Twenty-eight pints of Haagen Dazs Toasted Coconut Sesame Brittle Private Reserve ice cream have gone missing from Amber Antonelli’s freezer. An all-out freezer-search party is due to be launched within hours.

It’s not that Amber needs all of that ice cream exactly, but she wants to know that all 28 pints of the signature ice cream flavor she designed for Haagen Dazs are safe and cold, and ready for sharing with friends and family.

“I don’t know where they went, but the freezer is empty,” Amber says. “I know my roommate likes the ice cream, but 28 pints? I’m going to do a little investigating.”

The story of the ice cream dates back to last year, when Amber, a former pastry chef from Petaluma who recently moved to Phoenix, decided to enter the Haagen Dazs flavor contest.

Amber, who has worked in the restaurant business for 12 years, says she entered the contest in part because she loves ice cream and because she has had lots of practice making it.

“I worked in a restaurant that had this $8,000-ice cream machine. We made a different ice cream every day,” she says.

“It was 11 p.m. on a Friday night and I had seen the call for entries online several times. I decided to do it right then. But then I noticed that I had to have a video postmarked by Monday morning and I didn’t even have a video camera.

“It turned into a serious deadline, which was great for me. I’m in the restaurant business!”

Amber’s recipe was one of just 11 selected to go on to the finals round. When Amber met the producer in person, she explained to Amber:
“Yours was one of the most boring videos” of the lot, but the recipe sounded too cool to pass up.

News of the win arrived by mail. “I got a letter offering me this all-expense paid trip for two… to Bakersfield! I’m a California native, so I laughed. Bakersfield?” The location, she explained, did make sense, since that’s where Haagen Dazs makes its ice cream.

The trip, she adds, was lots of fun. She was put up at the Doubletree Hotel, treated to gourmet meals, a factory tour and given a PT Cruiser to explore the town. As part of the competition, she was also invited to make up two versions of her ice cream - while she was being filmed for Food Network television. “I’m a celebrity now,” she jokes.

Part of the reason contestants were asked to make two versions of their ice cream, she says, was to provide Haagen Dazs with enough options for duplicating it for the mass market.

Her recipe for the ice cream flavor that Haagen Dazs is selling, for example, was slightly different. In her recipe, the coconut itself is used to infuse flavor into the cream, then strained out. Haagen Dazs leaves the coconut in, making for a much chewier, more textural ice cream experience.

The Bakersfield competition narrowed the field from 11 to 5. The remaining 5 were then invited on another overnight adventure, this time at the Claremont Hotel in Oakland. That trip involved a party in San Francisco, and more great food.

After months of fun and hoping to win, Amber’s ice cream did not take the prize. She was disappointed, and didn’t understand why the super-sweet Sticky Toffee Pudding outscored hers.

Then, months later, she got a surprise phone call. “It was in December that Haagen Dazs called and told me they wanted to make my ice cream for their reserve line.” The news was followed by a check for $5,000.

“I was happy to get the money and happy that they wanted to make the ice cream, but I was disappointed that they didn’t give me credit under the lid,” she says. The Sticky Toffee Pudding flavor winner got her bio printed under every lid.

Amber’s parents, however, took the publicity issue into their own hands.
“My parents are my biggest fans. They put up posters in the grocery store and told everyone about it.” Her father even emailed me with details about Amber’s win.

Will the win, even if it was a little delayed, encourage Amber to enter more contests?

“Maybe. I put in an application for The Next Food Network Star, but I did it last minute and I don’t think I put enough into it. I need to work on that.”

For now, Amber is busy doing freelance traveling and traveling as time and money allows. _ Jolene Thym