Picture this: It’s mid-2020. We’re all quarantined up for a while and have become all too familiar with the four walls of our homes…and TikTok. 😉 I scream, you scream, we all scream…but still, for ice cream! While some folks were perfecting their sourdough starters or taking up needle point, I went with something much more my style: ice cream. I’ve been an ice cream girl for decades, so it’s no surprise to anyone that my treat of choice is a cold, creamy cone over anything with buttercream frosting (ew). Especially with warmer weather on the horizon and with a treat-loving toddler (who is increasingly independent AF) under my roof, it was high time to broaden our family activity horizons. Liv loveloveloves feeling in charge of something, and girlfriend is OPINIONATED. I figured a make-your-own-sundae ice cream bar would be a good family fun day – and unsurprisingly, I was totally right. 😉
For today’s ice cream bar, I’m using one of my new favorites: Hudsonville Ice Cream. Hudsonville has been using the same base recipe since 1926 for all of their yummy flavors like: Brownie Batter Cookie Dough, Strawberry Cheesecake, Traverse City Cherry Fudge (my personal favorite), Creamery Blend Vanilla (which is, I kid you not, the BEST vanilla I’ve ever tasted), and SuperScoop. They actually have over 50 flavors in over a dozen states nationwide, and since they’ve been perfecting their classic recipe over the span of 95 years…you can say it’s pretty dang perfect.
SuperScoop looks wild but (maybe surprisingly) isn’t sherbet – it’s still ice cream! It’s actually a combination of three classic Hudsonville Ice Cream flavors: their Creamery Blend Vanilla, Black Cherry, and Blue Moon, which is a more unique “mystery” flavor. Husdonville also has an entire Dairy Free collection for any dairy-free friends in the house! Woo!
They use the *freshest* ingredients – like milk and cream from local dairy farms near HQ in Holland, Michigan – and really focus on making moments sweeter…which you know we are ALL about here at Coming Up Roses. 😉 If things can be rosier/better/brighter/happier/sweeter, then why the heck would you NOT make it so? So I lovelovelove that as a brand, Hudsonville can help us all level up the everyday to the extraordinary with something as simple as a scoop of yummy ice cream. 🙂
(If you haven’t noticed it in your grocery store, use the Scoop Locator to find a store nearest you that carries Hudsonville Ice Cream – for my local gals who frequent ShopRite stores like me, pop in their ice cream aisle on your next grocery run! #YoureWelcome)
Let’s dive into what you’ll need for your easy ice cream bar!
Ice cream bar essentials:
- Hudsonville Ice Cream, obviously!
- Waffle bowls + cones
- Sprinkles
- Pretzel pieces
- Nerd gummy clusters
- Diced strawberries
- Maraschino cherries
- Mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Gummy bears
- Shredded coconut flakes
Other optional ice cream bar toppings:
- Chocolate syrup
- Caramel sauce
- Any other fruity sauce, syrup or jam
And VOILA – a truly perfect, classic ice cream sundae from our Hudsonville Ice Cream bar.
Now SOMEONE in our house is all for an ice cream bar in the middle of a Tuesday. Not naming names, but… 😉
Aaaaaaand she approves! Obviously – ha!
Special shoutout to my personal favorite Hudsonville Ice Cream flavor so far: Traverse City Cherry Fudge. It tastes like a better, creamier big sister to Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia – which says SO MUCH because that’s one of the most popular/best B&J flavors of all time. Hudsonville has mastered this flavor with perfect proportions of “stuff” inside (like the cherry-chunks-to-chocolate-pieces ratio – any ice cream connoisseur knows this is no laughing matter!), and the chocolate fudge are more like longer ripples of real semi-sweet chocolate instead of overly-manufactured bits and pieces.
One cone of this with a chick flick and a glass of wine and your girl is a HAPPY CAMPER on a Friday night of self care. 🙂
Aaaaaand another visitor. Because if one ice cream bar sundae wasn’t enough, a waffle cone will surely do the trick. 😉
While an at-home ice cream bar is obviously fun and a more novel way to spend a day, I also just want to remind you that sometimes, the simplest of things are the sweetest.
You don’t need fancy trips or expensive outings with your family to have a beautiful time and make unforgettable memories.
You only need the willingness to slow down and “smell the roses” (get it? 😉 ) to remember just how sweet real life can be.
Just sharing a cone with my girl made my day, and seeing something as seemingly basic as ice cream through the eyes of a 2.5-year-old really makes you appreciate your own cone all the more and savor every bite! Really, toddlers are great for that in general – since anything + everything is a new, exciting, amazing thing, you start to see all of the magic in the everyday that maybe – just maybe – you’d been taking for granted. From a rainbow in the sky after a wet spring day, to a butterfly passing the window that you otherwise might not have noticed!
I think in the last year and then some especially, we’ve all been given an unexpected blessing in re-learning the art of the small stuff, since it did, in fact, become our own big stuff in everyday life. We learned to lovelovelove an at-home ice cream bar instead of an outing to the ice cream parlor – but maybe, in doing so, we learned to stop treating life as a checklist and focus on accepting life as a gift.
Have you ever made an ice cream bar at home, or tried Hudsonville Ice Cream?
**Thank you to Hudsonville Ice Cream, a brand I lovelovelove, for sponsoring this post. As always, all opinions and thoughts presented are entirely my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that support Coming Up Roses!
