10 Local Places To Get Your Ice Cream Fix

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ice cream fixThere’s something nostalgic about ice cream. Remember those days of waiting for warmer days and hearing the ice cream truck music coming around the neighborhood. Then running over to the truck to pick out your favorite frozen treats. There’s also something about eating it when the weather is freezing outside. My family and I LOVE all frozen treats whether it’s ice cream, frozen yogurt, rolled ice cream, milkshakes, gelato, or frozen custard. We just need our ice cream fix.

The following is a list of our Top 10 listed in alphabetical order since we can’t quite pinpoint our favorite local ice cream fix:  

Afters Ice Cream

One of the first handcrafted ice creams out there with a unique palette of flavors and creations. They serve their ice cream with donuts called “Milky Buns” to make an ice cream sandwich that sets them apart from the rest. With flavors such as Milk and Cereal and Cookie Monster, you are sure to have a real treat at any time of the day.

Multiple locations throughout Southern California to choose from.  

A la Minute Ice Cream

They source all their ingredients from surrounding communities as well as local farmers to create some of the finest flavors that are so different from other ice cream parlors. They serve nitrogen ice cream which freezes the ice cream quickly and diminishes the ice crystals that form in the ice cream creating a much creamier ice cream. One of their unique flavors right now is Vegan Blueberry with Tofu Custard. Two of my family’s favorite flavors are the Orange Honey and the Salted Caramel. One of their locations is in the heart of Old Town Orange. It’s fun to grab a cup of ice cream and walk around the Orange Circle to window shop at old antique stores and vintage clothing stores.  

Cauldron Ice Cream

Home of the original Puffle cone. A warm waffle-cone, inspired by Hong Kong style egg waffles, serves as a base for your ice cream cone. From there, pick a handcrafted nitrogen ice cream flavor to make it picture perfect. Cauldron Ice Cream makes your ice cream look Instagram worthy. They carve your ice cream into the shape of a rose! Don’t forget to request it when you order your ice cream. Our family favorites are Salted Caramel, S’mores, and Pineapple Express!

Churned Creamery

Artisan ice cream with unique flavors. They take pride in using advanced machinery, which eliminates lengthy wait times and reduces manual labor. But, the best part is, you can taste the ice cream straight from the barrel before you place your order. Their menu is extensive and features unique flavors such as Whiskey and Cream, Taro, and Dolce Latte, with beautiful Sorbet flavors like Mango, Blood Orange, and Pineapple. You can now get churro donuts to make delectable ice cream sandwiches.  

Frostbites

Their sorbet chill is Italian ice with various colorful flavors and you can layer it with their frozen custard. They also have their most popular sorbet cream that is rich and velvety. You can choose as many flavors as you want to create your own masterpiece with fun flavors such as mango, passionfruit, blueberry, and sour apple.

Hans Homemade Ice Cream

Hans Homemade Ice Cream has been around since 1972. They established another location in the Anaheim Packing District. They only use the richest creams from the local dairies. Hans has classic flavors such as Butter Pecan and Cookies and Cream. They have ventured out with new flavors such as Nutella Crunch and Coffee OREO. Hans Homemade also makes handmade Drumsticks, Ice Cream Sandwiches, as well as hand-dipped frozen bananas.  

Honeymee

They serve up fresh milk creamy ice cream drizzled with quality honey. You can also add a real honeycomb right on top! The raw honey and honeycombs are 100% pure and natural! The honey comes from a local, certified bee farm. We love their motto, “Happy Bee, Happy Mee!”

House of Chimney Cakes

The owner is from Hungary and she brought what Orange County was missing for desserts, Hungarian Chimney Cakes! It’s Hungarian Sweet Bread that is freshly baked to order with a crispy crunchy outside and a light fluffy dough inside. They resemble a hot chimney when it comes fresh out of the oven with it’s cynlinder shape and hollow center. Think of a cross between churros and doughnuts!

Mochilato

Mochi ice cream is from Japan, and it’s a small, round, dessert ball consisting of a soft, pounded sticky rice cake (mochi), formed around an ice cream filling. Try traditional flavors like vanilla and chocolate, to more exotic flavors such as black sesame, passionfruit, durian, and lychee.  

Popbar

Located in the Anaheim Packing District and various other areas of Orange County, Popbar has artisan gelato, sorbetto, and ice cream shaped into popbars. Their popbars are made fresh daily, and their simple design with your options to add toppings and dips to make it even more special.  

 

BONUS UPDATE:

Salt & Straw

This Portland-based ice cream sensation opened well after this list was originally written, but it deserves to be noted here! Though they have several West Coast locations, Salt & Straw just opened their first Orange County spot, and it’s at Downtown Disney! Co-founded by mompreneur Kim Malek, their focus is on handmade small batch ice cream with local, organic, and sustainably-sourced ingredients.

With deliciously inventive flavors like Honey Lavender, Sea Salt With Caramel Ribbons, and Pots Of Gold & Rainbows (which is made with Lucky Charms cereal and only available year-round at this location), this is a must on any ice cream lover’s bucket scoop list! 

 

It doesn’t need to be warm out to eat frozen treats!  Give these places a try now and let us know which one is your favorite!  

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Cynthia Miller
I am Cynthia, a full time working mom to two beautiful pre-teen and teenage daughters. I am married to my best friend and have been together for 25 years and married for 18, practically high school sweethearts! I am lucky to say I am an Orange County native exploring everything here and beyond with my daughters, husband and sometimes with our two pups in tow. In my spare time, I love blogging at https://themillerseffect.com to share about all of our foodie and travel adventures and get in a little “I Love Kickboxing” in the wee hours of the morning & night. I mean, who needs sleep anyway? I am an event planner that loves all things food, adventure, entertaining friends, and organization. Oh, shoes and clothes. Confession: I am a bona fide shopaholic. For the LOVE of shoes!!