National Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day

National Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day is on February 1st in the United States.

This is one of the more unusual holidays around, as February is not known to be a warm month of the year in many countries, and certainly not in the region where it was founded. Florence Rappaport of Rochester, New York, invented the day back in 1966. Rochester is a cold place in February, and she apparently decided to serve her children ice cream for breakfast to distract them from the snow and ice outside. Since then, the holiday has spread around the world.

Ice cream itself is a frozen food typically eaten as a snack or for dessert. It is flavoured, with a wide range of different things, some of them distinctly odd, and usually sweetened.

Image: Nicolas Ettlin, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

National Ice Cream Cone Day

September 22nd is National Ice Cream Cone Day in the United States.

The ice cream cone, or cornet, covers a range of what are technically pastries made into the shape of a cone. They are normally made of a wafer that is similar to a waffle, and come in a number of different types, including chocolate covered, double cones and those with flat bottoms that enable the cone to be stood upright (and are therefore not cones).

Cones are used as a way to eat ice cream, without using a bowl and a spoon, in a way that can be held. The idea of cones dates back to the beginning of the 19th century, when ice cream itself tended to be rare, but edible cones were patented at the very beginning of the 20th century. Today, ice cream cones are a staple of the ice cream industry, and some ice creams, such as the Cornetto, come as a pre-filled cone.

Ice cream cones can be filled with any type of ice cream and are often topped with other items, such as sweet sauces, hundreds and thousands and flakes.

Image: TheCulinaryGeek from Chicago, USA / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

National Ice Cream Day

Nicolas Ettlin / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

National Ice Cream Day falls on the third Sunday in July in the United States, though there is another in December.

In 1984, then-President Ronald Reagan signed into law this day to be National Ice Cream Day and the entire month of July to be National Ice Cream Month. Technically, only the day and month in 1984 were the official days, but the celebrations have been upheld ever since.

Ice cream itself is a frozen food eaten as a snack or for dessert. It is made with either dairy milk or cream, and then flavoured with sweetening and spices - cocoa and vanilla are both spices - and frequently coloured. For vegetarians and vegans, there are non-dairy alternatives, though these are technically not ice cream. What ice cream is can vary in definition from country to country and different names, such as frozen custard and frozen yoghurt, can be used to distinguish different types of frozen dessert.

National Creative Ice Cream Flavor Day

Maeda-en USA / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)

July 1st is National Creative Ice Cream Flavor Day in the United States.

There are the old standard (and popular) flavours of ice cream, such as vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, but there are also many other varieties, some of which are quite unusual. This day is not just about the more unusual flavours, but about the flavours that you might not actually consider making into ice cream.

You can flavour ice cream with whatever you want, but there's no guarantee that it will actually taste nice. Bacon is a popular unusual ingredient. Different countries also have different flavours that they would consider to be normal, but that those from others would not. For example, Chinese ice cream manufacturers make ice cream with traditional Chinese flavours such as red bean and black sesame. Other more unusual flavours include such as charcoal, cayenne chocolate and sweetcorn, and there are many others.

National Ice Cream Day

December 13th is National Ice Cream Day in the United States.

Given that ice cream is a cold dessert, having a day celebrating a food often associated with warm summer days in the middle of one of the coldest months of the year may seem a trifle odd. Still, ice cream desserts are popular all year round, even if ice cream cones may be rather less common in December.

Ice cream is, usually, made from milk or cream that is flavoured, sweetened and then frozen. Different flavours of ice cream - and there are many, many flavours, from the plain to the bizarre - come in different colours, the colours often associated with the flavour. Ice cream can mean different things to different people, even though such as frozen yoghurt is considered to be a separate food. Ice cream can be eaten on its own, but is also used in a wide range of other dishes, from drinks to sundaes to milkshakes to cakes to hot dishes, such as Baked Alaska.

Image: Lotus Head from Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)]

National Coffee Ice Cream Day

In the United States, September 6th is National Coffee Ice Cream Day.

