Exotic and Inventive Flavors Dominate 11th Annual UMass Ice Cream Competition
Members of tjhe winning team at the 11th annual UMass ice cream competition review the elements of their winning entry $treet Nut$. Photo: umass.edu
Source: UMass News & Media
The winning flavor in the annual ice cream competition among University of Massachusetts Amherst food science majors – called $treet Nut$ – combined a profile of “sweet, salty, spicy and smoky” to create a frozen version of the aromatic roasted nuts sold from a cart on New York City streets.
A standing-room-only crowd of more than 200 students, faculty, family members and ice cream lovers witnessed presentations from five student groups on the evening of May 8 while savoring two-ounce samples of each flavor, hand-packed by their creators into compostable containers.
The ingredients of the winning flavor: peanut butter, cinnamon, molasses, dulce de leche, pieces of dark chocolate-covered pretzels – plus the “magic ingredient,” liquid smoke. “I’ve seen nothing like this before,” said Judy Herrell, president and CEO of Herrell’s Ice Cream & Bakery, who mentored the class throughout the semester and served as one of the four judges. “There is a lot going on, but the flavor profile is very interesting.”
The winning team: Luke Bangert of Franklin, Massachusetts; Nicole Buldo of River Vale, New Jersey; Abby Harnett of Northborough, Massachusetts; and Sam Heins of Essex Junction, Vermont.
Herrell will reproduce $treet Nut$ – as well as the other four ice cream flavors created by student groups– in her popular downtown Northampton store on a rotating basis. “They’re all wonderfully inventive, forward-thinking flavors,” Herrell said. “And a lot of fun. We enjoyed all of them.”
Charmaine Koo, instructor of the food processing lab who has organized the competition in recent years, found “this year’s flavors a little more exotic. All of them are winners.”
The People’s Choice Award, voted on by the crowd of attendees, was a flavor called Date Night, described enchantingly as “a memory waiting to happen” and featuring imported red dates hand-mashed into a paste, goji berries and osmanthus honey. “It was delicious,” Herrell agreed.
The Date Night team: Natalie Barney of Bedford, Massachusetts; Ryan Kim of Seoul, South Korea; Danshi Li of Beijing, China; Jessie Qui of Shenzhen, China; and Bryan Yu of Kansas City, Missouri.
The judges tallied a score sheet based on each ice cream’s texture, overrun (amount of air in the ice cream), sustainability, smell and taste, and ease of replication. In addition to Herrell, the judges were Rose Ritter, Herrell’s production manager; Pamela Adams, executive pastry chef for UMass Dining; and Maryann Tebben, assistant director of the Career and Professional Development Center in the UMass Amherst College of Natural Sciences and former head of the Center for Food and Resilience at Bard College-Simon’s Rock.
Second place went to Tahini in a Bottle, which brings a sesame and almond flavor to the ice cream, with swirls of pomegranate and fudge. The team: Annie Jones of Framingham, Massachusetts; Michelle Li, originally of Changchun, China and now living in Columbia, South Carolina; Grace Campbell Maillet of Newton, Massachusetts; and Aviva Stein of Arlington, Massachusetts.
Third place went to Funky Monkey, evoking banana bread and cheesecake and featuring banana and four cheeses – brie, borgonzola (a mix of brie and gorgonzola), goat and cream cheese – mixed into the ice cream base. The team then added in dried apricots soaked in rum and graham cracker pieces dipped in brown butter.
The Funky Monkey team: Liam Allard of Andover, Massachusetts; Kyle Donovan of Boston; Hazel Hoang of Hanoi, Vietnam; Minh Nguyen also of Hanoi, Vietnam; and Alex Turnberg of Springfield.
The final ice cream was Guavalicious, flavored with a mix of guava paste, salt, lemon juice and ground cardamom. The students added chunks of cream cheese to provide a mix of crunch and creaminess. The team: Lauren Ho of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Belle Jonglertrakul of Sing Buri, Thailand; Millie Nguyen of Hanoi, Vietnam; Shuli Rosenfeld of Miami, Florida; and Xiaoke Xiang of Shanghai, China.
In addition to being a lot of fun and tasty teamwork, the capstone project provides senior food science majors with the perfect platform for integrating food science principles – from microbiology, chemistry and processing to shelf stability, marketing analysis and nutrition – as they prepare to enter the field.