Cape Cod Dining, Restaurants & Catering | Cape Cod Travel Guide: Dreamy Creamy Confection
There’s ice cream, and there’s ice cream.
Run-of-the-mill, store-bought ice cream can satisfy an urge, fill a void—heck, it can be downright tasty. But even premium brands with exotic, foreign-sounding names and strange flavors can’t match the fresh, creamy deliciousness of real homemade ice cream, like the kind sold at Four Seas, where the Warner family has been making ice cream for five decades, or Sundae School, where founder Paul Endres still supervises every facet of the operation, right down to finding the best local patch for the berries to flavor his black raspberry ice cream.
It may sound corny, but you can taste the difference.
“To me, the real bottom line in ice cream is the flavor,” says Dick Warner. He knows what he’s talking about. He started working at Four Seas in 1956 and bought the shop in 1960, making him the dean of Cape Cod ice cream makers. “Good ingredients are expensive, so people try to find substitutes. But you can tell the difference.”
Cape Cod is fortunate to have a handful of old-fashioned, mom-and-pop ice cream parlors, where the quality of the product and freshness of ingredients always come first. By some accounts, there are as many as 100 ice cream shops on this narrow peninsula, most offering ice cream made elsewhere, often by factories that produce thousands of gallons at a time. By contrast, the local shops that make their own ice cream do it five or 10 gallons at a time, measuring and adding the ingredients by hand. A few of the shops, like Four Seas, have national reputations and attract ice cream aficionados from around the country. Shane Jordan, who runs the Cape Cod Ice Cream Challenge website (www.thecapecodicecreamchallenge.com), says he’s been contacted by people who want to plan their vacations around the Cape’s ice cream shops.
“Who doesn’t love ice cream?” says Jordan, whose site rates ice cream shops with one to five scoops, taking into account not only the ice cream but also the quality of service, toppings and other factors. “And everybody has their favorite place.”
It isn’t easy to stand out in a market crowded by trendy flavor-of-the-minute brands with national advertising budgets. While local shops don’t shy away from their own flavor experiments, they rely on a consistently high quality of product and the loyalty of customers, who sometimes go back generations.
“I hear grandmothers tell their grandchildren that this is the place they came when they were their age,” says Douglas Warner, who took over operation of Four Seas from his father a half-dozen years ago. Indeed, the shop itself—tiny and rustic by today’s standards, with an old counter and stools that spin—hasn’t changed much since it opened in 1934. “In this ever-changing world, it doesn’t change.”
Sundae School, with locations in Dennisport, Orleans and Harwich, recently celebrated its 30th year in business. The Dennisport shop, located in a renovated antique barn, is decorated with ice cream memorabilia and collectibles, a nickelodeon and a 1901 soda fountain constructed of marble, onyx and oak. Photos of past seasons’ crews line the walls, while this year’s cadre of high school and college students scoop ice cream and make the store’s signature sundaes behind a 100-year-old marble counter.
Even on a cool, misty day, a steady stream of customers line up in front of the counter, most coming away with a hot fudge sundae piled high with whipped cream and topped by a big dark red cherry.
“We make our whipped cream one bowl at a time, with 40 percent butterfat content,” says Endres, a former history teacher who started the business in Dennisport in 1976 so he and his family could spend summers on the Cape. “We use all fresh fruit. We have a local man who supplies us with raspberries for three weeks every July. We started using real Bing cherries after the red dye scare. That was the first year we were in business. They usually don’t come into season until Memorial Day, so we sometimes pay through the nose for them.”
Sundae School carries about 36 flavors—most old standbys—with new flavors thrown in on occasion. Last summer, for instance, in response to the popularity of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” film, the shops featured Pirate Pandemonium, consisting of peanut butter ice cream with fudge and chocolate-covered pretzels. Endres is a bit more adventurous than some, willing to experiment and be creative. When one of his ice cream makers revealed a passion for Rollos candy, he created a new flavor that he called Joe Rollo.
