Health is getting hip, at least in Cornell's annual Food Science 101 ice cream-development contest this year. All four flavors developed had a health kick, but it was Beehive Crunch, a vanilla ice cream with all-natural "granola clusters and ripples of honey," that took first prize and will be for sale across campus during the spring semester.

Unlike past years, professor of food science Joseph Hotchkiss did not assign a theme for the contest, but let the students' imaginations flow freely with the only stipulation that the ice creams should have high commercial potential.

"Given free rein, all the student teams came up with concepts that had health connections," said Hotchkiss, who has been teaching the class on how to create complicated foods since 1995.

The students who developed Beehive Crunch suggested in their presentation that it be marketed as "a replacement for standard ice cream because it combines both healthy and decadent ingredients. The honey swirl is a refreshing alternative to the standard caramel and the granola crunch replaces the candy bits usually found in typical ice cream flavors."

The second-place ice cream was Yam I Am, a sweet potato concoction with mini marshmallows -- and the first vegetable-based ice cream in the course's history; third place went to Ice Cream for Breakfast -- bits of waffles in a vanilla base with caramel-cinnamon swirls; and fourth place went to Berry Burst, a vanilla frozen yogurt with whole blueberries, touted for being low in fat and high in anti-oxidants.

Four judges assessed the ice creams not only for flavor and commercial potential, but also for appearance, texture and overall impression, among other traits.

"The most important component for ice cream is texture; that's one of the primary reasons you like ice cream -- because of its texture," said Hotchkiss.

This year's enrollment for the course broke all previous records with 85 students; only about 25 are food science majors.

"In fact, I got e-mails from some students even before they got to Cornell about the course and ideas for what ice cream they wanted to make," Hotchkiss noted.

While developing an ice cream may seem simple, it is, in fact, a complicated endeavor. In four teams of about 20 students each, the class researched ice cream flavor names, formulas, butterfat content, proportions and potential market for the product; they needed to learn the technical aspects of commercial food processing for ice cream, such as how much milk-fat content would be acceptable to the discriminating palate, how much overrun (the air content) to introduce and how much particulate (crunchy tidbits) to use.

"In the course, we bring in some 60 years worth of expertise to consult on ice cream development -- that would cost other pilot plants from $3,000 to $6,000 a day," said Hotchkiss. "It takes three technicians and quite a bit of money in materials to offer this course."

Although most contest-winning flavors fade away after a year or so, Sticky Bunz, developed in 1998, was so successful that many ice cream companies have copied it nationally, Hotchkiss said. Still sold at the Cornell Dairy Store, Sticky Bunz is vanilla ice cream with pecans, caramel and dough pieces with cinnamon and other spices. "It tastes much like the baked buns that are covered in nuts and caramel that you would get in a bakery," he added.