Island Fare: Cows Ice Cream

When I am home in PEI I am lucky enough to be less than five minutes away from the Cows Ice Cream Creamery. For those who aren’t familiar, Cows is an Island staple. They started selling their ice cream out in Cavendish (home of Anne of Green Gables) in 1983. Since then they have expanded their offerings to include more than 32 flavors of ice cream. There are currently 5 locations in PEI, one in Halifax, one in Niagara, one in Banff, and one in Whistler.

I’ll be honest…I wasn’t a huge fan of Cows until I spent my first summer working at the Cavendish Boardwalk. Over the summer I managed to make friends with a few of the people working at Cows and took full advantage of my access to $1 staff cones. I think I tried just about every available flavour that summer. I also used to think it was prohibitively expensive but, in my old age, I realize it’s really not that bad. A single cone (two scoops and up to two flavors) in a freshly made waffle cone comes in just under $5. The flavors also change daily depending on what runs out and what else they've got in the freezer. 

Flavors and prices

Freshly made waffle cones. I love that smell.

The Cows website claims there are three factors that make their ice cream so good:

1.    High (16%) butterfat content

2.    Minimum air creates a high density, slow to melt in your mouth ice cream

3.    Good ingredients like fresh cream, real eggs, sugar, pure natural vanilla, fresh PEI berries, and cocoa imported from Holland

Cows is also well known for their parody t-shirts and merchandise. These shirts were all the rage when I was in elementary school. I remember they were a very popular gift to give at birthday parties. They’ve evolved from generally funny word play to cowifying pop culture phenomena. Some of them are quite clever.

This is my current favorite. I think I want the mug.

This past visit had me trying out one new flavour and two that were definitely around last summer. Moo Henry (the new one reminiscent of an Oh Henry bar) is vanilla ice cream with gooey caramel swirl, brown sugar fudge, peanuts, and chocolate pieces. It was quite tasty. The caramel was a perfect consistency and the peanuts were a nice surprise. I didn’t come across them until I got into the second scoop. 

On my second trip I decided to maximize my scoopage and get two flavors in my single cone. Fluff ‘n Udder (fluffer nutter) is chocolate ice cream with marshmallow swirl and mini peanut butter cups. I had been disappointed by this one last year but, in this scoop, it redeemed itself. My second scoop was Peanut Butter Cup Cup - peanut butter ice cream with peanut butter swirl and mini peanut butter cups. Delicious! This scoop was also way better than I remembered it being.

Peanut Butter Cup Cup on top and Fluff 'n Udder on the bottom

All in all, if you find yourself in PEI, you should definitely track down a scoop of Cows. Even if you don’t like ice cream, the stores are fun to browse through and there's usually a large cow statue outside to take a picture with.

Do you have a favorite brand or flavor of ice cream that makes you think of home?