Ice Cream

At Jacob Springs Farm we make Ice Cream with extra milk as available and aim to keep enough in the freezer to sell all year round.

We have a Vevor Hard Ice Cream Machine that can hold about 5 quarts of ice cream batter at a time - but we definitely find that 3.5 Quarts is the sweet spot - 22 minutes at this size seems to be enough in the summer.

The goal with cheaper machines like this is getting as much air whipped into the ice cream as possible - this makes it softer and fluffier - more scoopable and more pleasant to eat. Higher-end machines take this to an extreme in search of profits. Ice cream is sold by volume in the USA and more air means full containers with less ingredients and LESS CALORIES - which some customers evidently think they want.

The Economics of Ice Cream on our farm is funny; We can probably make more money on the raw material by selling more milk shares. Fluid milk usually brings a higher price even not contain labor costs since it takes so much milk to make cream (and Ice Cream is typically a third to a half cream) If a pint of Ice Cream takes a half pint of milk and a half pint of cream - and a half pint of cream takes the skimming of 2.5 pints of milk - 3 pints of milk go into each pint of ice cream - at $10 per half gallon for raw milk in our area, we are already at $7.50 cost not counting a couple eggs, sugar, flavorings, add-in and, of course, the cost of labor and barely worth doing even if you sell the ice cream for $10 a pint. So why do it? Three reasons:

1. It's a way to recover materials during times of excess production and salvage value from them. Cows produce more in the spring and summer, but share customers buy more or less the same amount all year. We can only sell so many shares doing the summer months to avoid shorting people in the winter. Egg production sometimes exceeds sales - and this is a way to use eggs.

2. Customers like it, and we like making them happy.

3. If any items can entice people to stop and make a transaction during their milk pickup, they may be more likely to buy other things as well.

Seasonal Considerations:

• At times of year when cream and eggs are abundant, we tend to make more French Style Ice Cream which is rich and creamy
• When theres plenty of cream but less eggs we make more Philadelphia Style Ice Cream
• When there's little cream we can only make Sorbet, Sherbet and Gelato

• Summer drives sales - that when theres abundant materials for ice cream making
• Fall and Holiday sales pair well with certain flavors

Flavor Master List

• Coffee (or Café au Lait - a milder version)
• Green Tea
• Mint Chip
• Rum and Rasin
• Key Lime
• Toasted Hay
• Burnt Honey
• Green Cardamom
• Basil Cinnamon

Seasonal Flavors

• Late Summer
  • Peaches and Cream
  • Jalapeno Peach

• Autumn
  • Salted Caramel (fold-in)
  • Pumpkin Pie
  • Butter Pecan

• Holiday
  • Egg Nog
  • Candy Cane