Hot Ice Cream on a Cold Day

Hot ice cream: for anyone but Sam O. Gilbert ’07, it’s an oxymoron.

For him, though, it’s a chemical delicacy.

Gilbert has been aspiring to make the contradictory treat after he discovered recipes for the unusual concoction in a blog post from a chef who had used a food-thickening agent called methylcellulose to make hot ice cream.

“Methylcellulose precipitates at high temperatures, so you put it in a room temperature [ice cream] mix, it dissolves, and you take a bit and heat it up, put the ice cream in boiling water, and it hardens like freezing,” says Gilbert.

Right.

Complicated chemistry aside, Gilbert has been relatively successful with the product, just not the taste.

“As of now, I’m having trouble getting something that doesn’t taste like crap,” says Gilbert.

Yet he’s persevering in his quest, experimenting with different bases, like cream cheese. But if cream cheese ice cream doesn’t get you going, Gilbert has other flavors in mind.

“I think chocolate would be great,” says Gilbert. “It would be like hot chocolate.”

Sweet.