THE BIG CHILL
By Nancy Fox
Photographs by Greg Johnston

Sure the sidewalks are up to their usual egg-frying standards, but Orlando is loaded with gelato, ice cream and Italian ice purveyors who can help you keep your cool.

In the words of neo-Baroque Miami architect Morris Lapidus: “If you like ice cream, why stop at one scoop? Have two, have three. Too much is never enough.” This is the kind of over-the-top logic that makes summertime in Florida almost bearable. A trip to the local ice cream purveyor is wide-grin territory for most of us adults – reminiscent of endless childhood summer days spent lolling about, savoring an ice cream cone and imagining limitless possibilities for oneself.

Luckily, Central Florida is a fabulous place to get your freeze on with a variety of gourmet establishments serving freshly made product, including Italian gelato, soft serve, Italian ice and frozen custard. When temperatures are soaring, there’s something magical about cooling off with one of these frozen desserts. The sheer act of eating them makes us slow down. To rush ahead would seem almost sacrilege – not to mention crossing that painful brain-freeze boundary. Much wiser to sit and savor in a deliberate, snail-like way. Previous heat-related vexations, family scuffles and sour moods slowly evaporate.

First stop on the frosty trail to nirvana is the Whole Foods location in Winter Park. Local Muse Gelato provides eight freshly made, authentic Italian gelatos and four sorbettos to the store. These products are all natural, with no additives or preservatives. Available in small or large cups, and pints or quarts to go, these frozen concoctions contain the finest ingredients, fruits and nuts available. Gelato is a European-style ice cream, made with lower butterfat cream and very little whipped air – making for a creamy consistency. It’s half the calories and fat of regular ice cream, so you can feel half as guilty about indulging.

The flavors available at Whole Foods include chocolate, pistachio, banana split, vanilla bean, hazelnut, cappuccino, tiramisu and stracciatella. Sorbettos include strawberry, pineapple, summer berry and kiwi. Don’t Miss: The melding of hazelnut and chocolate flavors, which is guaranteed to send you into a chilly “nutella” trance.

A few blocks away on Morse Avenue, you’ll find Gurtzberry, on the cutting edge of frozen yogurt. Business partners Rimma Magdessian and Elina Nubaryan combined their Russian heritage and passion for yogurt to bring Winter Park a healthier and tastier alternative to ice cream.

Inspired by Los Angeles’ Pinkberry, the ladies offer up four flavors of freshly made frozen yogurt and a variety of custom toppings, including fresh fruits, nuts, candies and grains. Featuring all-natural products with live-active cultures and no glutens, additives or preservatives, this trendy store is a mecca for guilt-free indulgences. Choose from original, green tea, raspberry and organic chocolate. So much for the basics: Now it’s time to go crazy with toppings. Don’t Miss: The tart, lightly sweet, original frozen yogurt with a swirl of chocolate, topped with fat blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, pecans, hazelnuts, grated organic coconut and chocolate muesli. Get the Scoop: A Gurtzberry card will earn one free yogurt with the purchase of seven.

Jeremiah’s Italian Ice now has three Central Florida locations: UCF, Maitland and Winter Park. Owner Jeremy Litwack is a lifelong aficionado of the Philadelphia tradition of Italian ice – a frozen dessert incorporating fresh fruit, fruit purée, filtered water and sugar. Now, take Italian ice and add one more element in the form of soft serve ice cream, layer it up, and the resultant parfait is known in “Philly-speak” as gelati. In any other language, it’s called “addictive.”

