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hunter clayton \u201918<\/b><\/p>\n
First Taste<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> By\u00a0Sara Ann Hutto \u201917<\/b> Clayton\u2019s experience with Clemson Ice Cream helped her land a sweet job as a research and development chef<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> \u201cI was the child who was reading ingredient statements and nutrition panels. It was bad!\u201d
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\nHunter Clayton\u2019s love of food science began at a young age, and she knew that she wanted to pursue it in college. But she also knew she didn\u2019t want to stick around California, having grown up in the San Francisco Bay area.
\n\u201cGrowing up in very fast-paced California wasn\u2019t really my style,\u201d she says.
\nClayton found her way to Clemson through a college counselor at her high school. When she visited campus, her tour guide took her by \u201955 Exchange, and the thought of getting to help create the array of delicious ice creams tucked behind the counter piqued her interest.
\nThe food science and human nutrition major started off in production at \u201955 Exchange during her sophomore year, spending a few hours a week churning out signature Clemson Ice Cream flavors. But it was through Creative Inquiry classes working with Professor Johnny McGregor that she really got to experiment: \u201cThat was definitely my first taste of formulating a product. I loved it.\u201d
\nClayton got not only her start making ice cream at Clemson but also her first taste of Jeni\u2019s Splendid Ice Creams, an artisan ice cream company based in Ohio. On a fall break trip to Nashville, Tennessee, she was introduced to the ice cream by a classmate. \u201cI was kind of blown away,\u201d Clayton says. \u201cI remember when Publix started carrying\u00a0 <\/span>Jeni\u2019s \u2014 I was like the first one to buy it.\u201d
\nAfter graduation, while Clayton was interning at a product development consulting company in California, a fellow food science major sent her a job posting: research and development chef at Jeni\u2019s Splendid Ice Creams. Clayton thought it was a long shot, but she applied anyway. She got the job.
\n\u201cAll of a sudden, I was moving to Ohio,\u201d Clayton laughs.
\nIn her new role, she began working directly with company founder Jeni Britton Bauer to bring new ice cream flavors to life.
\nAccording to Clayton, developing a flavor starts with Jeni\u2019s proprietary ice cream mix \u2014 \u201cyour milk, your cream, your sugar.\u201d From there, each flavor is treated individually in order to understand exactly what ingredients will make it taste just right. \u201cIt\u2019s all very by feel,\u201d Clayton says, \u201cwhich I think is very unusual for the food industry. You just have to guess and check.\u201d
\nOne thing that required more guess and check than anything else was gluten. Clayton is gluten intolerant, which proved challenging, especially if one is trying to create Jeni\u2019s Raspberry Rose Jelly Donut flavor.
\nClayton\u2019s solution to tricking her non-donut-eating tastebuds was to buy \u201ca really cheap donut,\u201d smell it over and over, and add ingredients to try and recreate it in the ice cream. The secret ingredient? Nutmeg oil, \u201cwhich is like the secret spice of donut shops.\u201d
\nAfter over two years at Jeni\u2019s, Clayton recently took a research and development position at Coconut Bliss, a dairy-free ice cream company based in Eugene, Oregon, to be closer to her family.
\n\u201cI\u2019m jazzed about staying within the frozen dessert world,\u201d Clayton says, \u201cwhich, arguably, is the best world in the food world.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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Hunter Clayton\u2019s experience with Clemson Ice Cream helped her land a sweet job as a research and development chef<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":23709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21,8],"tags":[29,694,1561,2811,2813],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-23708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumniprofiles","category-my-clemson","tag-55-exchange","tag-clemson-ice-cream","tag-ice-cream","tag-summer-2021","tag-summer-2021-alumni-profile"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/06\/Hunter-Clayton.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23708"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=23708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}