Ice Cream Sandwich - Bubblegum & Banana

Large, chunky chocolate chip cookies with 2 scoops of delicious ice cream wedged in between and all topped off with sugared, whipped cream and hot chocolate sauce. Ice cream sandwiches don't get much better than this!

The ice cream flavors in this sandwich were bubblegum and banana. Ideal for kids but personally I prefer straight chocolate and vanilla ice cream. Old fashioned? Maybe, but oh so good!

Vanilla Ice Cream - Under Threat?

Vanilla ice cream is by far the most popular ice cream in the world, of that there's no doubt. The stats to my ice cream recipes have proven that year upon year. Vanilla is therefore a valued commodity and already commands quite a price on the open market compared to many other foodstuffs.

In the news today there have been reports about poor vanilla crops in Mexico and India creating speculation that there will be a shortage of vanilla and vanilla extract this summer.

Straight away many news agencies and newspapers have started scare-mongering about high ice cream prices this summer. According to them, this vanilla ice cream cone could fast become a luxury!

Thankfully, it seems not everyone is getting carried away by these reports - one leading producer of vanilla has just made a public announcement to the effect that they don't anticipate any particular shortage in supplies so their customers who buy from them to make ice cream and other foods using vanilla/vanilla extract should not suffer significant price increases. Read the full story from PR Newswire here

Hopefully, they will be right .... ice cream is such a wonderful 'happy' food that it needs to be affordable by everyone, whether they make homemade ice cream or buy commercially made ice cream.

Long may vanilla be in plentiful supply!

Interested in reading more about vanilla? Read my vanilla page.

More Gelato Recipes

I've written about gelato ice cream before and introduced you to a nice vanilla gelato recipe which you can make at home. Now I have more gelato recipes and wanted to share them with you. I've chosen to cover chocolate and banana which I have read are 2 of the most popular flavors in gelato ice cream:

chocolate gelato (gelato cioccolato)
banana gelato (gelato banana)

The chocolate gelato recipe calls for dark chocolate as an ingredient and although I don't like to eat dark chocolate on its own, I find it super in ice cream or in this case gelato. I'm sure there are other people out there like me! There's something about blending rich chocolate into an ice cream mixture that becomes quite irresistable!

I read an interesting BBC article a couple of years ago about how chocolate can be beneficial to health and it led me to read up more on the subject. What I found was an amazing array of information, anecdotes and research in support of the idea and my chocolate and health web page was written as a result. There's so much to know and understand about chocolate and I'm sure there's still more to be learned.

National Ice Cream Day 2008

It's here ... National Ice Cream Day for 2008! The third Sunday in July: this year it's 20 July.

It's a rather unusual 'Special Day' but one that more and more people are getting to know about and learning to celebrate. For some it will be a special trip to one of their favorite ice cream parlors whilst for others it will be to just stay home and make a batch of delicious homemade ice cream.

If you've never made your own ice cream before, now's the time to try. It's great fun and both children and adults alike can get involved and if you have an electric ice cream maker it doesn't take very long either. You can make a gelato (soft scoop) ice cream or choose from a whole range of sorbets; alternatively you can opt to make one of the more traditional custard/cream base ice creams such as vanilla ice cream or strawberry ice cream.

When you've made your ice cream it doesn't end there .... you can serve it in an ice cream cone or as an ice cream sundae or even go for the big one and try a Knickerbocker Glory (as in the photo).

Once you've made and eaten your ice cream you can then sit down and relax - and know that on this special day you have really played your part. So go to it and enjoy!