Pettingills Fruit Farm

First of all, I am not a fan of fruit in my ice cream. I would much rather have butterfingers and oreos filling my shakes. However, this fruit stand has now changed my opinion of fruit filled shakes.

 Their flavors vary with the fruit that is on during that time. You may find that cantaloupe, raspberry, peach, blueberry, and banana are all rotated throughout the summer. During the end of August and beginning of Septemeber is the time that the peaches are on, and that is the time that you must drive to Perry Utah for a Pettingills fresh peach shake!

 One thing that makes this fruit shake good to me is that they blend up the fruit very well in that there are no large chunks of fruit (that is the worst part of a fruit shake to me). They also use Farrs premium ice cream which is the most creamiest of ice cream that Farrs ice cream has to offer....It is amazing!

You can mix and match their fruity flavors. I got raspberry peach which was very delicious!

Their shakes are thick, very creamy, and rich in flavor.Not only are their shakes more than satisfying, the atmosphere of the quaint small town fruit market is one of the more enjoyable locations to sit and enjoy a delicious shake.

Best Shake at Bear Lake

When you ask someone where to find the best shake at Bear Lake you can get a few different answers and it can even turn into a controversy as everyone claims they know the best place to find the most delicious shake. Bear Lake is a shake heaven to any ice cream contisor, there are several places to choose from, soft ice cream, hard ice cream, there is even a new self serve yogurt shop there as of last summer. I used to believe that Le Beaus was the best, because that was the only place that my family went; however, I have recently began to branch out. I have tried each place that someone has referred me to as the best place to get a Bear Lake shake. I have tried the quick and tasty, the chevron (believe it or not), Bear Lake Pizza, and Lakeside Pizza.

I now believe that my search has come to an end at a location that is not well known in the Pickleville area of Bear Lake. Just East of the Pickleville playhouse there is a small blue building called Pickleville grocery, the sign advertises Bear Lake subs and shakes. The shake shack is an even smaller building than the grocery store and is a little behind and to the East of the store.

This place was AMAZING!! It offers hard ice cream shakes with many different flavor and mix in options. Their most unique mix in options being a slice of pie, a piece of cake, lemon merenge, and cake batter. There are no syrup flavors here, the cake batter is actual "Fun Fetti" cake batter, the cake is moist chocolate cake from Costco, and you can choose from a slice of Apple, Cherry, Cheescake, or Pecan Pie. I am sure the calorie count for those is very high, but who is counting when you are enjoying a little piece of milk shake heaven.

My Brother in-law chose the apple pie flavor

My mother in law chose raspberry lemonade which was very
light and refreshing for such a hot day. My Father in-law
chose the chocolate cake shake and it was amazing, one of
my favorites. 

My husband chose the pecan pie shake. It was a
subtly sweet shakewas also one of my favorites. 

I chose the cake batter flavor. It was amazing,
but became very rich towards the end. 

This shake location serves quality ice cream and mix ins, it is not crowded like the other places and will be my top pick from now on whenever I venture to the Lake of Bears!

Best Gelato In Costa Rica

Gelato is much cheaper here in Costa Rica, and therefore, I must get as much of it as possible. I found a quaint little place that is just by our school. The only problem is that I found it too late. There were so many things on the menu that I wanted to try, but we only had half a week left in Costa Rica. We were able to make it there two times and it was delicious each time! The gelateria is called "The Piazza". There are many flavors to choose from, everything from tropical fruit flavors to the chocolaty, candy flavors.

 Each flavor I sampled was better than the last. For our first experience at the Piazza I decided to get a banana split that included three scoops of gelato and it was under 4 American dollars. The flavors I chose were caramel, chocolate chip, and the Piazza's signature flavor which consisted of some vaniilla, chocolate, and caramel swirls. When the banana split came, I was amazed, it looked delicious, and the presentation was spectacular.

However, once I began eating it, I found that there was too much whipped topping and it became too sweet for me. I did however, love the gelato; it was very rich and creamy. The caramel was my favorite.

For our second trip to the piazza, I decided to try some fruit flavors. I decided on a mango, strawberry shake. My husband also got a scoop for himself, he decided upon one of the delicious tropical fruit flavors.

The presentation of each purchase was just as good as last time. I really enjoyed the mango strawberry shake, it was very creamy for ice cream that is mixed with water. I was very impressed. I ended my Costa Rican, ice cream excursion on a definite high note!

Costa Rican McFLURRIE!!!

Just as in America....and the rest of the world, there are of course McDonalds found in Costa Rica. Their menu has a few minor differences from the American menu that we are used to. For breakfast you can find a McPinto on the menu at a Costa Rican Mcdonalds. A McPinto consists of rice, beans, hashbrowns, sausage, and eggs. Of course I paid the most attention to the desert menu. On the sundae menu you can find the typical hot fudge sundae, but you can also find a pineapple, strawberry, and caramel sundae. The mcflurries offered were oreo, m&m, and snickers. In America, the snickers mcflurrie is not an option on the menu and therefore, I had to try it.

