My Kitty Cones Ice Cream Journey

My latest tests using a dental vacuum form machine to make a Kitty Cones mochi mold
Part1

Part 2

So creating packaging for Mochi in the mold of Kitty Cones will work!

For these MacGyver tests we made our own mochi dough which came out super sticky and somewhat thick so the mochi turned out a bit rough, but it still formed!
However, dropping freshly made, more pliable mochi dollops from mochi machines into the packing molds will be so much more detailed and cleaner.

Maybe the packaging is more of a clamshell that adds slight pressure to the dough to assure the spread of mochi in the mold.
This is probably the most feasible, cost efficient way to create molded Kitty Cones! I can happily say this testing round is my most successful!

Kitty Cones ice cream pints – prototypes & flavor concepts

DIY Experiments
Below is a chronicle of my experiments from the past few years
as I work towards the idea of bringing actual Kitty Cones ice cream into the marketplace.
My ultimate goal is to find licensing partners but as someone that is always curious about the process of things,
I wanted to play mad scientist and see what’s possible!

ATTEMPT #1

My first attempt was to make a mold in the exact shape of Kitty Cones characters.
I MacGyver’d a vacuum-formed molded shape with a DIY vacuum box and mold.

In the above video, you can see the vacuum forming I attempted. I used PETE (polyethylene terephthalate) food-safe plastic sheets that I softened in the oven, which you have to pull out very quickly because as it cools, it gets stiff very fast!

These are the 3D printed sculpts cut in half to make both sides of the clamshell mold

My homemade vacuum form boxes. I forced myself to use whatever I had in the house or garage to make these and keep costs to a minimum.
The PVC pipe is where I attached my shop vac. A cardboard box worked great but found the first one I made was way too big. It made the excess plastic wrinkle around the sculpt.

I used a piece of scrap masonite for the top of the vacuum form box and drilled holes into it for the suction. The weatherstripping on top helped for a better seal when I pressed the frame with stapled plastic over it after heating it in the oven.

Detail of molded plastic over sculpt

All the failed test shots of the plastic.

Here I clipped the two halves of the plastic clam shells, then left the bottom open so I could pour in the melted ice cream. Then it went into the freezer. It took a few tries.

Lots of issues I didn’t even think of like the vanilla bean flakes floating to the bottom of the mold after I melted the ice cream.
If you look closely you can see the vanilla bean flakes at the top of Kitty’s head.
Need to make better quality molds and could probably use a more powerful shop vac, but not a bad start. More to come!

ATTEMPT #2
3D printed Kitty Cones face and ears – face is one piece to quickly and easily insert in soft-serve cones or regular ice cream
and to easily match facial proportions of a Kitty Cones character.
My thoughts were to make the face and ears out of chocolate or some sort of candy which I didn’t do here.
I just wanted to try the 3D printed samples to see if it would even work.

It sort of did. ; P
Below my daughter and I went to McDonald’s and got a soft-serve cone to conduct the experiment.
Kind of looked like a pug or an alpaca! LOL!

I quickly licked off the excess to smooth the ice cream out and it was better. MMMMM.

ATTEMPT #3

My wife, had the brilliant idea to just simplify things and suggested: “Why not try something like candy buttons?”
This could work as a product for retail channels like grocery stores and sell them by the sprinkles.
And it’s a fun way for kids and parents to DIY Kitty Cones.

We did a rough test run using a candy mixture and frosting gun on translucent wax sheets with a printout underneath as a guide, then let the candy harden. (please ignore the Mr. Bill likeness) It’s rough but it worked! Just imagine perfect molds made to inject the Kitty Cone faces on sheets and simple packaging to display it and I think we may be on to something!

ATTEMPT #4

So now I began looking at this from a different perspective.

Instead of racking my brain on the execution, I wanted to focus on how do I make a Kitty Cone the most delicious ice cream cone ever and how can I add delicious characteristics to make an edible Kitty Cone. This got me thinking about the ears first. What would make a delicious little ear? How about a small sugar cookie! YUM! They’d be small but they could have frosting, sugar and could be colored/flavored in a variety of ways. Ok so why not do the same for the nose and mouth as one piece and make a cookie mold for that as well. Eyes? Why not lick into a delicious chocolate chip?

It sort of worked but the mouth was really fragile as chocolate.
So I’m hoping my next attempt to make the face and ears out of small cookie molds might work.
I’m feeling positive about this idea in one direction!

Kitty Cones Ice Cream & Gift Shop Concept