Food – Ice Cream Heaven

I found my niche. I have become an ice cream freezer, perhaps one of only a handful of people in the country who knows the ins and outs of freezing non-homogenized ice cream. I pour some liquid in a machine and make sure there is a cardboard box to collect the final product at the other end—sounds simple enough, right? Oh, did I mention that taste-testing is mandatory? To my surprise, this job proved to be quite the challenging task. From milk baths to accidentally turning the mix into butter, there always seemed to be disaster pending.

Ice cream has been my favorite food for as long as I can remember. When in a new location, my top priority is to try the local ice cream. A Spring Break trip introduced me to the soursop fruit flavor of the Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos. During a tour of Italy I sampled more than a few of the gelaterias of Rome. I saw one-dollar American ice cream bars on every corner in China while there on a cultural tour, and just this summer, while visiting friends in San Francisco, I experienced salted caramel and balsamic strawberry ice cream. I have had the world’s ice cream. Could there be a better job for me?

This meant one thing to me—unlimited creamy mouthfuls of paradise.

Even better, believe it or not, the creamery I worked for this last summer makes the best ice cream I have ever tasted. After searching the world for that elusive flavor and texture, I found it right in my hometown, Indianapolis, at Trader’s Point Creamery. This small, family-owned farm is one of a kind, a Mecca for dairy lovers where there’s a passionate belief in grass-feeding cows to produce milk for the very best organic dairy products.

I believe Trader Point Creamery’s ice cream is the shining star of the operation, as I am sure an upcoming national competition will fully support. (Remember, you heard it here first!). Their ice cream is non-homogenized; meaning the fat in the milk has not been broken up into small particles. This is also the reason why a person, rather than a fully mechanized system, must oversee the freezing process, as the product can easily turn to butter during the freezing process. The finished ice cream is light, but coats your mouth. It’s creamy, but has substance. It tastes like biting into a banana or blackberry, or sucking on a caramel, depending on the flavor. It can turn around any bad day and mend a broken heart.

The dairy guru of the farm, Fons, trained me in the process and protocols of turning mix into ice cream. He is the man behind all of the creamery’s recipes. When he began, the farm produced only milk. Now, after just a few years, the farm produces a well-known brand of yogurt and cheese. I love listening to his stories of the creameries he has built from the ground up, from Mongolia to Tanzania. On my first day we discussed his past experiences, and dreamt big for my future. I took precise notes on everything we did from turning on the freezer to turning off the light. I was as prepared as I was ever going to be for my first day of flying solo. His final words were, “Find your own way of doing things, and don’t worry.”

In the beginning, nothing went right. My clothes were soaked from the spray produced by washing the implements. The mix-filled buckets were so heavy that I had to lean them against my legs and then do a quick shuffle from the massive refrigerator to my production area. My arms were shaking from the heavy lifting. I had to invent a two part process to break down the batches into smaller quantities in order to lift them above my head into the machine. Always lift from the legs not with the back—I learned the importance of that the hard way. I nearly fainted as the machines heated up my small ice cream making lair. I was sweating bullets, struggling to keep the machine full of mix. Yet, the final packing boxes were overflowing. The floor, the walls, and I were coated with chocolate mix. Somehow there was even ice cream in my shoes.

Aside from my personal dilemmas, I couldn’t get the thickness right—it was either soup or butter. The constant splat, splat, splat of too-soft ice cream was chiseling away at my sanity. I feared I had ruined numerous gallons of ice cream, my career down the drain. Most difficult of all was that once it started, the ice cream making didn’t stop until it was time for clean-up. Thankfully, each day was more controlled and cleaner than the last, and no ice cream ever had to be trashed.

Each new flavor was a challenge. All flavors must come out smooth and soft, but keep their shape when they fall into the tub. Caramel and chocolate can be a bit harder because they are made with more dry matter. The ice cream-sorbet crossover can be almost like custard, as there is significantly less cream in the mix, and therefore it is more difficult to turn it into butter. As with so much in life, I was trying to attain that perfect balance.

Soon, it was a completely different world. Friends I made would come by and chat as I packed the freezer full. I commandeered a radio so I could sing and dance as I washed tools and fill tubs. Perhaps I was most proud that I could walk out of work and not look like I just showered in milk. Rather than straining to keep up with my tasks, I was now able to get ahead on clean up, set up for the next day, and run tests such as how much air is being added to the mix while the ice cream peacefully flows.

People came in and were mesmerized by the perfect waved ribbon that flowed, and they would whisper, “It’s beautiful.” Outside and away from work, it was like name dropping, but more powerful: I would casually slip into conversations that I was the one producing everyone’s favorite ice cream. People turned in their tracks and deliver an onslaught of questions. Hey, I realized, I have a fan club!

~ Jenn Burns

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