In 2019, MyRecipes.com tasted 13 national vanilla ice creams and voted Graeter's No. 1. The reason has less to do with the vanilla and more to do with how slowly it gets made: 2½ gallons at a time, in a French Pot, with barely any air folded in.
Vanilla is the hardest flavor to hide behind. There is no ribbon, no swirl, no chunk of anything to distract from the base. Whatever the cream tastes like, that is what the ice cream tastes like. Which is why a blind vanilla tasting is a reasonable way to find out who is actually paying attention.
What Makes the Best Vanilla Ice Cream?
Most ice cream in a grocery freezer is made in a continuous freezer, a machine that runs cream in one end and pushes finished product out the other, injecting air as it goes. That air is called overrun, and the industry allows a lot of it. Some products are close to half air by volume. It is cheaper, faster, and lighter on the spoon.
A French Pot works the opposite way. A chilled 2½-gallon vessel spins while a blade continuously folds the cream against the cold walls. Nothing is injected. Whatever air ends up in the batch got there because the folding put it there, and that is not much. The result is dense enough that a pint has real weight to it.
Graeter's has been making ice cream this way since 1870, which as of this summer is 151 years. The equipment has been updated. The method has not.
Why Madagascar Vanilla Beans
Vanilla is not one flavor. Madagascar Bourbon beans, which is what goes into this batch, carry a rounder and creamier profile than the sharper, more floral character of Tahitian beans or the spicier edge of Mexican. In a base this simple, that difference is the whole product.
The beans go into a base of fresh cream. Two ingredients doing all the work means both of them have to be right.
The Tasting
MyRecipes.com set 13 national brands against each other in 2019 and put Graeter's first. Thirteen brands is a real field, and vanilla is the category where a French Pot batch has the least to hide behind and the most to prove.
Handpacked, One Pint at a Time
A French Pot batch yields about 2½ gallons, and every pint of it is filled by hand. That is a person with a spade, moving ice cream from pot to pint. It is the slowest possible way to fill a container, and it is the only way to move a product this dense without tearing it up.
It also means the seams are never quite identical from pint to pint. That is what handpacked looks like.
Try It This Ice Cream Month
July is National Ice Cream Month, and Graeter's is marking its 151st year with a $1.51 cone for Sweet Rewards members, the annual coloring contest running through July 31, and summer bonus flavors revealing every two or three weeks. Key Lime Pie arrives in August. Strawberry Sorbet is in shops now.
Madagascar Vanilla Bean is available year-round in scoop shops, online, and in more than 4,000 grocery stores across 46 states. Start with a spoonful of it plain, before anything goes on top. That is the version 13 brands lost to.
Source: Graeter's Celebrates National Ice Cream Month With Sweet Rewards, The Shelby Report, July 8, 2021.