On the other side of Dennis along Route 6A, Paul Catalano of the Ice Cream Smuggler takes a slightly more conservative approach, sticking to tried and true favorites for his stable of 28 flavors. Featured flavors that rotate regularly get a bit wacky, though; recent specials include Purple Cow (black raspberry with chocolate chunks), Junior Mint and Banana Fudge. His customers like the consistency of the product, says Catalano, who, along with his wife, Carter, took over the 28-year-old business in 2005.
“The sky’s the limit,” he says. “If you can dream it up, we can probably figure out how to make it. But 90 percent of the time you stay with the flavors you know are proven sellers.”
“We try to do a special a week,” says Alan Davis, owner of the Cape Cod Creamery in Yarmouth. Some become part of the rotation of 40 or so regular flavors at the shop, which opened its doors in 2005, making it the newbie among Cape homemade ice cream parlors. His flavors are given Cape-based names, such as Craigville Crunch (caramels, pecans and praline) and Sandbar Swirl (peanut butter cups and fudge), and the lineup includes an extensive selection of gelatos.
Not everyone agrees with this approach. Four Seas’ Douglas Warner says, “We’re purists. Our chocolate is called chocolate. We don’t have ‘chocolate surprise.’ Some places have so much candy and other ingredients you can’t even tell how good the quality of the ice cream is underneath.”
Some of the shops are so particular, in fact, they don’t even carry that ice cream parlor staple, sprinkles (or jimmies, depending upon where you’re from). “Sprinkles aren’t what they were,” says Catalano. “In the ’50s and ’60s, they were shaved chocolate. Today they’re artificial pellets.” Dick Warner gained a reputation as a “sprinkle Nazi” because of his opposition to the candy, which he says is just for decoration and doesn’t add flavor.
At Ojala Farm in West Barnstable, which sells ice cream in addition to its pies and pastries, the attraction is the homemade waffle cones. “We make our own cones, and they’re made with real cookie batter,” says Jennifer Vecchi, who has run the small shop along Route 6A with her husband Paul for four years. That gives them more substance and flavor, and also complements their unusual yet delectable cinnamon ice cream, made by Creative Creamery in Bourne.
Despite the varieties available, the biggest sellers among Cape ice cream shops remain chocolate, Oreo cookie, chocolate chip and, of course, vanilla, which makes up 26 percent of the market nationwide, according to the International Dairy Food Association. Part of the reason is that most sundaes are made with vanilla ice cream, Endres points out. Only Davis reports another flavor topping sales: Caramel Crunch is what draws the crowds to the Creamery.
Surprisingly, local ice cream makers say it’s not the butterfat content of their product—generally 14 to 15 percent—that makes it stand out. In fact, Catalano says his ice cream has less butterfat than store-bought ice creams, but it’s also denser, with less air, and therefore more creamy and flavorful. Other local ice cream makers agree that’s what distinguishes their product from other brands. Davis says the lower butterfat content makes the flavor more immediate and more intense.
All of the shops do a bustling business in cones and cups, with most also offering sundaes, ice cream cakes or specials like Smuggler’s Treasure, a whopping eight scoops of ice cream with two toppings, two candies, a banana, whipped cream and a cherry. “Some people eat it on their own. I’ve seen it done,” Catalano says with more than a little admiration.
While the Smuggler doesn’t offer its product wholesale, Sundae School and Four Seas sell pre-packed pints and quarts in several retail outlets, as well as restaurants and private clubs. At Four Seas, there can sometimes be up to 10,000 quarts and pints of ice cream on hand. Douglas Warner says the store also sells a lot of pints and quarts, particularly to local residents. “Rather than stand in line, they come by early and know to pick up a couple of pints and some hot fudge,” he says.
