We’re going to give you a peek behind the scenes at Maui’s Own Roselani Ice Cream and we thought, “What better flavor to demonstrate than our very special Aloha Cherry Truffle?”

The process starts in the Mix Room where, obviously, all the basic ingredients are mixed together, pasteurized, and homogenized. After passing through the heat exchanger, the mix goes into holding tanks. It spends at least 24 hours in the tanks – which is a LONG time for ice cream mix – where it is constantly kept in motion. We wish you could smell the aroma in this room. It’s like buttery caramel!

The “aged” mix travels through pipes to the Production Floor. In the first of three vats, it’s flavored. After passing through a continuous freezer, the “add-ins” are…well, added in. In this case, black cherries and chocolate truffle (YUM!). Then it’s packaged, cartons are wrapped and they ride the conveyor belt into our big storage freezer. After 24 hours, it’s off to retail markets, scooping parlors and restaurants all over Hawai’i. And finally, to your home freezer, into bowls and, we hope, enjoyed by everyone in your family.

The third Roselani Ice Cream Aloha Cherry Truffle Challenge is history. All five competing high school teams produced delicious and beautiful desserts during the contest at the Maui Fair this past Sunday.

Lahainaluna took first place with their Lunas Chunky Cherry and won the top prize of $500, sponsored by Maui Diagnostic Imaging. St. Anthony Junior and Senior High – with their Aloha Cherry Truffle Mousse in Edible Chocolate Cups – and Seabury Hall – with their Aloha Cherry Snowball – tied for second place and shared in the $300 cash prize sponsored by the Maui Hotel & Lodging Association. Maui High’s Savory Strawberry Shortcake was the third place finisher and won $150 sponsored by Grapevine Productions. And Baldwin’s team won a Roselani Ice Cream party pack for their Cherry Bomb!

Lahainaluna's Winning "Lunas Chunky Cherry"	St. Anthony's Second Place "Aloha Cherry Truffle Mousse"	Seabury Hall's Second Place "Aloha Cherry Snowball"
Maui High's Third Place "Savory Strawberry Shortcake"	Baldwin's Fourth Place "Cherry Bomb!"	Click to enlarge these pictures.

Best of all, the teams sold sample sizes of the desserts following the competition and raised $440.00 for a special fund set up by the Maui Memorial Medical Center Foundation which educates women in our community about breast cancer and also provides mammograms to uninsured and underinsured Maui residents.
For more information, please visit http://www.mauihospitalfoundation.org/

We talked to the teams as they prepared for the competition:
 
 

I had the pleasure of participating in this past weekend’s Rice Fest on O’ahu. Cheryl Tsutsumi, author of the excellent new Hawai’i Book of Rice (published by Watermark), asked me to come over and compete in the amateur division of the Rice-ipe Contest. I prepared the recipe I contributed to the book – on page 133! – Cathy’s Curried Shrimp and Rice. The book is a “must-have” for every Hawai’i kitchen and also makes a great gift. Most important, a portion of the proceeds of sales goes to the Hawai’i Food Bank. We didn’t win but we had a great time and met a lot of wonderful people. You can see me cook and at the Judges’ Table in the videos here.
 
 

The Aloha Cherry Truffle Challenge will be back at this year’s Maui Fair! The contest will take place on Sunday, October 2. The contest is open to all Maui county high school students. Teams of from two to four students – mentored by a faculty or staff member or Maui chef – create desserts featuring Maui’s own Roselani Ice Cream’s Aloha Cherry Truffle. The first place prize, donated by Maui Diagnostic Imaging, is $500; the second prize of $300 is donated by the Maui Hotel & Lodging Association; and the $150 third place prize is donated by Grapevine Productions. Entry deadline is September 16. Last year, teams from Baldwin High School, Maui High School, Seabury Hall, and St. Anthony’s High School all presented delicious and beautiful desserts. The winning team from Seabury Hall presented Aloha Cherry Truffle “Seabury Sushi Sensation.”  For complete information about this year’s contest, please visit http://www.mauifair.com , e-mail info@mauifair.com, or call 242-2721.

