dikancies The Real Scoop On Ice Cream (NAPSA)—If you think it’s tough to lick ice cream when it comes to favorite comfort foods, you've got some company. A recent survey found that ice cream and pizza are Americans’ favorite comfort foods, beating out such comfortable classics as fried chicken, hamburgers and macaroni and cheese. In addition, one in five people said they’ve eaten ice cream to cheer themselves up— and half of those people said the creamy sweettreat did thetrick. Andthe survey also found that although chocolate sauce is a common food to mix with ice cream, 15 percent of Americans admit that they have topped their ice cream with Coca Cola or other soda pop. Other unusual ice cream toppings mentioned include milk, pickles, bacon bits, garlic and ketchup. The 50 percent of Americans who say they scrape the bottom of their ice cream bowl to savor every last drop may find this hard to believe, but there are a few ways to make ice cream even better. Try these tips from the experts at KempsIce Cream: Keep Your Cool—Try to avoid storing your ice cream in the freezer door. Every time the freezer door opens, the temperature changes, and that can cause theice cream to lose its creamy texture. No More Brain Freeze—Ice cream headaches are caused by a nerve center located above the roof of your mouth. When the nerve center gets cold, it reacts by trying to heat your brain. That heating is what people call brain freeze. You can help the nerve center keep its cool by not letting ice cream touch the roof of your mouth. Just Chill—Don’t try defrosting ice cream in the microwave— you'll end up with a half soupy, IcE CREAM SANDWICHED—Ice cream, cookies and sprinkles make a fun to eat, delicious treat. half frozen mess. Instead, take ice cream from the freezer a few min- utes before serving and place it in the refrigerator to soften. This will eliminate the coarse texture that comes from partial melting. It takes some patience, but it may be worthit. Whenit comes to favorite kinds of ice cream, the list is long—and delicious. For instance, Pillsbury and Kemps Ice Cream recently came out with seven flavors of ice cream that combine some favorite tastes in new ways. Their Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough is made with real cookie dough and rich chocolate chunks in vanillaflavored ice cream. Their Turtle Fudge Brownie Ice Cream has chewy brownies, thick caramel ribbons and chunky pecans swirled in chocolate ice cream. Ice cream lovers can also sample Peanut Butter Fudge Chunk Ice Cream, Brownies ’N Cream Ice Cream, Lovin’ Caramel Swirl Ice Cream and Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream. Pillsbury even offers a fla- vor called Cake & Ice Cream, which they say was inspired by delicious memories of family birthday celebrations. For more information, visit www.kemps.com.
