What Makes Mad Maggie's Ice Cream So Great?

We get lots of compliments on the quality of our ice cream, and we're very proud when we get mentioned as having the best ice cream around.

So what is it that makes our ice cream better than the rest?

Basic Standards for Ice Cream

There are a couple of basic properties of ice cream that manufacturers use to classify their products.

• Butterfat - The percentage of butterfat in the base mix is one important property. By law, any frozen dessert has to have at least 10% butterfat to be sold as "ice cream". (Part of the reason why "soft serve" isn't sold as "ice cream" -- most are only 5% butterfat.)

  Cheaper products are very close to this minimum. A product containing 12% butterfat is considered "Premium" ice cream, 14% is considered "Super Premium", and 16% "Ultra Premium".

• Overrun - This refers to the amount of air whipped into the ice cream as it freezes. All ice cream has air in it, as that's what gives ice cream the "fluffiness" that makes it feel better in your mouth than what you'd feel if you simply froze cream into a solid block.

  By law, ice cream can have no more than 100% overrun, meaning that for every gallon of ingredients that go into the freezer, two gallons of ice cream come out.

The Mad Maggie's Difference

We do everything we can to make the best ice cream we can. So how does ours differ from the others?

• While many of our competitors use a 12 or 14% butterfat mix, we use a premium 15% mix. Also, some use a "UHT" (ultra high temperature) pastuerized mix, which has a longer shelf life before it's frozen. We don't like the "cooked" taste that this product has, so we use a fresh cream mix, which we think gives our ice cream a cleaner, more natural taste.
• Many of the cheaper, prepackaged brands you can purchase at the supermarket have an overrun of 90 to 100%. A typical ice cream shop sells a product with an overrun of around 75 to 80%. High quality ice cream is normally in the 50 to 70% range.

  Our overrun varies by flavor (fruits flavors tend to "whip up" more, chocolates tend to be denser), but in general, Mad Maggie's ice cream is around 60 to 65% overrun. You can see this difference for yourself: Take home a pint of one of our flavors, get a pint of a cheap store brand, and hold one in each hand. You'll notice that our pint is heavier, as you're getting a denser, higher quality ice cream.

Anything else?

You bet! Many of our competitors are focused on profits -- if they can use an artificial vanilla which costs half the price, that's what they'll use.

Our focus is on making the best ice cream we can. That's why we pay significantly more for our base mix. We could use a cheaper product that many others in this area use, but we just don't think it tastes as good, so we pay more for the best.

The same goes for the ingredients we add to our recipes. We purchase the finest natural Vanilla varieties we can, from such far away places as Tahiti, Indonesia, and Madagascar. We spend a lot of time making batches of ice cream with similar ingredients from different manufacturers. We base our decisions 100% on which ingredient tastes better, rather than on which one costs less.

Some tell us that we're "Mad" to do this -- that we should be focusing on profits. Our feeling is that by offering the highest quality product, our following will grow, and the profits will come naturally.

So maybe we are mad, but we like it!