At Four Seas’ end-of-season sale, held the second week in September, customers order thousands of pints and quarts ahead of time, and the frenzy doesn’t stop until the freezers are empty. Dick Warner credits premium store brands like Ben and Jerry’s and Haagen Daz with acclimating the public to buying pints and quarts. “Before that, all people bought were half-gallons in the supermarkets. If anything, they did us a favor,” he says.
So, bottom line: Who’s got the best homemade ice cream on Cape Cod? The Cape Cod Ice Cream Challenge’s Jordan, who has indulged his love of the treat at more than 35 establishments so far, says less than half a dozen have received a five-scoop rating (Four Seas and the Cape Cod Creamery are among the select bunch). He admits the rating is subjective, comparing mostly very small operations against “the universal perfect ice cream shop in the sky.” And visitors to the website—including a few shop owners—don’t always agree with the ratings. “Sometimes they get a little defensive,” he says.
Among Cape ice cream shops, competition seems more good natured than cutthroat. Catalano says he panicked last year when his ice cream maker crashed, but he was able to negotiate the loan of a spare machine from another local shop.
“It’s a happy business,” said Dick Warner as he greeted patrons outside the shop, where he was signing copies of his book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Homemade Ice Cream. “People appreciate it, especially if you have a good, fun product.”
THE SHOPS:
Four Seas
360 South Main St.
Centerville
508-775-1394
Open mid-May through mid-September
Claim to fame: old-fashioned homemade ice cream since 1934
Sundae School
381 Lower County Road
Dennisport
508-394-9122
Open mid-April through mid-October
Claim to fame: sundaes made with real
whipped cream and fresh fruit
Other locations:
210 Main St.
East Orleans
508-255-5473
Open Memorial Day through September
606 Route 28
Harwichport
508-430-2444
Open mid-May through mid-September
Ice Cream Smuggler
716 Route 6A
Dennis
508-385-5307
Open mid-April through mid-October
Claim to fame: home of the Smuggler’s Treasure (eight scoops of ice cream with two toppings, two candies, a banana, whipped cream and a cherry)
Cape Cod Creamery
Route 28 at Theater Colony Road
South Yarmouth
508-398-8400
Open April through October
Claim to fame: creative ice cream mixes and an extensive selection of gelatos
Ojala Farm
1955 Route 6A
West Barnstable
508-362-0100
Open seasonally
Claim to fame: cinnamon ice cream in a homemade waffle cone
How it’s made
There may be satisfaction in seeing folks smiling over their sundaes, and mischievous fun in creating new and unusual flavors, but making ice cream by hand is also hard work. Alan Davis is the chief ice cream maker at the Cape Cod Creamery, which he believes is necessary to ensure consistency. He spends about 100 hours a week at the ice cream machine.
Considering the volume some shops produce, it’s surprising to see that the equipment used to churn out the ice cream is relatively simple and compact. Ingredients are measured into the top of an industrial ice cream maker, called a “batch freezer” that is about the size of a home refrigerator. The finished product flows out of an opening below.
Freshly made ice cream has a slurry-like consistency, more like soft-serve (which isn’t technically ice cream) than the hard ice cream that’s served over the counter. To get it into the state we all know and love, it’s placed in a hardening freezer at 20 degrees below zero for 24 hours.
After that, the ice cream must be gradually warmed to about zero degrees so that it can be scooped. Even at that point, it takes a strong arm to scoop homemade ice cream; the dipping cabinets out of which ice cream is served are usually kept at between zero and eight or 10 degrees above.
And the batches are usually relatively small. Davis, who went to six different ice cream schools to learn the craft, makes about 85 gallons a day for the Creamery, four five-liter tub batches at a time. Five-gallon batches are the rule at Sundae School, beginning at 9 a.m. every day, while Paul Catalano makes 40 to 70 tubs a day to keep up with demand at the Smuggler. Two people working nine hours a day make nearly 2,000 gallons of ice cream each week at Four Seas, which carries a basic lineup of 24 flavors.
