NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The Donald pit teams Apex and Mosaic in a cold competition in Thursday night's episode of "The Apprentice." But what does it take to come up with some scintillating ice cream flavors in real life?

"Once you have a flavor in mind, it's really about what your supplier can give you," said Robert Marshall, professor emeritus at the University of Missouri's Food Science Program. "The more exotic ones are made by adding a mixture to a background flavor."

For team Mosaic, they had to get their supplies by raiding local doughnut shops for their doughnut-flavored gelato.

The signature flavor at the University of Missouri's ice cream shop is called Tiger Stripe, after the school's mascot and uniforms.

Marshall knew the colors for Tiger Stripe, gold and black, but the trick was getting the right visual mixture "so that it would look like a tiger's skin."

At first, his supplier suggested adding an ingredient called "charcoal," which was edible, to get the proper black color, but Marshall said he knew that wouldn't work because it would have to be listed on the ingredients label.

So it took about a month to find the correct black addition, which turned out to be mostly Dutch pressed chocolate and a combination of syrups. For the technical ingredients to Tiger Stripe, click here.

Once he had the correct ingredients, it was another two months of calibrating the various tools of the ice cream trade -- how cold to make the freezer, how much "stripe" to add and at what speed to add it -- before Marshall had his finished product.

But the three months of mixing and remixing paid off. Tiger Stripe is now "the flavor" at the University of Missouri, according to Marshall.

A spokeswoman for Breyers Ice Cream said the company couldn't comment on details of its new flavor process, because it is considered proprietary.

"The Apprentice" teams were asked to make gelato, which took significantly less time to make with the help of an ice cream company, but if the Donald has his way, "doughnut gelato" could become the next it flavor.