Ice Cream Crawl - South end Cayuga Lake, NY

New York is a dairy state and growing up in upstate NY, we ate ice cream often in the summer. Every little town, had it's own local ice cream stand. Now that I no longer live there, when I go home for a summer visit, ice cream is always on the menu. And so, here is an ice cream crawl with some of my local hometown favorites. I have to admit, I visited all of these over four days, I did not manage to accomplish this in one day.

First stop, Cream at the Top, King Ferry. Open summer only, this is really in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by corn fields, and there's a line almost every evening. The servers are always fast and efficient, so even if there is a line, you don't have to wait long. This is the prime choice for custard (soft serve), which is excellent and the servings are huge. My go-to order is vanilla with a chocolate dip, though it is a bit challenging to eat on a warm night, when it is threatening to drip all over your hand. Other members of my family particularly enjoy the rainbow sprinkles. The custard is also great taken to go, if you're not going far, for a cobbler or crisp topping. They do also offer a full line of hard ice creams, milkshakes, sundaes and just about anything else you could want ice cream-wise. The big news this summer was that they started taking credit cards.

Stop 2, Purity Ice Cream, Ithaca. Easily accessible on Route 13, Purity features hard ice cream. They have lots of options, including all the various sundaes and shakes you might desire. There's an indoor and outdoor area, so it works for any weather, and it's open year round. In recent years, they've added a cafe in the back, which I haven't yet had a chance to try. And they makes pies too, which looked pretty tasty. My go-to flavor is Madigan Mint, chocolate ice cream with mint cookies, just about the perfect combination, in my opinion. The small in a waffle cone was very generous. Although, I have to say after trying all of these ice cream stops in succession, this was my least favorite stop of the four, but still good. Needless to say, it's an Ithaca classic and totally worth a visit.

Stop 3, Cornell University Dairy Bar, Ithaca. On the Cornell Campus you can find some excellent ice cream, and you wouldn't know it was there, if you weren't looking for it. Stocking Hall is the food science building and houses the dairy bar, a small cafe the serves some food and all things dairy. If you're driving, there's a pay to park parking lot, almost across the street, so parking is pretty convenient. You can peer into the case of ice cream and see what looks good. There are some traditional flavors and some fun flavors. Bavarian Raspberry Fudge has been a favorite of my family for a long time. They don't make my most favorite flavor anymore - Mexican Sundae, so I decided to go with Triple Play Chocolate, and with the small, you can choose two flavors, so I got mint chocolate chip as well. All the ice cream flavors were excellent, I thought the chocolate in particular was very chocolatey. This was my most favorite of the three hard ice cream stops.

Final stop, Cayuga Lake Creamery, Interlaken. Going north along the west side of Cayuga Lake, you'll come to Interlaken and then you'll find the crowds of people coming and going from Cayuga Lake Creamery. This is a favorite among many and it's always busy in the summer. It's open year round, so even in the winter you can drop in for a cone or hand-packed pint. They have soft and hard ice cream, and they have a number of fun and/or seasonal hard ice cream flavors like Red, White, and Blueberry and Seneca Salt Caramel. The waffle cones are particularly good too. For this visit, I decided on Seneca Salt Caramel in the waffle cone. There was a bit of a wait after we ordered and it took a little while to get our cones and it felt a bit disorganized. But once we finally got our cones, everyone enjoyed them.