Sam Gurwitt Photo
Kelly Ciccone of Kelly’s Cone Connection, which recently won national recognition.
As Kelly Ciccone scooped rounds of her acclaimed chocolate ice cream into cones, she served more than just milk, cream, chocolate, sugar — if she got the batch right, her cones held memories that connected a bite from 2019 with a bite from 33 years ago.
Ciccone of Kelly’s Cone Connection at 2538 Whitney Ave. in Hamden, has been making her chocolate ice cream in the exact same way she did when she opened the shop in 1987.
That chocolate recently won her a blue ribbon at the National Ice Cream Retailers Association (NICRA) convention in Colorado Springs.
In order to win a blue ribbon from NICRA, an ice cream must stand out in a number of areas, including color, texture, taste, and bacteria count. (You don’t want any of the latter.)
Ciccone said she has entered the NICRA competition before and won, but this year was her first time in 12 years. She said she entered “just to make sure I’m doing everything right.”
She had to send samples to a professor at the University of Minnesota for the contest. That meant packing two half-gallon containers in dry ice and overnighting them, which she said was rather expensive. Yet it paid off in the certificate that she plans to frame when she gets a chance, and in connections.
“If I have a problem, I have 20, 30 people all over the country I can call,” she said, about anything from issues with the chocolate to how to handle staff.
Ciccone’s chocolate ice cream is unpretentious. It doesn’t try to reimagine chocolate ice cream or serve something that customers have never had before. On the contrary, it’s a flavor that transports you back to the childhood summer evenings when you first discovered chocolate ice cream — only, unless you spent your childhood summer evenings at Kelly’s, it’s probably better. It tastes like the purest traditional American chocolate ice cream, but done extremely well.
“I always try to replicate someone’s experience. If they were here 20 years ago I try to replicate that flavor to replicate the experience,” said Ciccone.
Saturday afternoon, Ciccone made a batch of chocolate, using her tried and true methods of 33 years. She’d already done her vanilla bases earlier in the day, as she always does vanilla before chocolate to minimize the amount she has to clean out the machine.
First, she dissolved sugar in hot water in a white bucket. Next, she scooped cocoa powder out of a large tub using a liquid cup measure and poured it into the sugar-water. With a whisk, she stirred the mixture until it became dark and smooth.
Next, she hoisted a large bag of ice cream mix onto the counter top and opened the spout. The ice cream mix contains milk, cream, and sugar. Like most ice cream makers, Ciccone buys the mixture rather than making it herself. In order to make it, she said, she would need to buy the ingredients raw and pasteurize them, which would require expensive equipment she does not have. She said she always gets the highest-quality ingredients possible. She buys her ice cream mixes from Hood and Guida’s Dairy. Her cocoa powder comes from Switzerland, and is the same thing things she’s been using since the beginning.
Using a blue wire basket, she poured some of the ice cream mix into the chocolate mixture until it reached the seven-quart mark. Then she poured in a splash of vanilla.
Vanilla, she said, has become very expensive. A gallon of the Nielsen Massey vanilla she uses now costs around $500. It’s worth it though, she said, because of the quality — and because she knows Craig Nielsen of the eponymous Nielsen family and can give him a call whenever she has a problem. She said she met him at a NICRA convention.
She stirred it all together, and then poured it into her Emery Thompson ice cream machine.
“It’s like a huge mixer with a refrigerator on it,” she explained. It sits next to the Taylor machine that she used for over 30 years until she got a new one two weeks ago. She said she likes the old one, but no one makes parts for it anymore, so it was time to get a new one. “I haven’t quite perfected it,” she said of the new machine.
After adding the remainder of the ice cream mix to the machine, by way of the bucket, she turned it on. It shook for nine minutes as the mixer inside, enclosed in a cooling system, turned the liquid into a smooth, soft ice cream.
Once she thought it was time, Ciccone stopped the machine and poured out a small amount into a clean bucket. She took a look at it.
“I want it a little thicker than that so I’m going to let it go another minute,” she said.
After the extra minute, she opened a valve in front and filled the bucket with the contents of the machine. Next, she placed a lid on the bucket and put it in a freezer set to ‑20˚ F, where it would sit for 24 hours until it became hard enough to scoop onto a cone.
Kelly’s Cone Connection is attached to the Glenwood Drive-in, which has been in Ciccone’s family since 1955, when her grandfather bought it.
Ciccone grew up in Hamden. After graduating from Hamden High, she went to work for her father at the Glenwood Drive-in. The restaurant didn’t serve dessert, so her father suggested she learn to make ice cream. She followed his suggestion, and they built an addition to the restaurant that connects through an opening in the North wall of the Glenwood.
Ciccone opened her operation there, and has been serving her ice cream there ever since.
She still has many of the same customers she’s had since opening. Aidan, Chet, and Regina Kelsey (pictured) were in the restaurant on Saturday. Aidan, who works at the Glenwood, had one of her favorite flavors: cookie monster. The scoop sat atop another of heath bar ice cream and beneath a sprinkling of chocolate snow cones. Regina opted for a simpler choice: vanilla soft serve.
Regina, who grew up in Hamden, said she’s been coming to Kelly’s “since the beginning.” She said it features in every family birthday celebration: “Every birthday we get the ice cream cake with extra fudge and extra crunchies.”
Paul and Watson Ivancic stopped in for a first try.
“Watson wanted some ice cream,” said Paul, explaining why they had come.
Watson got the acclaimed chocolate. How is it, Paul asked?
“Good,” Watson replied.
Perhaps in 20 years, Watson will taste in a spoonful of chocolate ice cream the May afternoon when he first came to Kelly’s.
