The Story of Otto's Cupcake
By Alex Ptachick
Perry’s Ice Cream just brought a little more meaning to the saying “Dome Sweet Dome.”
Recent Syracuse University alumnus Eilish Mitchell landed a job with Perry’s Ice Cream, based out of Akron, N.Y., following her graduation in May 2012. While at SU, Mitchell majored in chemistry and forensic science with minors in theater, nutrition and public communications. With a plethora of avenues to pursue, Mitchell decided to use her chemistry focus and she accepted a job with Perry’s in the quality assurance department.
Mitchell’s job duties include overseeing food safety and quality. However, she takes on special projects with the new product development team. Yes, that means she creates and approves new flavors, testing them regularly.
“Basically I eat a lot of ice cream and call it market research,” Mitchell said, laughing about how lucky she is to have such a fun job.
Mitchell worked on approving the recently released sponge candy flavor as one of her first projects with the team. Initially she joked with her team leader about the idea of developing an SU flavor. Little did she know, her creation would turn out to be a recipe for success—Otto’s Cupcake.
“I knew a Syracuse ice cream flavor had to have orange in it, but orange ice cream isn’t a popular flavor,” Mitchell said.
She tested out several orange flavors, but came to the conclusion that the orange sherbet flavor was too “fruity pebble” tasting. She also had trouble getting the color to be the correct shade of orange. After giving up on orange as a flavor, she went back to the drawing board.
Mitchell needed to find inspiration and she thought why not take it back to the root of the project—Syracuse, N.Y. In her blog post about the creation of the flavor, she talked about traveling to SU for the weekend and making cupcakes using Syracuse/Otto baking cups. The cupcakes were chocolate cake with orange frosting. At that moment, she knew just what her SU ice cream flavor would be: chocolate cake ice cream with orange colored frosting swirls and chocolate cupcake pieces.
One of her team members was already working on flavor samples that tasted just like chocolate cupcakes, an idea that originally came from the ingredient suppliers who showed the team the flavor during a seminar.
“Ingredient suppliers are where a lot of new product development comes from,” Mitchell explained. She said she pitched the flavor idea to the product development team and it was “well-liked.”
Next came one of the biggest challenges in the process—creating the perfect orange colored frosting. The official SU orange is Pantone 1655. After many spoonfuls of Orange frosting, the taste and color was just right.
“Tasting spoonfuls of frosting at 8 a.m. isn’t always pleasant, but it was worth it,” Mitchell said.
Filed under the working name, “SU chocolate cupcake,” Mitchell’s flavor was approved by the product development team. The next step was approval from the SU representatives. The flavor was well liked by all.
Mitchell shared her inspiration for the flavor and the SU representatives agreed that the perfect name was “Otto’s Cupcake,” a nod to the university’s friendly mascot.
There was one more kink Mitchell had to work out in order to be satisfied with her SU creation. When the production team was setting up the stock keeping unit number (SKU), she realized it was 1143, just one number away from the legendary SU 44. She said in her blog post that after some storytelling, convincing and additional paperwork, she successfully changed the SKU to 1144. That number is printed on every three-gallon tub.
Otto’s Cupcake is currently only available in bulk three-gallon tubs to be sold by vendors. You can use the Perry’s “flavor finder” on their website to find the closest location to you. The flavor will also be available in the Carrier Dome at all of the four Perry’s stands. SU students can purchase Perry’s ice cream on their SUpercards at the stand by the student section.
Since the release of the flavor, Michell has been in the spotlight for creating the official ice cream flavor of SU athletics. She attended the football home opener against Wagner to accept the game day sponsor football and meet Floyd Little.
Mitchell’s flavor will be available in grocery stores in February. She said the packaging will reference her and the story behind the official ice cream flavor of SU athletics.
Perry’s Ice Cream just brought a little more meaning to the saying “Dome Sweet Dome.”
Recent Syracuse University alumnus Eilish Mitchell landed a job with Perry’s Ice Cream, based out of Akron, N.Y., following her graduation in May 2012. While at SU, Mitchell majored in chemistry and forensic science with minors in theater, nutrition and public communications. With a plethora of avenues to pursue, Mitchell decided to use her chemistry focus and she accepted a job with Perry’s in the quality assurance department.
Mitchell’s job duties include overseeing food safety and quality. However, she takes on special projects with the new product development team. Yes, that means she creates and approves new flavors, testing them regularly.
“Basically I eat a lot of ice cream and call it market research,” Mitchell said, laughing about how lucky she is to have such a fun job.
Mitchell worked on approving the recently released sponge candy flavor as one of her first projects with the team. Initially she joked with her team leader about the idea of developing an SU flavor. Little did she know, her creation would turn out to be a recipe for success—Otto’s Cupcake.
“I knew a Syracuse ice cream flavor had to have orange in it, but orange ice cream isn’t a popular flavor,” Mitchell said.
She tested out several orange flavors, but came to the conclusion that the orange sherbet flavor was too “fruity pebble” tasting. She also had trouble getting the color to be the correct shade of orange. After giving up on orange as a flavor, she went back to the drawing board.
Mitchell needed to find inspiration and she thought why not take it back to the root of the project—Syracuse, N.Y. In her blog post about the creation of the flavor, she talked about traveling to SU for the weekend and making cupcakes using Syracuse/Otto baking cups. The cupcakes were chocolate cake with orange frosting. At that moment, she knew just what her SU ice cream flavor would be: chocolate cake ice cream with orange colored frosting swirls and chocolate cupcake pieces.
One of her team members was already working on flavor samples that tasted just like chocolate cupcakes, an idea that originally came from the ingredient suppliers who showed the team the flavor during a seminar.
“Ingredient suppliers are where a lot of new product development comes from,” Mitchell explained. She said she pitched the flavor idea to the product development team and it was “well-liked.”
Next came one of the biggest challenges in the process—creating the perfect orange colored frosting. The official SU orange is Pantone 1655. After many spoonfuls of Orange frosting, the taste and color was just right.
“Tasting spoonfuls of frosting at 8 a.m. isn’t always pleasant, but it was worth it,” Mitchell said.
Filed under the working name, “SU chocolate cupcake,” Mitchell’s flavor was approved by the product development team. The next step was approval from the SU representatives. The flavor was well liked by all.
Mitchell shared her inspiration for the flavor and the SU representatives agreed that the perfect name was “Otto’s Cupcake,” a nod to the university’s friendly mascot.
There was one more kink Mitchell had to work out in order to be satisfied with her SU creation. When the production team was setting up the stock keeping unit number (SKU), she realized it was 1143, just one number away from the legendary SU 44. She said in her blog post that after some storytelling, convincing and additional paperwork, she successfully changed the SKU to 1144. That number is printed on every three-gallon tub.
Otto’s Cupcake is currently only available in bulk three-gallon tubs to be sold by vendors. You can use the Perry’s “flavor finder” on their website to find the closest location to you. The flavor will also be available in the Carrier Dome at all of the four Perry’s stands. SU students can purchase Perry’s ice cream on their SUpercards at the stand by the student section.
Since the release of the flavor, Michell has been in the spotlight for creating the official ice cream flavor of SU athletics. She attended the football home opener against Wagner to accept the game day sponsor football and meet Floyd Little.
Mitchell’s flavor will be available in grocery stores in February. She said the packaging will reference her and the story behind the official ice cream flavor of SU athletics.
