Remember ice cream sodas? No? Long before there were ice cream scoop shops, there were soda fountains, where they made a lot of more elaborate ice cream dishes, including ice cream sodas.
They are cold and refreshing. I remember stopping at Isaly’s in Columbus before I delivered papers on my paper route. Ice cream sodas were only 25 cents, and in June (Dairy Month) they were half price!
I watched and talked to them and can tell you every detail of how to make this really refreshing dessert. For these pictures, we bought some real soda glasses and long spoons, but you can use any tall drinking glasses.
The recipe
- 2-3 Tb chocolate or strawberry syrup
- 1 Tb whipping cream, or a squirt from your whipped cream aerosol can.
- Ice cold soda water
- 2 scoops of ice cream
- Whipped cream for topping
- And, a cherry
Start by putting the syrup in the bottom of each glass. We used 2 Tb of chocolate syrup and a bit more strawberry syrup. Squirt about a tablespoon or more of whipped cream into the syrup, to make flavoring for the soda water. Stir the cream into the syrup.
Pour cold soda water into the syrup mixture about half-way up the sides of glass. Mix carefully so it doesn’t foam up tooo much.
Add 2 scoops of ice cream to each glass. We used chocolate for the chocolate soda and vanilla for the strawberry soda. Use a spoon to push the ice cream down into the soda water. If the soda and ice cream don’t come right to the top of the glass, add a little more soda and carefully mix it in.
Top with whipped cream and a cherry.
An ice cream soda actually improves if you let it sit a couple of minutes: some of the soda freezes on the surface of the ice cream, giving you some crunchy, fizzy frozen soda water. Serve right after that brief pause.
Happy summer!