There’s a college course about…that?

This one-week college course has a unique, 132-year history. A newly married couple included it as part of their honeymoon, and registration demand can sometimes crash the system. What subject could possibly be so popular?

Two words: ice cream.

 Students enrolled in Penn State University’s science-based “Ice Cream Short Course” include novices passionate about perfecting their ice cream making skills to employees from well-known brands such as Tillamook, Hershey’s and Baskin Robbins, and those who are just plain curious. It even attracted the founders of Ben and Jerry’s!

Ice cream college is serious business with classes in milk composition, dairy ingredients, food microbiology and ice cream physics. Students study emulsifiers and freezing techniques, they experiment in a lab to better understand how milk, cream and sugar interact with each other, and learn why one pint of ice cream is worth ten dollars and another worth five.

The course includes homework, extra help sessions and tests. A banquet honors the top ten class ranking, and each student receives a certificate of completion.

It’s a packed week, yet the curriculum would be remiss without sampling opportunities, which is covered in the sensory evaluation class. Students taste 14 samples of vanilla ice cream, and as delicious as that sounds, the word is that it ‘required pacing and strategy.’

ARTICLE: THE SCIENCE OF ICE CREAM