photo by Talia Hodge
Delicious, mountainous and indulgent, the Goliath — a gigantic ice cream challenge from Almost Heaven Homemade Ice Cream — tests the limits of a sweet tooth.
Made with five scoops of vanilla ice cream, five scoops of chocolate and five more of strawberry — plus five whole bananas, five scoops of pineapple topping, five pumps of chocolate syrup, five scoops of strawberry topping, whipped cream, five maraschino cherries and a coating of crushed peanuts — it’s likely the largest sundae you will ever eat.
The challenge’s name is a riff on the biblical tale of David and Goliath, in which a boy defeats a giant warrior with only a sling and stones. Contenders must face their own gargantuan rival — packing in piles of the frozen dessert in only a half hour. It helps that the ice cream is yummy and made in house.
“We serve super-premium ice cream, so it’s a higher butterfat,” says co-owner Jared Truax, whose brother invented the challenge. “It’s all small batch made. We’re only making five gallons at a time.”
Biting into a spoonful of the Goliath, contestants taste a blend of fruit, ice cream and classic sundae toppings.
“The pineapple is more like chunked-up pineapple in the syrup base, and the strawberry is the same way. You get whole strawberries and parts of strawberries and parts of pineapple,” Truax says. “It tastes just like a classic banana split, where you have the sweetness of each fruit going with whatever flavor ice cream is below it.”
If challengers scarf down all of the approximately 6-pound treat within the time limit, it’s free — victory also comes with a T-shirt and a place on Almost Heaven’s online wall of fame. (Losers must pay $50.) The current record holder, Truax says, cleaned their bowl in 5 minutes and 10 seconds.
“You just can’t believe somebody can eat that much. It’s a lot of dairy,” he says. “We had a gentleman that tried it this past weekend, and he only got about 10 minutes in. … Most people that attempt it, they get about 15 minutes in and realize, Wow, this is a lot of ice cream.”
Alliance, Canal Fulton, Canton & Hartville, almostheavenicecream.com