American McFlurrie Vs. Costa Rican McFlurrie:
I must say that I would take a Costa Rican McFlurrie any day, over an American McFlurrie. The ice cream was very creamy compared to the watered down American McFlurrie. Also, an option in Costa Rica is the choice of  hot fudge or caramel mixed into your McFlurrie; this is not an option in America. I got both chocolate and caramel mixed into my snickers McFlurrie and it was AMAZING!

Another difference is that the toppings are not mixed in as they are in America; they are all placed on top. Normally, this would be a negative to a shake, but I actually liked it. I believe that the reason that placing the toppings on top was alright was because they placed enough that would last the customer the entire shake. It was a perfect Mcdonalds McFlurrie experience!

FrUiTy PeBbLe IcE cReAm!!

KFC's are everywhere here in Costa Rica. and along with each KFC is a KFC heladeria where they serve ice cream. The new flavor that they were advertising was a Fruity Pebble Avalancha.

I was so excited to try it, the posters made it look so good! I was finally able to try it the other night and I was not let down. The Fruity Pebble Avalancha consists of soft serve vanilla ice cream with strawberry syrup and of course it is loaded with Fruity Pebbles. It was a great price and the ratio of each mix in was very good as well. I would definitely get it again. 

POP'S Helado!!

Pop's helado (Ice Cream) shops are all over here in Costa Rica. Because of this I was assuming that they would be pretty good. Well, I was finally able to try one! There are a lot of options to choose from; beginning with hard ice cream flavors, banana splits, sundaes, and milkshakes.

 I decided to get a caramel shake. The shake was pretty good, however, I like toppings in my shakes and there were no options for mix-ins in shakes, which was a little disappointing. The milkshake did not come close to reaching the top of the cup, and for the price I would have expected at least that. The shake tasted good, but it was extremely runny; personally, as I have mentioned before, I like shakes that need to be eaten with a spoon. I am sorry to say that my pop's helado experience was not one of the best that I have experienced here in Costa Rica thus far.

Dos Pinos! It really is the BEST ice cream in Costa Rica!

When we arrived here in Costa Rica, we asked a few people where the best place is to get ice cream; and a everyone we asked said that the Dos Pinos brand was the best and that Costa Rica actually ships it to different places. When Kyle and I were in a small town called La Fortuna at the base of the Arenol Volcano, we found an ice cream (Helado) shop that served Dos Pinos.

I tried caramel and chocolate vanilla swirl flavors in a waffle cone Sunday with chocolate chips and caramel syrup on top.

This ice cream was so creamy and delicious! The chocolate chips on top were not just any chocolate chips either, they had yummy crunchy centers!

The Shop was very cute, very clean, and had a wide variety of options. However, I was not a fan of the waffle cone. I don't know if it was because of the humidity or just how it was made, but it was very thick and hard to chew. Over all, this was a very good place and Dos Pinos stayed true to its good reputation!

Self Serve Frozen Yogurt In Costa Rica!!

We found this place on our way to school one day and we decided to try it. I was so excited to try the yogurt that I needed two bowls in order to try all the flavors that I wanted to. The flavors were mint, dulce de leche, mango, chocolate, strawberry, blueberry, and a couple other fruits that I had never even heard of before. The fruit flavors were the best, they were very good! The other flavors however were good, however they were watered down quite a bit.

As for toppings there was a large selection including fresh mango, strawberries, kiwi, etc. candies, and a new topping that I have never seen before at an self serve shop was jello. They had green and red jello cubed in their topping selection.

As for the atmosphere, it was very clean and very inviting. The price was about the same as home ($3.00) roughly a bowl. It was muy deliciouso!!!!

Gelato!! Costa Rican Style!

This begins the Costa Rican portion of the Ice CreamCapades! The other night we went to a gelato shop. It was deliciouso! I hope that we can go back soon!

The gelato was extremely creamy and rich. It was a very good price compared to the states. The flavors offered were lemon, chocolate, strawberry, kiwi, and pistachio. The two flavors that I got were pistachio and lemon. The pistachio had small pieces of pistachios in it and the lemon had small pie crust clusters in it; both were equally delicious! I would give this place a 10 in gelato shops!

Spoon Me!

