Some students arrive in Bologna, Italy, with just a secret indulgence without shop locations, business plans or $70,000 on hand for must-have machinery. They head to Carpigiani Gelato University to learn how to turn sacks of sugar and crates of oranges, kiwis, lemons and persimmons into spoonfuls of earthly bliss.
Gelato is the ultimate refinement of a Mediterranean flavored-ice tradition that supposedly dates back to the ancient Egyptians. In the past half-century, Italians have designed machines engineered and produced in the same region as Ferraris and Lamborghinis that can produce ever tinier crystals of ice, allowing for less...