When I was around 8, my brother Andrew won a bicycle from a drawing at Baskin Robbins. It wasn’t just any bike though; it was a brown, pink and white polka dot bike. Super cool for a 12 year old boy, right? Famous for their 31 flavors of ice cream, my family helped keep that place in business with our frequent trips. Mint chocolate chip ice cream cakes were birthday favorites, but I especially loved those little clown cups they had, with the scoop of ice cream decorated with that totally amazing super sugary icing topped with a cone hat. Do you remember those? Do they still make them? If they do, I have to take my kids.
Well, that bike sat in the garage for years, and sadly I have no idea whatever happened to it. (I can only imagine what it would go for on ebay these 3 plus decades later!) But I do know what’s happened to my love of ice cream: it’s grown. And there’s no chance of it disappearing the way that polka dot beauty did.
As I’m sure you’ve gathered, I have a thing for chocolate. If my first ever post about chocolate cake didn’t give it away, maybe the chocolate almond frosting clued you in. And if you still missed it, the chocolate milk hopefully made it pretty obvious. Then there were the brown butter chocolate chip cookies, the brown butter brownies with dark chocolate chunks, and of course the chewy sesame granola bars with dark chocolate. (Are you noticing a theme?) So it might surprise you to know that I’ve never been a huge chocolate ice cream fan. As someone who strongly believes the darker the chocolate the better, I feel like most chocolate ice creams just aren’t chocolaty enough….