Dairyland Delicacies: Frozen Custard

I love ice cream, always have. I dread the day my children are tall enough to peer into the freezer and see Healthy Choice Cookies & Cream hidden behind their waffles. If they had any idea the amount of frozen treats consumed in our house after they went to bed, they would seek legal emancipation…and rightly so.

Our first apartment in Wisconsin was located across the street from a Culver’s where the custard flavor of the day is posted daily on its sign. We were thrilled! We posted the Culver’s calendar of flavors on our fridge, but by the end of the first summer, the custard novelty had worn off and we craved REAL ice cream.

For those that may not be familiar, frozen custard is a creamier variation of soft-serve ice cream. There’s not much to it. Like soft-serve, custard doesn’t really have much texture. It’s like eating a frozen lump of whole milk with sugar. Please note that if you are having custard for the first time, eat a small serving. It can wreak havoc on the digestive system if you’re not used to it!

When I saw Andes Candies featured as the flavor of the day, I envisioned ribbons of chocolate and mint custard woven delicately together, but was disappointed to receive bland vanilla custard with crumbled Andres Candies mixed it.

Real ice cream, surprisingly, is difficult to find in America’s Dairyland unless you hit tourist areas like Door County or the Dells. When I was pregnant with our oldest child in 2001, we traveled Milwaukee County looking for real ice cream only to find Dairy Queen, Kopp's Custard, and a few closed Baskin Robbins. I was even willing to drive back to the Southside of Chicago for a rainbow cone or to visit The Plush Horse or Gertie's.

By the time we were expecting our daughter in 2004, there were TWO ice cream shops in Oak Creek. But my son, nearly three at the time, did not like ice cream (“Too cold!”) and I feared looking like a bad mom eating ice cream in front of my sobbing toddler. Strangers would assume he was crying because I wouldn’t share, not realizing his tears were because I was eating something of an unsafe temperature.

If we are stopping for a treat after school, I will give my kids the two options at Howell and Drexel: custard from Culver’s or a Wendy’s frosty. I know this is disappointing to my Wisconsin friends, but they always choose the frosty.

My final thoughts on frozen custard: edible, but highly overrated, and not a suitable replacement for a scoop of old-fashioned, hand-dipped ice cream full of texture and flavor!