Ice cream is a popular dessert item, especially in the warm months of summer. There are many different flavours of ice cream available - indeed, you can have or make pretty much any flavour you want, although there is no guarantee about how good it will taste.

Coffee is always a popular drink, so making an ice cream with the flavour of this much-loved drink is a no-brainer. As with all flavours of ice cream, the quality of coffee ice cream can vary, depending on the source of the coffee flavouring used. Coffee beans come in different qualities, and the best coffee ice cream will use the best beans for the flavour, and may even have coffee beans, or parts of them, mixed into the ice cream itself.

National Ice Cream Pie Day

18th August is National Ice Cream Pie Day in the United States.

This national day celebrates an item that is pretty much what it sounds like - a pie that contains ice cream. Naturally, this is a sweet pie, not a savoury one.

An ice cream pie - there are a variety of recipes - is normally part baked and part not, so that the ice cream doesn't melt; this isn't usually like a Baked Alaska.

A pie crust would be baked in the oven, normally using shortcrust pastry, and then ice cream (probably softened first) would be added as a filling after the crust has cooled, as adding it immediately would cause it to melt and make the crust all soggy. This can then be placed into the freezer for a couple of hours to ensure that the ice cream becomes firm again.

This would be a single crust or bottom crust pie, and could be eaten as-is at this point. Alternatively, a topping that isn't made of pastry could be added on top of the ice cream, such as cream or a meringue. The pie should be served with the ice cream still firm.

National Ice Cream Sandwich Day

August 2nd in the United States is National Ice Cream Sandwich Day.

No, this isn't Google's Android mobile operating system release of the same name, but the confection it is named after.

The ice cream sandwich consists of a block of ice cream that is "sandwiched" between two biscuits (cookies), wafers or pieces of cake. There are number of regional variations on this dish, but they are generally very similar to each other and are recognisable as being the same dish. Those that are made with wafers could also optionally have the wafers dipped in chocolate.

There is no one flavour of ice cream that can be used in this sandwich; although vanilla ice cream may be the most popular flavour in the British Isles, New Zealand and North America, other flavours can also be used. The sandwiches can be bought pre-made, or the wafers or other "sandwich" parts can be purchased separately, and the finished dish made at home. The pre-made varieties are easier and more consistent. A reasonably hard type of ice cream is really needed; soft scoop is a little too soft to be truly effective.

National Ice Cream Month

July is National Ice Cream Month in the United States.

Ice cream is a frozen dessert dish that previously was known as both cream ice and as iced cream. It is normally made from dairy products, which is where the cream part of the name comes from, but it is easy enough to find non-dairy alternatives these days. Although ice cream is a frozen dessert dish, the precise meaning of the name can vary from country to country.

The early versions of ice cream were made using snow and ice, and had more in common with sorbets, which are essentially flavoured frozen ice, than they did to the modern version of the ice cream. The first recipes for modern ice cream appeared in Britain in the 18th century.

Many different flavourings can be added to ice cream, some of them rather unusual, like bacon, as well as the more common fruit and chocolate flavours. Ice cream is popular in the summer months, so July is a good time to celebrate it, and it can be eaten by itself, in cones, or as an accompaniment to other dishes.

National Vanilla Ice Cream Day

July 23rd is National Vanilla Ice Cream Day in America.

Ice cream, at least in the United States (the actual meaning and name can vary from country to country) is normally made from dairy products - milk or cream - although non-dairy alternatives are available. This base is then mixed with other ingredients, for flavour, colour and sweetening, and then stirred whilst cooling so that air is added and ice crystals are broken up to create a semi-solid foamed product. The consistency can vary a lot.

With vanilla ice cream, the main additional ingredient is vanilla. Vanilla is a flavouring derived from a type of orchid and actually means "little pod." The pods are harvested, but the genuine flavour is the second most expensive spice after saffron due to how labour intensive the vanilla is to grow. Because of this, most vanilla ice cream does not use vanilla pods, but instead use cheaper substitutes such as vanilla essence.

Vanilla ice cream, despite how boring it may seem to be compared to other flavours available, regularly tops the list of the most popular ice cream flavours in North America (and other parts of the world).

