Cows Ice Cream: Take 2

While I was back home in PEI for my second trip this summer, I made a point to go back to Cows Creamery and try out some more great ice cream. While I was at the main location I got a chance to go on the factory tour with my brother and one of my cousins. I'd never been on the tour before so I was excited to see what it was all about. 

The tour started out with a short video to explain some of the history behind Cows, most of which I've covered here. First stop on the tour was a glimpse at the t-shirt printing presses. All of merchandise for all of the stores is made right here. Each arm of the machine puts a different color through the screens and onto the shirts. I thought that was pretty impressive. It looked too simple to be able to print as many items as they go through in a season.

 

Appropriately enough (for those who know me) they were printing the "Justin Beefer" shirt while we were there. 

 

There were huge prints of some of the most popular shirt designs hung on the walls. 

 

A reference to Anne of Green Gables for those not familiar.

I missed my opportunity to snap a picture of the room where the ice cream is actually made. I was sort of astounded to find out that all of the ice cream for all Cows locations for the entire season is made in this one (not very big) room over three days a week by three guys, one batch at a time.

Next stop on the tour was a view of the cheese room where they age their award winning cloth-bound cheddar for about 18 months at a very specific temperature and high humidity to replicate the environment in the caves where this kind of cheese is typically aged. The video also showed how they turn Island milk into thousands of pounds of delicious looking butter. Mmm...
 

On with the ice cream! Over the course of the trip we had four different combinations between us. Moo Crunch/Mocha Almond Fudge was my first cone. The Moo Crunch (chocolate ice cream with Cows-made "Skor" bits and peanut butter cups) was absolutely delicious. Soooooooooooo many peanut butter cups in this particular scoop. The Mocha Almond Fudge wasn't like I remembered it. It was one of my top three back in the day when I worked in Cavendish and was scoring the unofficial staff cones. However, I remember it having whole almonds and a more distinct mocha flavor than this scoop had. Could be a batch thing.  

Moo Crunch and Mocha Almond Fudge

Next up, my cousin had PEI Blueberry and Moo Crunch. She had nothing but good things to say about the blueberry. I also tried a sample and it was quite good. I'm not a huge fan of fruity ice cream but I think it would be really good if that's your thing. Sadly, she wasn't super impressed with her Moo Crunch. While the scoop I'd had a few days before was loaded with peanut butter cups, her scoop only had one. Sad. She had chosen that particular flavor because she wanted the peanut butter. 

PEI Blueberry and Moo Crunch

My brother chose Moo York Cheesecake (cheesecake base with Oreos) and mint chocolate. He really liked the mint with chocolate chunks. He also liked the cheesecake but he was expecting it to have a bit more of a distinctive cheesecakey flavor. 

Moo York Cheesecake and Mint Chocolate

For my second cone of the trip I went with Cookie Dough and Fluff 'n Udder (chocolate ice cream with marshmallow and peanut butter cups). The cookie dough was really good. I had tons of cookie dough chunks in my scoop and they had good flavor and texture. 
Sadly, my scoop of Fluff 'n Udder didn't live up to the deliciousness of the scoop I had last month. There was a good bit of marshmallow but only a single peanut butter cup.

Cookie Dough and Fluff 'n Udder

Overall, I think we were all happy with our selections. The only comment we all made was the inconsistency between scoops. Some were LOADED with mix-ins and some had none. I think it's a consequence of the way the ice cream is made. As we saw on the video during the tour, the ice cream and mix-ins are kind of layered in the container. I guess if I could make one suggestion to Cows it would be to find a way to mix things up a bit more. Nothing is worse than getting all excited for a scoop full of whatever and then finding you got none. Ice cream should be a happy experience! Regardless, I will certainly be back and I enjoyed introducing my cousin (from Boston) to a true Island experience.


What's your absolute favorite flavor of ice cream? 


*Thanks to Cows for providing me and my family with the Factory Tour and the delicious ice cream!

Baby Shower Cupcakes

A few weeks ago I was asked to make cupcakes for a mega baby shower we were having at the office. There is most definitely something in the water there...at one point this year 9 of 140ish employees were pregnant. There are so many babies on the way that the shower was for three of the first time moms-to-be. I was given free reign over what I wanted to make. That's a lot of pressure. I wanted to go with a pink and blue theme and decided to make strawberry and blueberry cupcakes. I like to give options when I'm feeding a lot of people. 

I didn't get entirely creative. Given the number of cupcakes I was making, I didn't want to start off with a completely new recipe in case it failed miserably. I made the same base as the rhubarb cupcakes I've described a couple of times before. Instead of rhubarb I added blueberries to one batch and diced strawberries to the other. Simple as that!

The plan was to make the cooked flour frosting I love so much and use blue for the blueberry and pink for the strawberry. Logical, right? The only problem was that I had MAJOR issues with the frosting. I'm not sure what happened but when I added the butter to the cooked flour base it completely separated and got really oily and gross looking. It was really too bad it didn't work out because it still tasted delicious. In the end I had to run out to the GT Boutique down the street to clear them out of icing sugar so I could make Martha's fluffy frosting. A super basic and delicious standby. Then, of course, I ran into another issue. The No Name butter I was using was super yellow and my blue and pink frosting turned out to more like mint green and salmon. Sigh. In the end, they were still pastel colors and baby shower appropriate, but I knew that they didn't look like I'd envisioned.

No one else seemed to mind the colors. I got a lot of compliments from my co-workers, which was nice. It's always good to hear others like what you're doing. 

Coming up next - I'm attempting my first allergy-friendly baking this coming weekend. Wheat, nut and dairy-free. This should be interesting.