Go the Extra Mile with Your Gelato Shop

Written By Gelato Products

Do you have a gelato shop? If so, you may think you’ve already done enough to keep your customers happy. After all, who doesn’t love gelato? Many people haven’t even had it before and never would have if not for you. And if you’re serving the really good stuff, it can be easy to think that you’re doing everything you can to keep your customers happy and coming back for more.

And then they don’t. And you wonder why. And like a lot of people, you may never figure out that it’s because your ice cream is only part of it. You also need the best possible ice cream shop supplies you can get your hands on. Yes, it will cost you more, but that’s the price of keeping customers. It’s as simple as that.

So whether it’s gelato cups and spoons, napkins, to go options, covers, etc. go the extra mile for your customers and chances are they’ll return the favor. Otherwise, they’ll go to a gelato shop where the owner does understand how important this is and goes that extra mile for them.

When you need products for your gelato store, it couldn’t be easier remembering whom to go to. After all, the store itself is called Gelato Products. There you’ll find tasting spoons, frozen yogurt spoons, cups, napkins, covers and just about anything else you need to make your store a success at a low price.

Five Spice Throughout History

This article was written by Phin Upham

Five spice is a combination of five Asian ingredients typically used in the kitchens of Middle Eastern and Asian cooks. Five spice is best when it is used with fatty meats, like pork or goose. It’s also a good rub for chicken, and can be added to fried foods for a bit of extra flavor in the dish. It’s most popular in the restaurant setting, but does find a place in gourmet cooking at home. Many families make their own variations on five spice, typically producing something akin to seasoned salt.

Five spice is mixed according to its tradition, or background.

Chinese Tradition

Chinese five spice is a golden powder that is fragrant. It has star anise, fennel, cloves, cassia, and Sichuan pepper in it. The diner should notice the flavor of star anise the most, but five spice is used sparingly in Chinese cuisine. In traditional Chinese cooking, herbs do not stand out from one another. They blend together to form a unique taste. Five spice, therefore, compliments many dishes well.

Indian Tradition

Indian five spice is used commonly by their chefs, and has a more pronounced hotness and flavor to it than the Chinese variety. In Indian cuisine, savory is the name of the game. Indian five spice tends to have cumin, balck mustard, fennel, fenugreek and nigella all in equal proportions. The spice is also used whole, and typically not ground into a powder before serving.

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About the Author: Phin Upham is an investor at a family office/hedgefund, where he focuses on special situation illiquid investing. Before this position, Phin Upham was working at Morgan Stanley in the Media & Technology group. You may contact Phin on his Twitter page.

Hostess Cupcakes: Edible icons

Written by Samuel Phineas Upham

1919 was an exciting time for America. The Roaring Twenties were set to kick off, ushering in an era of prohibition and big band music. It was also the same year that a company called Hostess released a snack cake called “The Cupcake.”

For the early 1920s, Cupcakes were sold individually and hand frosted with either a chocolate or vanilla frosting. Some Cupcakes were available with malted milk icing, and orange Cupcakes debuted around this time as well. Hostess had higher aspirations for the cake and hired D.R. “Doc” Rice to redesign the product. He’d been hired at the company to cake dump, which meant that he took trays of cakes and dumped them onto a table to be frosted.

He first improved the dough using the ample ingredients available to him, then he took the filling concept of the Twinkie and applied it to the Cupcake. The loops on the Cupcake, which are like its signature flair, should amount to exactly seven according to Rice. That way, the customer would get a sense of both branding and quality of the product. He also used real chocolate in his frosting as well.

The Cupcakes were an immediate success. Wholesale price jumped by two cents and retail price followed suit. Doc Rice retired from Hostess in 1972, but he continued working well into his life as a consultant for other bakeries. Hostess, despite financial difficulties, has managed to stay in business with newly designed versions of hit products like the Twinkie, Cupcake and Zinger.

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