Third-generation ice cream make Cathy Nobriga Kim created Aloha Cherry Truffle to commemorate the Roselani Ice Cream’s 75^th anniversary in 2007 and as a way to educate the community about the importance of early detection of breast cancer. In conjunction with the Maui Memorial Medical Center Foundation, sales of the ice cream have raised several thousands of dollars for a special fund used to educate women about breast cancer and also to provide mammograms to uninsured and underinsured women.

The winner of our National Ice Cream Day game is Donna Lucero of Kahului. She’s a mother and a grandmother and also works as a counselor at Malama Family Recovery Center. Her favorite Roselani flavor is Poppa’s Classic Chocolate. Out of numerous responses, Donna was the first one to e-mail us all five locations in order along with the correctly spelled name of the flavor we gave away at each one of those locations to celebrate National Ice Cream Day. Donna wins a year’s supply of Roselani Ice Cream and an iPad. We’ll post her photo for you later this week. Congratulations, Donna. And thanks to all for playing. We hope you all had as much fun as we did!

It’s National Ice Cream Day and we’re taking our show on the road.

We’re loading up 500 cups of ice cream – five flavors, 100 cups of each flavor. And we’re giving it away FREE at five different locations around Maui. Where and when? Ah, you’ll have to follow us on Twitter @haupiarocks to find out.

Besides enjoying a free cup of delicious Roselani ice cream, you have a chance to win a year’s supply (one 56-oz. container a month for 12 months) AND an iPad. The first person to CORRECTLY identify all five stops IN ORDER and the EXACT name of the flavor served at each stop by e-mailing the answer to info@roselani.com is the winner. We’ll even give you a hint – all the flavors are from our retail lineup.

Easy, breezy. Come celebrate National Ice Cream Day with us this Sunday, July 17th.

We’ll see you on Twitter @haupiarocks

Good luck, everyone!

Please note, employees of Maui Soda & Ice Works/Roselani Ice Cream and their families are not eligible. Thanks.

All our photo galleries are now up on our website. Whew! It took a while but you hope  you think it was worth it. We certainly to. Just click on the Photos tab (or click here) and ENJOY!

We’re happy to be participating in two big, great events this coming weekend. First, on Friday, April 1st one of our scooping partners – Hula Cookies & Ice Cream – will be scooping and serving at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center where The Doobie Brothers and War will be performing. Then on Saturday, April 2nd, we’re partnering with our King Kekaulike Hawaiian Language Immersion High School Class of 2011 at the Maui County Agriculture Festival – affectionately known as  Ag Fest! The kids – with adult supervision, of course! – will be scooping Roselani Ice Cream. You can learn more about both events by visiting their websites – http://www.mauiarts.org and http://www.mauicountyfarmbureau.org We hope to see you on Friday AND Saturday. It’s going to be a great weekend!

Does the time fly by faster each year? Or is it just us??!!

We said  goodbye  to 2010 with two delicious holiday flavors   Egg Nog and Christmas Mint   and  hello  to 2011 with a delicious new website, thanks to our friend and webmaster Gill Brooks.

Our blog  yup, you re reading  it!   is right up front along with our tweets (@haupia rocks) and there are lots more opportunities for you to interact with us. Please connect with us on Facebook, too  just click on the FB icon at the right or use the link here http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Roselani-Ice-Cream/112485417695

We’re committed to keeping our locations completely up to date on this new site so you’ll always know where you can find Roselani Ice Cream on any island. We think you’re going to enjoy the new photo galleries, too.

In our plant, we’ve got a brand new filler machine which brings that part of our production up into the 21^st Century. Before, we filled and capped by hand, adjusting as we moved along.  Our new system is fully automated which means it drops, fills, weighs and puts the covers on all the cartons.  We’ve gone from filling 14 cartons per minute up to 18. Simple, consistent, clean. We love it.

Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames.<br />

We’ve got two special holiday flavors ready to go.
Egg Nog and Christmas Mint.
Available NOW in three-gallon tubs only, the perfect size for your holiday party.
Please call us at 244-7951, ext. 204 to order.
Happy Holidays from all of us at Maui’s Own Roselani Ice Cream!