Hershey's Premium Ice Cream at Hogie's Sweet Shop in New Hartford, Connecticut

Ok, so I just lost a huge part of this post, so bear with me as I try to rewrite it. I am wondering if I should reconsider where I write my posts so this doesn't happen!

Ok, but that isn't about ice cream, it's about Blogger, so back to the ice cream post.

A few weeks ago when visiting the fam, on our way home from dinner at Blue Sky Foods , we stopped at Hogie's Sweet Shop on Main Street in New Hartford.

My family is a great hope with this blog by the way...they often seem to suggest stopping at an ice cream shop for the goodness of the blog. Thanks family! And a special thanks to Arianna for always remembering her camera and for the awesome photos!

You'll notice that Hogie's has one of those freezers in the front where you can see the kinds of ice cream to choose from. I love those. I am such a visual person, I love to see what I am choosing. However, oddly enough, only some of the ice creams were in the front case, the rest were in the back. This was kind of frustrating. I mean, I almost rather all were in the back. I want to see all of my options or none of my options.

Though the little shop looked like a place that would carry homemade ice cream, it actually carried Hershey's Ice Cream. I was looking forward to trying it, because I had always seen small cartons of Hershey's Ice Cream at the bodega by my old studio, but I had never tried it.

Ater some heming and hawing over their extensive menu (see further down in the post), I finally decided on Cherry Chocolate Cordial (black cherry ice cream with thick chocolate fudge and real black cherries with cherry filled chocolate hearts.). The ice cream was creamy and rich, and I love the combo of cherries and chocolate. A kiddie cup was even enough for me!

As you can see in the menu at left, not only do they have an extensive listing of flavors, but they also had some pretty unique ones. I decided to head over to the Hershey's site to give you a glimpse of some of Hershey's more unique flavors. Please keep in mind Hogie's only carries some of these. Hershey's has quite an extensive collection of flavors and even Hogie's long list of flavors is only a fraction of what Hershey's offers:

1. Royal Red Velvet Cake (Classic baked red velvet cake blended in a cool cream cheese ice cream with vanilla créme.) -- YUM. Wish they had that. This brings back fond memories of the first time I ever had red velvet cake (thanks Christina -- it was amazing) and the yummy red velvet cupcakes at Stacey and Clint's wedding. Couldn't stop eating those!
2. Sinfully Amazing PB Pie (Rich peanut butter ice cream filled with peanut butter cups, peanut butter flakes and mixed with a delicious chocolate pie crust.) -- Too bad Husband missed out on this one. This sounds almost as good as the Peanut Butter Pie I make from the New Basics Cookbook.
3. Playdough (Bright yellow vanilla ice cream with hot pink and blue sugar cookie gems.) -- Ah, they had this at Hogie's, but the name just turned me off. It reminded me too much of eating, well, play dough!

Gosh, that is only the beginning...

Looking at the Hershey's site and being a huge cake/cake batter ice cream fan, I was disappointed to see that Hogie's didn't carry either Birthday Cake (cake flavored ice cream with a whipped cream spiral and confetti cake pieces) or Birthday Batter (ultimate cake batter ice cream exploding with sprinkles)...OMG, if they had carried both, I would have had a scoop of each...heaven!

Something else that is important to note (and I am not sure if I ever mentioned this before in an older post) but Hershey's Ice Cream is not related to Hershey's Chocolate. In fact, Hershey's Ice Cream says this right on their site. The thing that interests me is that they are both from Pennsylvania and their logo is pretty similar. I wonder if they were ever related?

One final note about Hogie's: they don't have a website. From the web searches I did, it seemed to me they have two locations (Main Street in New Hartford and Willow Street in Winsted) but neither have much of a web presence at all.

Would I go to Hogie's again? Sure! Would I buy a carton of Hershey's Ice Cream if I saw it again? If I could find those fun flavors!

Note: All ice cream flavor decriptions are taken from the Hershey's Ice Cream Site.

Recipe: Hot Creamy Cocoa Ice Cream

So its been over a year since I started my ice cream making escapades and I sure have learned a lot along the way. I can't say I have perfected the art or science of making the perfect batch but the process I finally get, so in 2009 I am challenging myself to not follow recipes to every last ingredient and to try to make some flavors of my own or at least switch up some basic recipes.

So here I go, this is my first try and I am rather pleased with the outcome. I was first inspired by a Chocolate Velvet Ice Cream recipe from the recipe book Ice Cream: The Whole Scoop. It was exactly what I was looking for but the one issue I had was that the recipe calls for eggs but it did not call for cooking them. Being pregnant, I am a bit wary of that so this was the perfect excuse to start experimenting.

Here 's how I came upon my Hot Creamy Cocoa concoction. I took a look at that recipe and thought about what exactly did I want? I knew I wanted a rich chocolate but I also always wondered how some ice cream shops make a chocolate that is a super dark brown (the flash made the ice cream in this photo look lighter than ice cream actually was...its not exactly what I was hoping for but still a bit darker and richer) and so creamy. How come mine never comes out that way? So I started with this basic recipe and first added more cocoa than it called for to make it richer and more egg yolks to make it denser and creamier. Then I felt like it needed a little bit of vanilla for more flavor. And really I just kept adding a little more cocoa and sugar until I got the color and flavor I thought was perfect. This definitely was a test run and I had a lot of fun making it my own. For once I wasn't so concerned about following the words on a page and added a little of this a little of that and couldn't wait to see what happened.

The result...a super creamy, oh so chocolaty, cocoa flavored ice cream that I am quite proud of. I did find that it freezes a bit harder than other ice creams I have made so I just let it sit out for a bit but overall I love it. As my 4 year old ate it she said "Mommy, this tastes like a yummy chocolate whipped cream or a chocolate bar!" I take that as a compliment coming from a girl who knows her sweets (not so proud of that but she does take after Mommy!). She also kept asking me what my "secret" ingredient was. Hmmm...never thought of it that way and was stumped on how to answer her! I guess I would say the cocoa. I didn't try to be fancy by mixing different chocolates. I just let the good old Hershey's unsweetened cocoa speak for itself.

Hot Creamy Cocoa Ice Cream

1.5 cups of whole milk

3/4 cup sugar*

1 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa*

5 egg yolks

2 cups heavy cream

1 tsp vanilla

Combine 1/2 cup sugar and 1 cup cocoa in a small bowl. In a medium saucepan, heat milk and sugar/cocoa mix thoroughly. In a separate bowl, lightly whisk 5 egg yolks. Add heated milk mixture to egg yolks, whisking constantly. Pour egg/milk mixture back into the saucepan and add heavy cream and vanilla. Heat on medium heat, stirring constantly with a rubber spatula. Heat until the custard lightly coats the spatula. (Do not boil...you will get scrambled eggs) Remove from heat and pour through a fine strainer (helps to smooth the texture) back into a clean mixing bowl. This is where I added the remaining sugar and cocoa to perfect the flavor.

Cool over an ice bath and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. Then freeze in your ice cream maker according to your machine's directions..

* this is a guesstimate since I kept adding cocoa and sugar until I got the flavor I was looking for