Eyes Cream Balls

A quick treat for kids are Eyes Cream Balls. You’ll need some vanilla ice cream (or other preferred flavor), corn flakes or sprinkles, chocolate chips and raisins.

Roll rounded scoops of ice cream in corn flakes or sprinkles. Then add eyes, nose and mouth with chocolate chips and raisins. Place your creations on a cookie sheet and put them in the freezer until time to devour.

As an alternative, you can create a pair of eyeballs with your ice cream balls. For this treat, you will need vanilla ice cream, strawberry syrup, M&M’s (blue, green or brown) and black decorating gel.

Simply scoop the ice cream into two balls about an inch apart. Drizzle syrup onto each ball to create a bloodshot effect. Put an M&M (logo facing down) at the center of each and top with a drop of black decorating gel to form a pupil. Enjoy at Halloween time!

Ice Cream Drinks

Ice cream is a nearly perfect medium for serving liqueurs and spirits. Its sweet, creamy consistency accepts a wide variety of flavors, making it extremely easy to be creative. Likewise, nowhere is it written that you have to use vanilla ice cream. There are at least 31 flavors from which to choose, so experiment. Consider pairing chocolate ice cream with Kahlua, or strawberry ice cream with Di Saronno Amaretto. Then again, who said you're limited to using ice cream? Imagine combining Midori with lime sherbet, or tequila and Grand Marnier with lemon sorbet.

Unlimited Potential: These drinks are typically flavored with different types of modifiers, one being fresh fruit, such as bananas, strawberries, raspberries, melon, and peaches. Other examples include chocolate, caramel, or butterscotch syrup, peanut butter, fruit juice, iced coffee or espresso, and crushed cookies or candy bars. Modifiers come in many different forms, so don't fence yourself in.
Creative Specialties: Rest assured, most people want to indulge themselves. Tempting them with irresistible, dessert-- like libations is a `can't miss proposition. Here are some recipes for ice cream drinks.

Bananas Barbados
House specialty glass
1 oz. Mount Gay Eclipse Rum
1/2 oz. Myers's Jamaican Rum
1/2 oz. Creme de Banana
2 oz. sweet & sour
1 ripe banana
Blend with ice
Float 1/2 oz. Myers's Jamaican Rum

Chocolate-Covered Banana
House specialty glass, chilled
1 3/4 oz. Bailey's Irish Cream
1 oz. Creme de banana
1 oz. chocolate syrup
1 1/4 oz. half & half
1/2 ripe banana
Blend with ice

Banana slices and chocolate syrup drizzles
Death by Chocolate
House specialty glass, chilled
1 oz. Bailey's Irish Cream
1 oz. Godiva Chocolate liqueur
1/2 oz. vodka
1 scoop chocolate ice cream
Blend with ice

Raspberry Run Cream
House specialty glass, chilled
1 oz. Light Rum
3/4 oz. White Creme de Cacao
3/4 oz. Chambord
1 1/2 oz. raspberry yogurt
2 oz. half & half
1 scoop raspberry ice cream
Blend with ice

Rhumba Escapades
House specialty glass, chilled
1 1/4 oz. Bacardi Light Rum
3/4 oz. Myers's Jamaican Rum
1/2 oz. Creme de Banana
1/4 oz. grenadine
1 1/2 oz. pineapple juice
1 ripe banana
1 scoop vanilla ice cream
Blend with ice

How To Make Great Shakes

Making good malts and shakes isn't rocket science, according to some foodservice operators. But making great ones comes close, insist veteran soda jerks.

Malts and shakes hark back to a soda-fountain culture that had its heyday in the '40s and '50s when ordering an "In the Hay" got you a strawberry milkshake and the guy known as a soda jerk commanded respect.

With the current interest in comfort food and diner cooking, these dairy-rich drinks are making an encore. But practitioners of the art claim skilled soda jerks are in dwindling supply.

"[Making a good shake or malt] takes physical stamina. Your hands get mighty cold, the mixer overheats and if you make enough of them your shoulder blades ache," says Bev Surrency, whose claim to fame is a personal record of making 600 malts in one day. Surrency and husband Ted own Yellowstone Drug Store in Shoshoni, Wyo.

In 1997, the 12-stool, 35-seat landmark sold 55,146 malts and shakes. "It's hard to find young people who want to do this kind of work," Surrency laments. With 59 flavors of ice cream and an average output of 300 drinks a day, she devised a production line to take orders, dip, mix and serve. "An experienced counter person can do a malt in 16 seconds," she adds.

Malts and shakes are first cousins, with malts building on milkshake's formula with the addition of malt powder, according to Malcolm Stogo, an icecream industry consultant. The formula for a shake is two scoops of ice cream, 8 ounces of cold milk and 2 ounces of syrup. Thickness depends on the amount of milk or ice cream, according to Stogo's Ice Cream and Frozen Desserts (John Wiley & Sons Inc., $59.95, 1998).Though recipes for both are basic ice cream, flavoring and milk, the difference between good and great depends on the quality of ingredients, the sequence in which they're packed and technique.

Malt Licker

Malts need more attention, says Mike Bean, a manufacturer of malt powder in Colfax, Wis. "Malt powder attracts moisture and cakes unless it's stored in a tightly covered container. And in order to dissolve the granules and disperse flavor properly, malt powder needs a liquid medium."

 Philadelphia's Nifty Fifty's malts earns awards because of the generous amount of malt powder. Each 24-ounce size is made with 2 ounces of powder. (Most operators use a heaping teaspoon for a 12-ounce drink.) Among their best sellers is banana-split shake, a blend of fresh bananas, syrups (strawberry and banana) and strawberry ice cream. Chocoholics go for the Black Forest malt enriched with chopped cherries. Malt as a flavoring dates to the 1800s. A combination of milk and malted barley is cooked, dried and ground into a mellow, slightly sweet flavored powder.
 
SOFT SELL
Ice milk and soft-serve ice cream, though less expensive than hard-pack ice cream, lack the rich mouthfeel that butterfat provides. Soft serve ranges from 3% to 10% butterfat and costs around 4 cents per serving. Premium ice cream with butterfat content from 12% up costs from 6 cents. Food costs for malts and shakes should be around 30%, according to Stogo. "A drink made with ice milk or fatreduced products will be very cold and granular on the tongue," he says. "A drink made with premium ice cream will be rich and smooth."

1. Mix ice cream, syrups, cherries, powder and milk in blender. Blend 30 to 45 seconds, depending on hardness of ice cream.
2. Check for smooth texture. Cherries should appear as specks. Drink is proper thickness when spoon stands straight in cup. Garnish with whipped cream.
3. Serve immediately.

Black Forest Malt
Yield: 1 24-oz. serving Chocolate ice cream 13 oz. Chocolate syrup 1 oz. Cherry syrup oz. Canned cherries, drained, chopped oz. Malt powder 2 oz. Whole milk 4 oz. Whipped cream 4 oz. That's why the sequence of adding ingredients to a mixer cup is important. Malt powder needs to be added between liquids or ice cream. If not, it clumps in the bottom or sides of the cup or sticks to the blade. Liquid malt, though less expensive and easier to store, can have a bitter edge, according to some operators.