I can remember the first time I ever had a root beer float. I wondered  ”what is this creamy, delicious dream, combining my favorite beverage with my favorite dessert?” Well, as it turns out, you can make an adult version of this tasty treat! I called over some (all-too-willing) friends, grabbed some St. Patty’s style beers and plenty of Tillamook Ice Cream and conducted an experiment about what makes the best beer float!

First up: Tillamook Vanilla Bean Ice Cream with Hard Cider
Independently, I love both of these ingrdients…but combined, they were amazing! With equal parts cider and ice cream, this tasted just like apple pie a la mode. The smooth cream brought out the tart, green apple flavor in the cider. It would be great for a summer treat (or a summer-dreaming treat) on a front porch. This one was my favorite of the bunch.

Next on the agenda: Tillamook Mountain Huckleberry Ice Cream with Red Ale
We thought that the hoppy flavor of a Red Ale would complement the sweet fruit in the ice cream, and we were right! Since the base of the ice cream is vanilla, it leveled out the hops to create a combo that tasted surprisingly like maple and nuts, with just a hint of fruit. It was a berry good beer float.

Finally: Tillamook Mudslide Ice Cream with Guinness Beer
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we decided to make a float with Ireland’s token beer: Guinness! We combined this beer with Tillamook Mudslide Ice Cream. Guinness is less carbonated, so the experience was a little smoother. I loved the Mudslide Ice Cream in this, especially because the chocolate bits tasted just a little salty! Unfortunately, most of the chocolate bits sunk to the bottom of the glass. This float was full of really rich flavors.

What kind of beer float would you make!? For more ideas (and some kid-friendly ones!), check out our favorite root beer float recipes.

By Katie

If you’ve been out to visit the Tillamook Cheese Factory recently, then you’ve seen (and maybe tasted) these tasty new additions to the Tillamook Ice Cream lineup!

Fireside S’mores
We’ve taken your favorite summer camp treat and turned it into ice cream! Toasty marshmallow cream and graham cracker bits are actually inside this rich chocolate ice cream. Tastes just like those campfire s’mores you remember!

White Chocolate Raspberry Yum
This decadent new flavor has a swirl of ripe Northwest raspberries suspended in a rich, creamy white-chocolate base. You won’t be able to resist this flavor after just one bite!

Be sure to check the Where to Buy tool to see if these flavors are available in your city, or come visit us at the Cheese Factory and try them out!

By Tillamook

Good news, Arizona! Delicious Tillamook Ice Cream has made its way to the Grand Canyon state.

Look for Tillamook Ice Cream in Arizona in your local Bashas’ and Winco. Look up stores using our Where to Buy tool.

In case this will be your first taste of Tillamook Ice Cream, you should know we make it with the same dedication to quality, never using artificial growth hormones*, that we make our other dairy products.

Need help deciding what flavor you’ll try first? This video might help your tastebuds pick! Let us know what you think of our ice cream on Facebook, Twitter, or leave us a comment below!

*Please note that the FDA has stated that no significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST treated and non-rBST treated cows.

By Laura

Did you know that Tillamook has been making ice cream since the 1940s? In 1947 Tillamook made Tillamook Maid and frosty 4 ice cream for the local community. By the 1950s the demand for the delicious frozen treat grew and Tillamook began shipping to two other local counties, Lincoln and Clatsop. In the late 1970s 3-gallon containers as well as half gallons of Tillamook ice cream began shipping throughout Oregon so that people outside of our small coastal counties could enjoy a scoop!

Our best kept secret from the 1940s is now enjoyed by people in the Northwest, California, Utah, Colorado, and even parts of Arizona. To taste all 28 of our ice cream flavors come visit us at The Cheese Factory!

By Kathy

Oregon is home to so many delicious foods! While Tillamook Cheese is always the first food I think of when I dream of tasty Oregon treats, hazelnuts are a close second. Often called filberts in Oregon, these distinct little nuts have been combined with desserts by many great chefs for hundreds of years. With an Oregon themed dinner party on the horizon, I knew I needed to combine these tasty nuts with Tillamook Ice Cream to make the perfect Oregon inspired dessert.

First step: Make the meringue!
Yields: 16 disks for 8 sandwiches

Ingredients
1½ cups toasted hazelnuts
1½ cups sugar
5 egg whites
Pinch of salt
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon almond extract

In a food processor combine the toasted hazelnuts and 1½ cups sugar. Mix until the nuts are as fine as the sugar. Use a spoon to fluff up the nuts and make sure there are no large nuts left.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Using a pencil and a round glass about 3 inches in diameter, trace 8 circles on each sheet. Flip the sheets over so the pencil side is down.

In a mixer, beat the egg whites on low speed until they foam. Add the salt and cream of tartar. Continue beating until soft peaks form. Leaving the mixer on, slowly add the 3 tablespoons of sugar, vanilla, and almond extracts. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat until hard shinny peaks form. Turn mixer off and using a spoon fold in the almond-sugar mixture. Place the meringue in a pastry bag and starting with the outside of the circle, pipe the mixture onto the cookie sheets ending in the middle of each circle. Place in oven and cook for 1 hour or until the meringue will move around on the sheet when poked. Take out of the oven and allow to cool completely.