Jeremiah’s features 20 freshly made flavors of Italian ice and gelati daily, in individual servings and quart, half-gallon and 2- to 5-gallon party buckets. Flavors include lemon, mango, banana, peach, black raspberry, cherry and watermelon. Scoop Froggy Frog is a refreshing, minty cream-ice with chocolate chips, one of the most popular flavors. With names such as Grape Gone Wild and Parrothead Paradise, how can you go wrong? Most varieties are dairy-free, thus fat and cholesterol-free. Don’t Miss: The gelato parfait with vanilla soft serve and Key West tropical ice, a taste sensation evocative of a dreamsicle-on-steroids. And try the piña colada Italian ice – featuring creamy coconut flavor with bits of chunky pineapple, a virtual staycation for the palate. Get the Scoop: Join Jeremiah’s J-List, and get e-mail blasts featuring seasonal specials and free offers.

For those readers native to the Midwest, I need not explain the allure of frozen custard. The addition of egg yolk to the mixture of cream and sugar gives frozen custard its dense, creamy texture and a smoother, softer consistency than ice cream. With less butterfat then traditional ice cream, it only tastes more sinful. Where better to partake of this amazing dessert than Ritter’s Frozen Custard in Clermont? Worth the drive, Ritter’s offers six flavors of frozen custard and six flavors of Italian ice, made fresh daily. Also homemade: crispy waffle cones, both plain and chocolate-dipped. Vanilla, vanilla lite and chocolate frozen yogurt are regularly available; and rotating flavors include a nut, fruit and specialty flavor – all available in individual servings and pints and quarts to go. Don’t Miss: The knockout pistachio nut frozen custard, dense and loaded with buttery flavor; and the smooth peanut butter blast, packed with Reese’s peanut chunks and peanut butter sauce throughout. Near bliss. Get the Scoop: Join Ritter’s Rewards Program and get $2 off with your 10th purchase.

In the Windemere-Ocoee area, Penguin’s Paradise Café & Dessert Bar offers 24 varieties of authentic Italian gelato and sorbetto. Its artisan-made product is fresh weekly and uses only the finest ingredients and imported components, with no additives, preservatives, trans fat or cholesterol. Special service equipment and protocol is a requisite of Michigan gelato chef and supplier Pete Palazzolo, a 20-year veteran of the industry. Available in individual cups or waffle cones – and to-go pints and quarts, the gelato here is first-rate with flavors such as Tahitian vanilla, Italian pistachio, butter pecan toasted coconut almond fudge, Swiss chocolate couverture and best-seller banana caramel praline. Fresh fruit sorbettos, such as red raspberry, mango, strawberry and margarita, are also regular features. Don’t Miss: The Café Mocha gelato, a blend of Italian roast coffee steeped with fresh cream and cocoa, with chocolate shavings throughout; and the Triple Dark Chocolate: pure chocolate cocoa butter steeped in cream, with dark fudge ripple and dark chocolate couverture curls throughout. Get the Scoop: Join the Very-Important-Penguin Club, and get a free gelato with the purchase of eight and 10 percent off orders on Wednesday and Sunday.

Chillax – and order up the triple scoops. Let’s face it: It’s August, life is short, and too much ice cream really is never enough.

LICENSE TO CHILL

Gurtzberry
124 E. Morse Blvd., Winter Park
407-951-8039, gurtzberry.com

Jeremiah’s Italian Ice
jeremiahsice.com

• 6864 Aloma Ave., Winter Park
  407- 679-2665
• 111 S. Orlando Ave., Maitland
  407-599-9991
• 12271 University Blvd., Orlando
  407-277-7769

Ritter’s Frozen Custard
2560 E. Hwy. 5, Clermont
352-536-2979, ritters.com

Penguin’s Paradise Café & Dessert Bar
2456 Maguire Rd., Ocoee
407-905-5056, penguinsparadise.com

Choose from a variety of tasty toppings when creating your own frozen yogurt parfait at Gurtzberry in Winter Park.

Trey and Lorri Etheridge enjoy their own swirling concoctions of fresh fruits and plain, green tea, chocolate and raspberry yogurts at Gurtzberry in Winter Park.

Penguin’s Paradise Café & Dessert Bar in Ocoee dishes up authentic, homemade Italian gelato and fresh fruit sorbetto.