Jun 30, 2008
Surprised by (Malted Milk Ball) Joy
Last night we had dinner with some dear friends who don’t get to see very often. Part of the reason for our dinner was to say goodbye to another of our dear friends who heads to Louisville, Kentucky very soon for seminary. It was a good time together.
After dinner we walked to a local ice cream shop. Ice cream is probably my favorite dessert. There are so many good things out there (amazing cakes, pastries, pies, etc.) but really for me me it all comes back to ice cream.
Funny story about my frugal husband before I get to the point: We were deciding what to get in order to make all of the members of our little family happy. Abraham quickly calculates that if I just order a triple scoop waffle cone that it’ll be cheaper than all of us getting our own. “Just order a triple and ask for a cup and we’ll split it up,” he tells me quickly over his shoulder as he heads back to watch over our little guy. Needless to say, I was feeling totally embarrassed standing there for those couple minutes holding the biggest ice cream cone known to man.
Anyway, getting to the point. I’m finishing my cone when this really full crunch at the bottom happens. I take a second to ponder why it felt and tasted different than I was expecting. “Hey, did that cone just have a malted milk ball in the bottom?!?!”
The friends we were eating with were surprised that I’d never experienced that before. “It keeps it from dripping,” friend Phil explains. “It’s the old-school way.”
I was blown away. “I’m blogging it,” was my response. We tried for a few minutes to come up with a spiritual analogy for the malted milk ball at the bottom of the cone, but were quickly distracted by an energetic three-year-old.
Any takers?
Nothing comes to mind, but good plan with the triple scoop. We try to do that (split large amounts) when ever it makes things cheaper. Sometimes it makes it quite a bit cheaper.
And I haven’t heard of the malted milk ball thing, either.
Ice cream dripping = evil/sin. Malted milk ball = common grace, making the difference, given enough time and inattention, between some of the ice cream dripping (total depravity) and all of the ice cream dripping (utter depravity).
Sometimes when we think something good is about to end (like vacation or a date night), God gives us one more little delightful surprise!
wow – i’ve never heard of this before. i’ll let everyone else go for the analogies.
Martha Stewart recommends a mini-marshmallow, but I think a malted milk ball is even better!
Our favorite ice cream parlor on our Door County vacation is Wilson’s in Ephraim, WI. Their cones have a jelly bean at the bottom, but a malted milk ball would be WAY BETTER!! My Caramel Collision Cone had a sad ending when I bit into a black licorise jelly bean! So do what you will with THAT analogy.
~jane
p.s. I love the image of you with the “biggest ice cream cone known to man”.
God often blesses us with things that delight us, for which we don’t even think ask! Like a malted milk ball IN ADDITION to ice cream. God’s just like that: over the top when it comes to good things for His children. I love it.
Was it the Grand Olde Creamery? I know they do the malted milk ball in the waffle cones. That was our favorite place to go as kids. :)
I’m loving these! Making my day!
Melissa, it was a place called Dar’s Double Scoop on Rice Ave. They have really good prices and good portions, so if you’re ever in that neck of the woods, it’s great!
Oh, and Jane, I think I would cry if I got to the end of my awesome ice cream cone and the last bite I tasted was BLACK LICORICE! How awful!
We totally buy the biggest ice cream cone or the biggest coffee at starbucks and split it. We’re cheapskates too I guess! Melissa’s analogy gets my vote! :)
I have heard of marshmallows before in the bottom. Never malted milk balls………..although……..baskin robbins used to make this malted milk ball ice cream w/caramel swirls all through it. I love malted milk balls. Leave it to you guys to get a triple and split it up………..you ARE turning into your mother. When I make homemade waffle cones at home, I melt white or milk chocolate and drizzle that into the cone bottom so when it hardens nothing drips out.
I have come to expect this level of genius from you, Stace.
“when I make homemade waffle cones at home…”
i’m super, super impressed. really. zero sarcasm here. and then you melt white or milke chocolate and drizzle…seriously. seriously. i think i love you.
When I was a kid, we had Chicklets in the bottom of our ice cream cones…..
Okay, I live in the land if bad ice cream and neither waffle cones nor malted milk balls! Can someone send me the recipe for making your own waffle cones. My rental house came with a waffle maker. (I guess that is one redeeming feature to living in a developing country.)
Jan, I agree with Molly – Ice cream is the best dessert. I am intrigued by your suggestion that your ‘land’ (East Africa?) has bad ice cream. I can’t imagine it. What makes it bad?
YES MOLLY, YES!
Jan, if you want the recipe for waffle cones……both regular and chocolate. Email me at staceyswan31@hotmail.com
No spiritual analogies come to mind but I would like to know how your family decides who gets to eat the cone. If you buy one ice cream cone and split it 3 ways doesn’t someone leave the ice cream place feeling deprived? My 4 year-old would never let me have the cone!
Pam–happily, my three-year-old likes having his ice cream in a cup/dish, so I get the cone! At least for now, until he figures out what he’s missing!
I think I’ve only ever had about one waffle cone in my short seventeen years… maybe I’ve never had one at all. I am a dipped cone fan, though. I love to get chocolate dipped in butterscotch at Dairy Queen…. mmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Molly, your blog post made my day :) I laughed out loud several times.
Deck the halls with malted milk balls– a poem.
If you’ve never, ever known the joy
of a malted milk ball day,
You’ve been truly, horribly deprived
in every imaginable way.
Milk balls of malt are a wondrous sight
for every man and small one,
but if there’s one thing that the ladies love
it’s this crunchy joy- bar none.
I’d like to say I can resist
the ways of wily milk balls,
yet I must confess when they come in sight
I sprint to answer their calls!
I now conclude with a weary heart
and a faintly furrowed brow
that the malted ball has won again–
I chew,
I crunch….
wow.
As your family grows larger it is more difficult to share a cone. We switched to the large sundae and 7 spoons. It is a fun family tradition.
that poem was so amazing i totally forgot what i was going to comment. not that it was important (obviously).
oh yeah – are we in california just really deprived, or am i really sheltered in the ice cream-cone arena of life? i have never heard of or experienced any sort of leakage-stopper (delightful or otherwise) in a cone and have always had to suffer through the ignominy of melty ice cream, or else eat it really fast like a fat kid.
good story, btw. i love happy surprises.
This makes me laugh :)
favorite part =
“I take a second to ponder why it felt and tasted different than I was expecting. ‘Hey, did that cone just have a malted milk ball in the bottom?!?!…I was blown away. ‘I’m blogging it,’ was my response.”
I can completely imagine this happening, in all of its baffled glory!!
[I am a fan of the spiritual interpretation positing common grace as the malted milk ball. Though...now I'm challenged to think on other possibilities.]
I love this idea. Keeping it.
And since I read your recent post, I won’t apologize that I don’t know you. I’ll quit lurking. I’m not a stalker. LOL. But I sure do enjoy your blog.
Blessings.
Janine
A bit of hot fudge works too. :)
Lovely. Great site.