Milk Chocolate Cookies

Mixing it up: Local ice cream makers whip up frozen treats

Making ice cream is a labor of love for workers at local dairies and creameries. A lot of time and knowledge goes into crafting the perfect frozen treat, but the most important ingredient is a little imagination.

At the Lands at Hillside Farms in Shavertown, the long production process starts with milk from the dairy cows, said Chet Mozloom, executive director.

"It's pretty much a closed system," he said. "I would start with grass, that's step one of making ice cream."

Workers collect the milk and bring it to the ice cream processing area in the dairy store building, said plant manager John Shortz, who has worked at the farm since 1981, just a little while after ice cream production started there. The milk is pasteurized and homogenized - heated and cooled down to kill bacteria. Sugar and other ingredients are then added to create the mix.

Shorts said Hillside Farms uses a white mix and a chocolate mix made with cocoa as the bases for their ice cream. The mix stays in bulk tanks until the dairy workers are ready for production. They use the batch mixer, or a larger continuous mixer for more popular flavors, to churn out gallons of the finished product.

"If you wanted to make butter pecan, you add your butter pecan base and then you add your pecans," Shorts explained. "You can pretty much put anything into ice cream, you can't go wrong."

At Blue Ribbon Dairy in West Pittston, Ken and Ann Sorick continue a decades-long tradition of making ice cream, with a little help from their children, Kathleen and Ken Jr.

Ann Sorick's father opened the dairy after returning from service in World War II in 1945. They began making ice cream with the cream left over from skim milk, and it became the core of their business in 1991 after the need for milk production waned.

Ken Sorick makes the ice cream mix several times a week, combining cream and sugar, milk with skim powder and whey powder to give it body and texture.

"I learned by working side by side with (Ann's father)," he said. "If I didn't pay attention, I was lost."

Like Hillside Farms, they create a white and chocolate mix, a laborious process that takes a day, Ann Sorick said.

"It takes me a long time to make that all," Ken Sorick added, pointing out the 65 flavors listed on the wall.

Carl Peterlin, owner of Back Mountain Creamery in Trucksville, studied at the Penn State University Creamery - the same place the makers of Ben & Jerry's learned about making the popular dessert.

Dove Caramel Milk Chocolate Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Has anyone else been watching Food Network’s new show Tough Cookies?  I haven’t been watching it religiously but if I catch it on, I may stop to see what kind of cookies they’re baking.  A few days ago I caught one episode where they were adding candy pieces into a cookie for their local mayor.  They added Rolo caramel chocolates and that got my mouth watering and my mind wandering.

So off to the store I went but they didn’t have Rolos, so I found some Dove caramel milk chocolates instead.  I knew that I wanted to actually put the candies inside each cookie and not just on top.  Picky Palate had just the right recipe I was looking for.  So here’s what I made.

Just by looking at them you’d think they were just average run of the mill chocolate chip cookies.  But you’d be oh so wrong about that!  These buggers have one whole Dove caramel chocolate stuffed in the center to make a gooey, chocolaty secret treat!

OMG, just look at that sweet liquid caramel center.  They are so delicious!  The Dove caramel candies give these cookies an added sweetness that makes your knees weak.

I am so excited about these darn cookies, they are that good!  I couldn’t wait for hubby to walk through the door from work.  I practically shoved a cookie in his mouth as soon as he came in.  And don’t worry, he went gaga over them just like I did.

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