Birchwood Dairy Farm in Abbotsford has 50 flavours of local ice cream to choose from. What more could you ask for?
Birchwood Dairy Farm was established in 1968 and is located in Abbotsford. Aside from being a dairy farm 7 days a week, all year round (you could say 24/7), Birchwood is also a local attraction – a pit stop for locals and tourists especially during the summer!
The community is welcomed by the Krahn family at Birchwood Dairy to learn about dairy farming and experience a day in the life of a farmer. This farm operation experience is managed by Rick, who co-runs the business with his brother Brian. Brian is in charge of the store and ice cream production. Aside from learning about the farm, you can visit the farm animals at the petting zoo, try a selection of house-made fudge, yogurts, and a year-round favourite, Birchwood Dairy’s home-made ice cream.
Birchwood has 50 flavours of ice cream to choose from.
With 50 different flavours to choose from, almost all flavours are local when in season, with local BC berries being a top pick. Rick loves French Vanilla, while Brian favours Coffee Crunch!
Some public favourites are Vanilla, Coffee Crunch and swirly salted caramel!
SO, how does Birchwood make their ice-cream rich and creamy?
Each day close to 400 litres of ice cream base and 700 litres of finished product are made. Ice cream base is made with cream from the milking cows. The cream contains about 16% butterfat which gives the ice cream it’s rich, smooth and velvety texture.
Pasteurized cream is blended with sugar. Pasteurization is an important part of the process as it destroys possible pathogens (disease-causing organisms). Many other foods are pasteurized for food safety such as honey, apple cider and apple juice. Once the base has been pasteurized it is sent over to ice-cream production.
The base mixture is poured into an ice cream machine, churning and pulling air into the ice cream base to fluff it up and give the ice cream its light texture. As this happens, flavours such as local berries, chocolate, spices, etc. are blended into the ice cream base. Yum!
Once the ice cream has been flavoured, it’s put straight into the freezer to preserve its silky and creamy texture. The ice cream team at Birchwood loves developing new flavours, so experimenting with more than one flavour at a time is not unusual. Have you ever tried Green Tea Chocolate ice cream? They have!
Want some ice cream? Don’t fret, Birchwood has enough ice cream for everyone.
Don’t know if you can make it out to Birchwood Dairy this summer?
We’ve got you covered with some of our popular frozen treat recipes to DIY!
DIY recipes
