Campus & Beyond Here’s the Scoop: Earl Grey-Flavored Ice Cream Wins Annual Contest Stories You May Like Hotelie Aims to Bring Brown Butter to a Dairy Case Near You Peek Inside the Galleries at AAP’s Freedom of Expression Show The Scoop on Cornell Dairy Treats The confection, ‘Brewing CommuniTea’—inspired by Cornell’s Freedom of Expression theme year—will be available at Reunion This story was condensed from a feature in the Cornell Chronicle. By Susan Kelley An ice cream inspired by the conversations that flow every day, around the world, over simple cups of tea won Cornell’s annual ice cream competition. Brewing CommuniTea—an Earl Grey tea ice cream with caramel swirls and buttery shortbread pieces—won out over two other flavors in a vote on the Ithaca and Geneva campuses in mid-April. Nearly 4,000 students, staff, faculty, and alumni sampled the student-developed ice creams inspired by Cornell’s Freedom of Expression theme year. Scooping up a sample in Stocking Hall (while wearing a theme year T-shirt). “It’s really empowering to us to know that all of our hard work has paid off, even with the little experience that we do have in food science,” says Madeleine Rodoski ’27, a food science major in CALS and a member of the winning team, which comprised mostly first-year students. “In the end, we did a pretty good job of combining all of our ideas into one final product.” Every year, student teams create ice creams as part of the Science and Technology of Foods introductory class, taught by Chris Loss ’96, PhD ’06, the Louis Pasteur Lecturer in Food Science. Dessert puts Touchdown in a roar-ing good mood! Stories You May Like Hotelie Aims to Bring Brown Butter to a Dairy Case Near You Peek Inside the Galleries at AAP’s Freedom of Expression Show Rodoski discovered that the Cornell Dairy Bar, where the competing flavors would be served, had never served a tea-oriented flavor before. She came up with the idea for what would become Brewing CommuniTea. “She nailed it right away with the tea, shortbread, and caramel,” says teammate Marcus Iong ’27. “And we never ended up changing that three.” The Cornell Dairy Bar had never served a tea-oriented ice cream flavor before. The most challenging aspect was getting the proportion of tea flavoring right—and how to deal with shortbread cookie pieces that became soggy when mixed in, says Lucy Clarke ’27. “We decided to freeze the shortbread beforehand and then mix it in so it kept its composition and it was kind of a little bit more crunchy, which is what we were going for,” Clarke says. “On our second trial, we basically got it almost perfect.” Democracy in action: Voting via QR code in the Straight. The other finalist flavors were Coming Out of Your Shell—raspberry-citrus ice cream with dark chocolate ribbons, served with a hardened chocolate coating—and Toni S’Morrison, which emulates eating s’mores around a campfire (and pays homage to Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, MA ’55). All three finalists are currently on sale at the Dairy Bar—and the winner will be available during Commencement and Reunion. (Top: Photo of the winning flavor by Ryan Young / Cornell University. All other images by Sreang Hok / Cornell University.) Published April 24, 2024 What's your favorite Dairy Bar flavor? Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Class Year Email * Save my name, email, and class year in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ Other stories You may like Alumni Alum Honored with Another ‘Feeney Way’ on Campus Campus & Beyond Concoct a Cocktail in Honor of Our Newest Alumni Ask the Expert How’s the Hospitality Industry Doing? A Hotelie Weighs In