommend applying to Ice Cream University, it is usually done every year in the spring. The program is available to 11^th grade students, keep an eye on HCPS accounts promoting it next spring or ticgums.com to apply for future sessions, and don’t forget to come try our ‘Holy Cannoli’ ice cream at Brooms Bloom sometime this weekend!