UMass Ice Cream Competition Produces 4 New Flavors

MassLive, May 3, 2017, by Diane Lederman.

Ice cream lovers will have four new flavors to try this year because judges couldn’t pick just one in the third annual University of Massachusetts food science student ice cream competition.

Thirty food science students in four teams created the flavors — chocolate hazelnut fudge swirl, lavender liqueur, lemon-raspberry swirl and root beer float — but they were all too good for judges to pick a winner, according to a press release.

So Maple Valley Creamery in Hadley will make all four.

Creamery owners Bruce Jenks and Laurie Cuevas, who also served as judges, said they hope to offer at least one of the new UMass flavors as early as May 12 from their mobile truck at commencement ceremonies, and soon after that on campus and in retail outlets around the state.

The lemon-raspberry swirl and root beer float flavors will be produced for widespread distribution. The other two will be for sale only at the creamery’s Mill Valley Road farm store, their Route 9 scoop shop in Hadley and in campus eateries, according to a press release.

The hazelnut and lavender liqueur flavors are both “winningly delicious,” Jenks said in the release, but with the presence of a nut allergen in one and trace amounts of alcohol in the other, they are less widely marketable.

The students developed the ice cream for their senior capstone project in professor Maria Corradini’s food processing class. In coming up with their product they must stay under a price-per-pint cost limit while maximizing taste, aroma and texture.

The students also research food allergens, manufacturing safety and natural ingredient requirements, among other criteria.