National Peach Ice Cream Day

National Peach Ice Cream Day is on July 17th in the United States.

Yet another day that celebrates a particular flavour of ice cream, rather than celebrating ice cream in general. This time it's peach.

Ice cream, a frozen dessert which is usually, but does not have to be, made with dairy products, is flexible in that it can be flavoured in many different ways, simply by adding different ingredients to the base recipe. For peach ice cream, this can be done by simply adding flavouring to the mix or, alternatively, could also use instead, or as well, actual pieces of peach. Generally, the first type of ice cream tends to be cheaper than the second.

Peaches themselves are a fruit which first came from China but has since spread all across the world. China is still, by far, the world's largest producer of peaches, and a significant proportion of the remaining supply comes from various countries surrounding the Mediterranean.

National Chocolate Ice Cream Day

June 7th is National Chocolate Ice Cream Day in the United States.

Another day which celebrates something that's just what it sounds like. Chocolate ice cream is a self-explanatory name, as it's ice cream that's flavoured with chocolate. Chocolate ice cream is not just one thing, though, as there are many different varieties and variations, just as there are different types of chocolate.

Chocolate ice cream is one of the most popular flavours, and the standard type dates back to 17th century Italy. Cocoa powder is blended with the ice cream, which adds the flavour and gives it its distinctive brown colouration.

Other, often more expensive, varieties of chocolate ice cream can have actual chunks of chocolate added to the mixture, and these can be of different types, such as dark, white and milk.

Other ice creams can be based on or use chocolate ice cream, such as rocky road.

National Rocky Road Ice Cream Day

June 2nd is National Rocky Road Ice Cream Day in the United States.

The term rocky road is used for a lot of different dishes that all have the same name. Most of these dishes contain similar ingredients, and they may well derive from the rocky road dessert which dates back to the 19th century.

This particular rocky road variant is, of course, ice cream. William Dreyer claimed to have invented the ice cream in 1929 California, when he chopped up walnuts and marshmallows and added them to chocolate ice cream.

Those three ingredients - ice cream, nuts and marshmallows - are the traditional ingredients for the ice cream, but there are, naturally, different variations of the dish that use other ingredients, either instead of or in addition to.

National Baked Alaska Day

National Baked Alaska Day is on February 1st in the United States.

Baked Alaska may not be from Alaska, but this dessert is named in honour of that state, although back when it was first named, Alaska wasn't a state, nor even a territory, but was first administered by the military. The state-to-be had recently been purchased (in 1867) for $6.2 million from the Russian Empire. The dish was named by Charles Ranhofer, the chef-de-cusine at the famous Delmonico's Restaurant in New York.

The dessert is made from ice cream, cake and meringue. A pie dish is lined with slices of cake, with sponge and Christmas pudding being two of the most popular. Inside this is placed the ice cream. The dish is then topped with meringue and placed, very briefly, in an extremely hot oven until the meringue is browned. The ice cream should still be frozen if this is done correctly, due to the brief cooking time and the insulating effects of the meringue.

National Strawberry Ice Cream Day

National Strawberry Ice Cream Day is on January 15th in the US.

The middle of January may not seem like an ideal time for a national day celebrating ice cream - it does tend to be rather cold in winter, and cold desserts are preferable in the summer. Strawberries are also not in season at this time of year.

Of course, it isn't necessary for the fruit known as the garden strawberry, to distinguish it from the wild ones and from which it was first grown in the late 18th century, to actually be in season to eat, or even make strawberry ice cream.

Strawberry ice cream dates back to at least 1813, as it is known to have been served at the second inauguration of U.S. President James Madison, and is one of the three flavours in Neapolitan ice cream, along with chocolate and vanilla, and is therefore used in Neapolitan-style ice cream sandwiches. Most common types of strawberry ice cream are made with strawberry flavouring, but if making it at home it is certainly possible to use fresh or frozen strawberries. Some better commercial makes will also use whole strawberries rather than flavouring.