Ice Cream Social

It is still over 100 degrees daily here and I am ready for it to be over! We have to find ways to enjoy this lingering heat! Our church last week had an ice cream social and homemade ice cream contest! We always enter and never win. Our last years’ recipes included German chocolate ice cream, Key lime ice cream and cinnamon ice cream. This year we were rushed for time and didn’t decide to participate until the day of! We both wanted to enter this year so we each made our own. 

I made a vanilla base, and a homemade raspberry sauce to swirl in. Then I added dark chocolate raspberry candy bars to the mix and it was the perfect amount of tart and sweet with the chocolate and raspberry! 

Jeremy decided to make a butter pecan ice cream and at the last minute decided to add maple syrup to it. He used his Uncle’s maple syrup (his uncle has a maple syrup farm in Wisconsin). We stirred the butter, pecans, brown sugar and maple syrup in a pan until it made a thick maple caramel. It was so amazing!! We put little dropfulls of the maple pecan clusters in the vanilla and swirled it around. 

Time for voting! Lots of people went back for seconds and thirds to taste all the ice creams to find their favorite. Pumpkin got 3rd place, Cookies and Cream got 2nd place and JEREMY’s Maple Pecan got FIRST! He was so excited and couldn’t stop laughing! He even won a $25 gift card to Coldstone’s ice cream! 

These are the kinds of fun traditions we would like to share with a new child. Traditions like these that allow for fun, creativity and community all while making sweet memories!