RECIPE: Ice Cream Skyline Chili

This recipe originally appeared in the January 31st, 2025 edition of The Action Cookbook Newsletter.

Okay. So let’s talk about the Skyline ice cream.

The mad scientists ninety miles to my northeast pulled off something that I love to do: they crafted a food as a stunt, but did it such in a way that the end product was actually quite enjoyable. I’ve tried that a bunch here (succeeding some of the time) and I respect the heck out of it.

They also dislodged an idea that’s been stuck in the back of my mind.

Some time ago, I learned of the concept of “Spaghettieis”, a German dessert concoction that involves pressing ice cream into long, noodle-like strands and dressing it with a fruit sauce so as to resemble a place of spaghetti.

To me—a madman—this seemed ripe for adaptation into the Cincinnati chili format, wherein spaghetti is topped in a number of “ways”. (If you’re not familiar with the system, a “three-way” includes spaghetti, chili and cheese, a “four-way” adds diced white onions or red kidney beans, and a “five-way”—the only way I ever get it—involves all of these items.)

I could simply adapt Spaghettieis into Skyline-eis by finding things that more or less resembled those accoutrements.

Now, I want to assuage your fears up front. Much like Skyline/Graeter’s, I will not be employing meat in this. The best route for a “chili” analogue, I reasoned, would be topping the “noodles” with a freshly-made apple crisp. I used this recipe from The Chunky Chef as a base, halving it and adding allspice, nutmeg and cloves and a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper to the cinnamon already in it.

For the onions? Well, that’d be easy. I could dice a bar of white chocolate into small pieces resembling white onion.

I debated a few options for the beans—pecans, pralines, walnuts—before remembering the existence Boston Baked Beans, those old-school candy-coated peanuts. They’re explicitly meant to resemble beans! I tracked them down at a local Walgreens, and while I felt a bit odd checking out with nothing other than a single box of old-timey candy, I persisted.

For you, dear reader.

Everything I do, I do it for you.

The cheese would be the biggest question mark, as no plate of Cincinnati chili is complete without a heaping mound of finely-shredded sharp cheddar cheese.

There’s not a lot that can replicate that visual, and ultimately, I settled on my riskiest move: I’d simply keep the cheese. I know that sounds off-putting at first, but consider if you will: sharp cheddar cheese is a known pairing with apple pie¹. I figured it could play well with my apple crisp.

Now, actually making the ice cream noodles posed a bit of a challenge.

Most information I could find online noted that a spaetzle press is normally used, but I don’t have one of those. A suggested alternative was a potato ricer, which I do have, but my first attempt—a test run with some old Graeter’s vanilla ice cream I had in the back of the freezer—was a complete failure. I couldn’t push it through at all. In retrospect, this shouldn’t have been a surprise; Graeter’s “French Pot” style ice cream is extremely thick.

[doffs cap, nods respectfully at it]

Some additional research let me to this product from Blue Bunny, a soft-serve-inspired “frozen dairy dessert” from their “Oops! All Stabilizers!” line.

This stuff is very soft and easily-scooped right out of the freezer, and it has the same vague chemical taste that Mr. Softee does. Not something I’d recommend for daily consumption, but I tested it in the potato ricer, and it worked perfectly.

I was back in business.

Please enjoy as this process unfolds, and understand that I specifically purchased an oval plate just so this would look right, because I care that deeply about precision when I’m making a silly food.

First, the noodles.

Yep, that’s ice cream noodles if I’ve ever seen them. (I’ve never seen them.)

Next, the “chili”, or apple crisp.

If I stopped here, I would have a perfectly normal dessert. I would consider that a personal failure, and that’s why I’m not stopping here.

Next, the “beans” and “onions”.

[cackling maniacally] why is this actually working

Finally, the cheese.

[Jesus Christ that’s Jason Bourne voice] Jesus Christ that’s Ice Cream Skyline

Okay, so—it looks like a five-way, but looks aren’t everything, especially if it’s not edible. Was it?

Friends, I’m here to tell you—it was surprisingly good. As in, actually good. The cannot-legally-call-it-ice-cream product itself wasn’t my favorite, and the cheese ratio was a bit high, but overall it was a wholly-successful remix of a normal, wholesome dessert (apple pie with cheddar cheese and vanilla ice cream) into a new and delightful shape.

I simply cannot be stopped.

(As a post-script, that apple crisp recipe linked above is really good, and I made a normal, non-skylinified version on the side for my family’s appreciation.)

—Scott Hines (@actioncookbook)