I know, I know. I'm supposed to either rant or rave. But what if I want to do a little of both? After all, we're talking ice cream and ice lollies here. The raving part is pretty obvious, I would think. They are both delicious! However, I know that doesn't make very interesting reading, so let me explain.
Ice cream. Creamy, frozen deliciousness in a bowl or cone. Preferably a waffle cone - I have only just recently discovered that thin, curled waffles are amazing for holding more ice cream than I ever thought possible. I like all the standards, of course: Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry-with-pieces-of-real-fruit, but also Wakefield's Frozen Gum Confection (if you've not tried that flavor, please do. It's best at night!) And you've not lived until you've mixed-and-matched flavors in the same cone. Okay, so I like to live a little on the dangerous side, but whoever thought to put Plum Pudding Frosting next to Banana Scream was a pure genius.
However, as much as I love ice cream, especially in a waffle cone, it clearly has its downsides. Drippage for one. I don't want to lose any of that deliciousness, but the sad truth is that ice cream melts when you're not looking. This is true of ice lollies as well, of course, but with those, a simple freezing charm works wonders. But have you ever tried to freeze your ice cream? It's just all sorts of sad wrongness. The ice cream becomes hard enough to take on a Bludger and the ice cream kind-of crystallises to boot, so that when it thaws, it's no longer wonderfully creamy.
I've tried, believe me. But until I can come up with an anti-melt charm that doesn't deep-freeze my cone of wonder, I'm just going to have to eat my treat faster than I would like. And that is depressing on a hot summer's day. So I both love and despair of my lovely ice cream cones.
Ice lollies, on the other hand, don't have quite the same problem. The thing I love about those are the pure variety of fruity and other assorted flavors they come in. It's almost as fun as a new box of Bertie Bott's - in fact, sometimes I think the developers snuck in various EFB flavors during manufacturing and disguised them under innocuous names such as "Frutti-tutti." I swear, "Tutti" is just what it sounds like, even if the flavor doesn't taste much like beans. But for those of us with an ... umm ... adventurous palate, shall we say? All those varieties are super-fun, especially when one has nothing better to do.
No, the worst problem with the lollies is that they are small. They hardly seem to get going when suddenly they are gone. That is particularly true of the lemon flavor, which happens to be my favorite. It's like two licks, one chomp, and it's done. Five seconds, max. While those are a marvelous five seconds, I would appreciate something with just a bit more staying power. There's an American Muggle confectioner with something called "Eternal Gobsmackers." Just think if I could incorporate something like that into my lemon ice lolly. I'd be gobsmacked for certain!