Ice Cream Takedown in Somerville, MA

In the last week, I made over 2.5 gallons of ice cream.  Why, you may ask?  Today was the Ice Cream Takedown, a fierce competition in Somerville, MA...and I participated!  You may remember the Meatball Takedown I did a few months ago - this competition is headed up by the same guy, Matt Timms, who puts on similar events all over the country.

I love ice cream.  Like, LOVE it.  If there was one thing I could eat for the rest of my life (and not have to worry about pesky things like daily vitamins), it would be ice cream.  So you can you imagine my glee to participate today!  Utter glee.

I did, however, have a little bit of a personal crisis deciding what flavor to make.  How are you supposed to pick one delicious flavor?  I decided to test four flavors and pick my favorite for the competition (Red Velvet Cheesecake, Apple Pie, Key Lime Pie, and something with bacon).  But after making the key lime pie ice cream, I knew that was the winner and stopped there.  It was creamy, tangy, and just sweet enough - some of the most satisfying ice cream I've ever eaten!  With a graham cracker crumble on top, it was perfect.  "Key Lime" also allows for a cute beachy theme, so I had a good time decorating!

Soooo many people came to eat/judge the ice cream!  Over the course of the two hour event, I scooped close to 300 little cups of ice cream!  (Several people came for seconds, thirds, and fourths...)  Hungry people!

There were lots of other delicious ice creams at the event.  Ann made a Peach Bourbon ice cream, which was out of this world.  YUM.  Some of my other favorites were the salted caramel ice cream with caramel corn, an uber-creamy cookies and cream, and honey and chocolate chip ice cream.  I missed about half of the flavors because they'd run out by the time I got a free moment to make the rounds, which was a bummer.  Some of the more wild flavors were cardamom, an "everything" ice cream (that had about 12 different "star" ingredients), drunken s'mores, and another with curry and safron.

Here's a shot of all the participants.  I was honored to win 3rd place for people's choice - whoop!  If you'd like the recipe for my (now award-winning) key lime pie ice cream, click here.  You NEED to make this at home - you can thank me later.  :)

Oh...and I can't forget Husband!  Since he wasn't able to go (he had back surgery earlier this week), I went around and collected samples of some of the ice creams to bring home for him to try.  He was one happy guy!  :)

Don't forget to check out the recipe!!