Cookie Dough Rock Slide, Cinnamon Bun win Ice Cream Store competition

For six hours, hundreds of people swarmed around The Ice Cream Store at Rehoboth Avenue and the Boardwalk to participate in its fourth annual Ice Cream Social and Free Tasting Event - and their verdict is in. Eschewing Green Fairies and Purple Cows, a clear majority of taste-testers put Cookie Dough Rock Slide at the top of their list of favorites, with Cinnamon Bun coming in for a close second.

Cookie Dough Rock Slide is cake batter ice cream with chocolate chip cookie dough, fudge and peanut butter. Cinnamon Bun is cake batter ice cream flavored with cinnamon and brown sugar with swirls of butterscotch throughout, that tastes exactly like its namesake.

Ice Cream Store owner Chip Hearn says that aside from those two flavors, there were no clear-cut favorites. “Last year there were flavors that were giants, and many others that simply didn't make it. This year we have two lead favorites, one failure (Banana Fana Foo Fudding), with votes spread pretty evenly among the remaining 20 flavors,” Hearn said.
The votes were extremely close between third place Junk in the Trunk - African vanilla ice cream with brownie pieces, pretzel pieces, crushed Oreo cookies, and pieces of white and dark chocolate; fourth place Praline Pecan - brown shugah vanilla ice cream flavored with praline, ribbons of caramel and lots of crushed pecans; and fifth place White Wine - African vanilla ice cream with Nassau Valley's Broadkiln white wine, castor sugar, and orange and lemon juices.

Hearn noted that there were a couple of flavors, Salty Milk Chocolate, and Scorpion Sting, which is flavored with Cayenne pepper, cinnamon, and You Can't Handle This Hot Sauce, that people loved or hated. But ironically, they would love or hate the flavor for different reasons.

“Some Scorpions Sting tasters disliked it because it was too hot, while others disliked it because it was not hot enough,” Hearn said.

Jefferson School student James Ferneyhough said he would have selected Scorpion Sting as his number one pick, if it had been hotter. “I want more burn and I want it to last longer,” James said. Instead, he selected Praline Pecan.

Mindy Evans said Scorpion Sting was so hot it made her eyes water, and young Alicia Strack cringed at the taste of Scorpion Sting and promptly gave it a zero on a one to 10 scale. Cake Batter with Reese's Cups earned her 10 for the day.

Hearn said his problem is that he doesn't know which flavors to keep. “We already had 70 flavors, now we have 90, and I can't keep them all,” Hearn said. “We've created our own monster. For years we've introduced people to unique ice cream flavors, and as people become more willing to experiment, the loser list keeps getting shorter.”

Field trip results

Taste-testers were of all ages. A group of seventh- and eighth-grade Jefferson School students on a field trip to check out the new flavors showed up as the event began. “They've been studying nutrition all year long, and it's time to go a little crazy,” said physical education and health teacher Nancy Berg.

Opinions varied as to the best new flavor Morgan Ross chose Blue Ribbon Chocolate, and when asked why, her response was simple: “It's chocolate!” The class culinary expert, David Baker, opted for Unleash the Green Fairy, saying he really liked the combination of vanilla and pasteurized egg yolk, adding that the mini chocolate chips helped a lot.
Many of the students chose Praline Pecan as their favorite. “The combination was perfect,” said Ian McCann. Though some disagreed with his number one pick, there was unanimity about The Ice Cream Store owner Chip Hearn. “He's officially awesome for creating all those flavors,” said Ian.

Always politically correct, retired judge and former gubernatorial candidate Bill Lee opted for Beach Plum, created from a homegrown delicacy. “Think local,” Lee said.

“We'll keep listening to our customers,” Hearn said. “We sure can't complain that so many people like so many of the flavors that it's hard to eliminate them!”

Information Box:
The Ice Cream Store
Rehoboth Avenue at the Boardwalk
Rehoboth Beach, DE 19971
227-4609
RehobothIceCream.com