Design a recipe for strawberry ice cream. The challenge is to blend the flavorings so the ice cream looks, tastes, and smells like real strawberries.

WHAT TO DO

Meet the flavorings:

Taste each of the following flavors -

• fresh strawberries
• frozen strawberries
• strawberry jam
• strawberry gelatin
• strawberry syrup
• strawberry extract

Design your recipe:

Choose one or two flavorings for your ice cream. List them in the table below.

Flavoring	Reason for using (Looks? Taste? Smell?)	Amount used
Sugar (optional)

Get what you need:

• 1/2 cup cream
• Sugar
• Chosen flavoring(s)
• Quart-size zip-lock bag
• Gallon-size zip-lock bag
• Spoons
• 1/4 cup salt
• 2 cups of ice
• Paper towels

Mix the ingredients:

Put the cream, sugar, and flavorings into the small bag. Add flavoring(s) and sugar, measuring carefully, until you have a flavor you like. In the data table, record how much you use. Taste by putting a spoonful in a small cup so you don't spread germs. Squeeze the air out of the bag and zip it closed. Make sure it's tightly sealed.

Add ice:

Put the small bag into the big bag. Add the ice and salt to the big bag. Then seal the big bag tightly.

Shake the mixture:

Shake the bags for about 10 minutes. When the cream feels solid, remove the small bag. Dry it with paper towels so salt doesn't get in your ice cream. Have a taste!

Do a taste test:

Rate the ice creams. Circle the number in the chart describing your opinion.

Use the following scale:

1 = Strongly disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Agree, and 4 = Strongly Agree

	Tastes like strawberries	Smells like strawberries	Looks like strawberries	Total Score (add the 3 columns)
Brand A	1 2 3 4	1 2 3 4	1 2 3 4
Brand B	1 2 3 4	1 2 3 4	1 2 3 4
Brand C	1 2 3 4	1 2 3 4	1 2 3 4
Brand D	1 2 3 4	1 2 3 4	1 2 3 4
Brand E	1 2 3 4	1 2 3 4	1 2 3 4

CHEW ON THIS!

To invent your recipe, you had to think like an engineer! You brainstormed an ideal flavor, chose the best flavorings to use, and then made and tested your ice cream. And you had to measure carefully and take excellent notes so you—or someone else—ould recreate your recipe exactly.

You also tested your ice cream using a blind taste test, a test where the taster doesn't know who made the ice cream. This kind of testing is very fair because people judge only the ice cream. Manufacturers do a lot of testing before putting their products in stores. They want to create products that they know people will like and buy.

DIG DEEPER!

If you liked designing a flavor, here are some similar challenges to try.

• Designing recipes could be your career! Challenge yourself to create other flavors of ice cream, like chocolate, pineapple, maple, or something completely new. Do a taste test with your friends and family. Be sure to give your flavor a catchy name.
• Use your creative talents to make something new. Try inventing a new game, writing a song or poem, drawing in a new way, or developing a new kind of smoothie, pizza, or sandwich.
• Try an experiment on your tongue and learn more about how you taste things. Find the Tongue Mapping challenge on the ZOOM Web site.