 I am sorry, There are no pictures this time, we are out of town and I forgot the pictures we took. Look forward to next week because we will be in Costa Rica!! I will hopefully be able to find some good ice cream to blog about down there!
Spoon Me
Frozen Yogurt shop Rating
 Rating Between 1-5      
Yogurt Quality    2      
Yogurt flavor variety    1      
Mix in variety    2      
Price    2      
Atmosphere of venue    2   

    I have heard mixed reviews from those who have tried spoon me and I decided I needed to try it myself. Everyday there is a featured name of the day, and if it is your name you receive a buy one get one free. Well, today’s name was Kyle and so we decided that this would be the best time to try it out.
    Spoon me offers only four flavors, three of which stay the same all the time (Acai, Natural, and Chocolate). The featured flavor of the day when I was there was Pina Colada. Kyle and I both chose to get the eight ounce size that cost five dollars. Though they do pack it in, I would rather fill my cup myself for cheaper.
    When it came to the mix ins there are about six fruit mix ins and about 15 candy mix ins. They offer the typical chocolate chips, brownie bits, cookie dough, cheese cake bites, etc. I was sad to see that my favorite Butterfinger was not an option; in fact they do not have any candy bars at all. One thing that they do offer that I have never seen anywhere else are crushed pop tarts.
    After calling ahead to see if they offered any lactose free flavors for my husband that is lactose intolerant, I found out that all their flavors are diary free; in fact their yogurt is a powder that is mixed with water. This explains why their yogurt is not creamy at all. I do have to hand it to them however, for being a powder/water mix it tastes pretty good, just not the type of creamy yogurt I would go for. After trying spoon me, I am sad to say that I will be joining those who also gave it a poor rating.

Johnny's Dairy

Ice Cream Rubric

Shake

Johnny's Dairy used to be known as "The Dairy" and was a local favorite. Cows were milked on site and the milk and ice cream was fresh. Now the milk comes from Johnny's Dairy Riverdale location and the ice cream comes from Farr's. Sorry its sideways, I couldn't get it to rotate

Place: Johnny’s Dairy Location:  North Ogden, Ut Shake Flavor: Carmel, Nilla Wafer	Rating 1-5
Ice cream thickness	3
Mix-in amount and consistency	4 (amount); 3 (consistency, I do like larger chunks, but majority of the mix in was still in whole form)
Flavor variety and mix in variety	4
Creaminess level (Watered down or not)	4

                Johnny’s Dairy was better than I thought it would be. I imagined that the shake would be from hard ice cream and that the mix ins would become crumbs. It was taken to the other extreme when I found that the nilla wafers had not been crushed at all. I would have liked the cookies to be in smaller pieces, but overall they made a pretty good shake! Also, there is an option to get your shake made out of skim milk as well if they have one that is open. They have a smaller selection of mix ins, but a larger variety of flavors. 

Sink the Sub Challenge

SINK THE SUB CHALLENGE

            I decided the best way to start my ice cream capades was with an ice cream challenge. Christopher “Fats” Jones and myself journeyed to Logan Utah to attempt the “Sink the Sub Challenge” at Sub Zero.

            Sub Zero  is a great ice cream place where they first allow you to choose your own base cream; their choices are custard, premium, low fat, fat free, rice milk, and soy milk. They then allow you to choose your flavor and mix in, and then they freeze it into ice cream before your eyes using liquid nitrogen.

            We discovered this challenge a few months ago and finally attempted it last Thursday May 18, 2011. When we first read about this challenge the criteria was: a gallon and a half of ice cream, 2 people, 30 minutes; throwing up is allowed and if you accomplish it you will receive free ice cream for a month.  However, when we arrived to take on the challenge we found that the criteria had changed and there was a trick involved.

            The new things added to the criteria were 2 maraschino cherries (my worst enemy), half a pound of brownies, I don’t know how many chocolate chip cookies, and a whole can of whipped topping. We also discovered that the challenge required a gallon and a half of “Cream”, which after the cream is s frozen it actually becomes 2 and a half gallons of “Ice cream”. Also, free ice cream for a month had become one free ice cream a week for one month equaling 4 free ice cream visits.

            Fats and I decided on half vanilla flavoring and half cheesecake flavoring. When we began I thought I was in heaven. It was so delicious! The chocolate chip cookies added the right amount of crunchiness, the brownies were soft, and the ice cream was creamy and delicious. We ate straight for twenty minutes enjoying every bite. When we hit the twenty-minute mark it was like hitting a rock wall. We had vanquished over half of our foe but there was still a long way to go. When the employee’s told us we only had 5 minutes left, we knew it would not be possible for us to finish the bowl. Instead, we opted to pack up the ice cream and enjoy it later.

Here We Goooo!!

So so GOOD!

By this point we were both shivering from the cold ice cream, so cold but so funny!

Believe it or not, but that is five quarts still in that bowl. We can 't do it :( We would rather save the ice cream and eat it when we can enjoy it

            I believe we could have finished it if they had kept their word and given us a gallon and a half of ice cream. We ate over half and still took home five quarts. It was a fun challenge over all.