Once the meringue disks have cooled. Take out your favorite flavor of Tillamook Ice cream. (I used Tillamook Mudslide but I suspect many other flavors, like Espresso Mocha, would be delicious.) Let the ice cream melt a little so that it is easily molded without breaking the meringue cookie. Place a scoop of ice cream on top of a meringue disk, smash it down so it’s level and place another disk on top. Wrap each cookie in saran warp and place in the freezer until you are ready to eat!

These little Oregon treats are great for a quick dessert whenever you’re ready for a Pacific Northwest snack!

By Kelly

November is National Peanut Butter Lover’s Month! And OHHHH how I love peanut butter! In honor of my favorite Tillamook Ice Cream, Chocolate Peanut Butter, I wrote a little love note that I thought I would share with you!

Oh, Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream
You weave your way through my wildest dream
Your ribbons of thick creamy nuttiness
Make me want to run and jump with happiness

You touch my soul
As I admire you in my bowl
After I rob the container of the thick waves of peanut butter
I sit and listen to everyone else mutter

Oh, Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream
You do more than just fill my tummy
You make me positively beam!

By Candace

Discover yummy recipes that use Tillamook Sour Cream!

Sour Cream is extremely versatile! I’ve found that while it makes the usual appearances in nachos, baked potatoes, and casseroles, it also pops up in unexpected places. Here are a few recipes that unsuspectingly use sour cream and I cannot wait to try:

• Best way to amp up a boxed cake mix? Sour Cream, of course!

• I am not only sharing this because I am an ice cream lover…this just sounds yummy! Peaches ‘n’ Sour Cream Ice Cream!

• Creamy, tangy, and affordable? These pancakes fit the bill! Sour Cream Blueberry Pancakes!

What recipes do you use sour cream in?

By Laura

The Loaf Love Tour wrapped up in San Diego this week with one last celebration of cheesy fun. La Jolla Preschool Academy won the #LLT4me Twitter contest, which ended last Thursday night! We had so much fun painting pumpkins, coloring, playing cornhole, dancing, and of course eating Tillamook Cheese and Ice Cream with the kids! What a great way to end another amazing year of the Loaf Love Tour!

Here are some photos of the fun:

The Loaf Love Tour crew was just as excited as these Tillakids for ice cream!!!

I loafed hanging out with the kids at La Jolla Preschool Academy

There were some very talented pumpkin painters in the group, move over Picasso!

Thanks for showing us a fun time, La Jolla Preschoolers!

By Loafy

With the holidays rapidly approaching, it’s time to start planning menus and perfecting pie recipes. No pie, or dessert for that matter, is complete without a scoop of Tillamook Ice Cream! Did you know that Tillamook has three, yes three, different flavors of vanilla to choose from!?

I’d like to take a moment to introduce you to the delicious and dramatically different vanilla variations:

Old-Fashioned Vanilla
This is the classic stuff. Vanilla, straight and simple.

French Vanilla
Tillamook French Vanilla is rich, creamy, and custard-like.

Vanilla Bean
Traditional vanilla kicked up a flavor notch with loads of real crushed vanilla beans. If you’re a fan of this flavor, you might also like Tillamook Vanilla Bean Yogurt and Tillamook Light Vanilla Bean Yogurt.

If you haven’t tried them all, there’s no time like the holidays to get scooping!!! What’s your favorite flavor of vanilla ice cream?

By Amalya

As a farmer-owned cooperative, our local communities are very important to us. We work hard to be a responsible community member, supporting numerous local programs that help build our communities. In many ways, we’re a modest bunch at Tillamook, so we don’t always toot our own horn about all of our community giving. It’s the right thing to do, so we just do it. Simple as that.

But, today, we were honored to be recognized by the Portland Business Journal  at their annual Corporate Philanthropy Awards with one of only three “Innovation in Philanthropy” Awards. This award recognizes Oregon-based companies that create unique partnerships with non-profit organizations to make a difference in their community. The program that we were recognized for was our third annual partnership with the Tillamook County 4-H Leaders Association at the Tillamook County Fair.

For the past three years, Tillamook employees have been scooping up delicious Tillamook ice cream together with 4-H youth and parent volunteers for all of the hungry fair-goers that visit our Tillamook Ice Cream booth. At the end of a very busy four days and with involvement by more than 150 volunteers, we donated all of the proceeds from our ice cream sales to the 4-H Leaders Association to help support local youth development programs in our hometown community. Over the past three years, we’ve been able to donate more than $34,000 to the local 4-H program as part of this partnership.

Supporting organizations like 4-H is part of our company’s DNA. Through our company’s overall giving program, we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each year giving back to many very worthwhile organizations and causes in key focus areas – including youth development, hunger relief, and agriculture community building – so that we can make the most positive impact in areas that align with our company values.

Huge thanks to the Portland Business Journal for recognizing our efforts with this Philanthropy Award, and kudos to the 4-H Leaders Association, in Tillamook County and across the country, for all of the excellent work they do to foster leadership and enrichment opportunities for our next generation!

Read more about our partnership with 4-H in today’s Portland Business Journal.

By Tori