History of Ice Cream

• The history of ice cream can be traced back to the 4^th century BC in Roman times where ice and from the mountains was combined with fruit toppings.
• In the 13^th century the Chinese developed a method of mixing ice flavours including milk and brought the concepts to Europe.
• Overtime recipes for ice, sherbets and milk ice evolved.
• In 1851 the Baltimore company was the first to produce and market wholesale ice cream which in turn became a profitable treat and an icon of American culture.
• During the 20^th Century many brands of ice cream appears on large scales within supermarket and branded franchised parlours across the world.
• Now many people enjoy making their own ice cream at home and devices to make ice cream are sold in retail outlets throughout the world.

Ice Cream Facts

• Australians are amongst the largest consumers of ice cream in the world on a per capita basis – probably due to our warm climate and plentiful supply of milk available.
• Ice cream is made from milk, cream, milk solids, sugars and flavourings which are all blended together and go through a high pressure mixing process followed by a heating process with a rapid cooling process where the mixture is frozen and beaten and then packaged.
• During the manufacturing process ice cream mixture needs to be frozen at about -25degrees C to allow the ice cream to harden while the best temperature to serve ice cream is believed to be 8 degrees F.
• Ice cream dosn’t freeze solid because of its composition of sugar, fat blobules, ice crystals, and air.
• To reduce ice cream freeze headaches or sensations try to limit the amount of cold ice cream that touches the roof of your mouth where the nerve centres are located.
• The most popular topping for ice cream is chocolate syrup

Ice Cream Jokes

Q. How do astronauts eat their ice creams
A. In floats

Q: What do you get from an Alaskan cow ?
A: Ice Cream

Knock! Knock!
Who's there?
Ice cream!
Ice cream who?
Ice cream if you throw me in the cold, cold water!

Knock! Knock!
Who's there?
Ice cream soda!
Ice cream soda who?
ICE CREAM SODA PEOPLE CAN HEAR ME...

Email us if you know a great ice cream joke and you could have your joke published on our web site.

History of Fairy Floss

• Originally known as ‘Cotton Candy’, fairy floss can be traced back to Italy in the 1400’s.
• Originally the method of making cotton candy was very time consuming and then when refined in the 18^th century confectioners were cotton candy as a desert and decoration – particularly popular among Europeans where Easter eggs were made form spun sugar.  The techniques were varied slightly are required all different levels of cooking ability however due to the skill needed to create these amazing deserts, it was often a taste sensation reserved only for the wealthy.
• In 1897 candy makers William Morrison and John C Wharton corrected flaws in the making process and created a machine that would create the same product without all the manual labour and skill needed.
• Cotton candy really made its first world debut in Paris back in 1900 and again in 1904 at the St. Louis World Fair where boxes of fairy floss were sold for 25 cents a box (expensive at the time)
• About a year later a candy store purchased a machine and started selling fairy floss at 5-10cents a box
• The name Fairy Floss didn’t really emerge until 1920 in America however the UK call it candy floss and in other parts of the world it is still referred to as Cotton Candy.
• By the late 1940’s one company created a machine that revolutionised the cotton candy industry followed by a new automatic machine in 1970 that could produce cotton candy on a mass scale and package it.
• Today cotton candy / fairy floss is commonly sold at select candy stores and commonly at carnivals and circuses throughout the world as a children’s favourite treat.

How is fairy floss made?

Firstly you need 4  items:

• We need  a decent amount of heat (from a fairy floss machine) to melt  the sugar, which in time will  liquefy ( this will now be liquid sugar ).
• A large amount of tiny holes (found in the head of a fairy floss machine), that the liquid sugar is able to be forced  through, creating threads of sugar.
• A spinning head (circular with many tiny holes, forms part of the head on the machine), then forces the liquid sugar out of the tiny holes in the head. 
• Lastly,  we need a large bowl to catch the many threads of sugar.

The head of a fairy floss machine contains an element which is controlled by a thermostat ,this  determines how hot the element gets, thus enabling how many strands are produced and how quick they are produced.

This element melts the sugar, turning it into a liquid. So as the head of the fairy floss machine is spinning, at the same time its melting the sugar. As the sugar melts, its forced through the tiny holes in the head. As the sugar threads are exposed to the air, they are then cooled and re-solidified. In the bowl the  weblike   sugar threads have now formed. These threads are now the end result and are collected onto a stick.

by Ken Murray, Ken’s Cones

Why not see for yourself and hire a machine?