Freezer Aisles Try To Match Ice Cream Truck

Who doesn't have an ice cream man memory? Whether you grew up in the country, the suburbs or the big city, at some point you encountered that oddly painted van with the tinny speaker playing "Turkey In The Straw."

If you were lucky, you might even have had a real, live Good Humor man in your neighborhood. His stuff would generally be a bit more expensive, but Good Humor was the Cadillac of ice cream treats.

Everyone had their favorites. For some, it was the Bomb Pop, a titanic brick of multicolored sugar that could wire an entire Cub Scout troop. Others preferred Drumsticks, the perfect treat when you wanted an ice cream cone, but thought it would be even better if someone dipped it in chocolate.

The variety was dizzying. Just looking at all the stickers, signs and placards plastered to the side of your average independent ice cream purveyor could give you a heck of a headache.

These days, ice cream trucks are still around, although they're a bit harder to find. With the price of gas what it is, it's a safe bet prices will be blowing up faster than the waistlines of frequent customers. Of course, if the prices get too high, you can always just go to the grocery store.

Unless you have kids, you probably haven't looked lately at the section of the frozen desserts case where the ice cream novelties are sold. Almost everything you used to get from that roving purveyor of quiescently frozen confections is now available in convenient multi-packs. Best of all, a six-pack will cost you about the same as two from the ice cream man.

Even Good Humor has made it to the freezer case, but more on that later.

In this test, five adults tested each ice cream treat, awarding each one 1 to 20 points. Each entry was judged on flavor, appearance and overall impression. Don't think of the ratings as competitive, as we weren't rating them in comparison to each other. Where two similar novelties were tasted, such as with the Drumstick and the Blue Bunny Champ cone, they were not tested in sequence.

Breyer's Mrs. Field's Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich: 190 calories, 8 grams fat, 10 mg cholesterol, 125 mg sodium, 29 grams carbs.

Mrs. Field's cookies are great when you get them warm from a mall shop, but they don't quite make the transition to the freezer successfully. They were very hard to bite through, causing the ice cream to squeeze out everywhere. The ice cream itself was very nondescript, with good creaminess but not much vanilla flavor. Final score: 76.

Snickers Ice Cream Bar: 160 calories, 8 grams fat, 5 mg cholesterol, 55 mg sodium, 21 grams total carbs.

There have been numerous attempts over the years to translate candy bars into ice cream form, with varying degrees of success. The Snickers bar does the best job of mimicking its non-frozen original, with good caramel and roasted peanuts. The only down note was that some of the testers found the bar too heavily sweet overall. Final score: 83.

The Original Drumstick: 340 calories, 21 grams fat, 20 mg cholesterol, 90 mg sodium, 33 grams carbs.

This is the treat that's expanded American waistlines for years, and it's still the real deal. As ever, most of the nuts embedded in the chocolate coating come off in the wrapper, and as ever the best bite is the last one, when you get the chocolate glob at the bottom of the cone. The chocolate flavor wasn't quite as top-notch as some of the other treats, but this one still notched a final score of 93.

Eskimo Pie Dark Chocolate Bar: 160 calories, 11 grams fat, 15 mg cholesterol, 35 mg sodium, 14 grams carbs.

Eskimo Pie is one of the iconic names in the frozen treat business, which makes this treat a bit puzzling. The "dark" chocolate was waxy, with very little actual chocolate flavor. The ice cream had great texture, but not much in the way of any identifying taste of its own. Final score: 65.

Original Klondike Bar: 250 calories, 17 grams fat, 20 mg cholesterol, 55 mg sodium, 22 grams carbs.

As the old commercial goes, "What would you do for a Klondike bar?" Well, in this case, the testers would pass up several of the other offerings in the test for this simple-but-good confection. The ice cream is excellent, and the chocolate coating is very tasty. The only real problem is mechanical: It's almost impossible to finish one without the last few bites dribbling all over your hands. Final score: 91.

Molli-Cool Chocolate Fusion: 130 calories, 7 grams fat, 20 mg cholesterol, 60 mg sodium, 12 grams carbs.

If you've ever found a Dippin' Dots machine at a mall or movie theater, the form of the treat here will be familiar. Each treat consists of a small plastic cup filled with ice cream "molecules," like little frozen droplets. It's innovative, but not terribly tasty. There's a faintly plastic mouthfeel, and an initial hint of chocolate flavor disappears disappointingly. It's a fun treat for kids, but adults gave it a final score of 68.

Good Humor Chocolate ?clair: 160 calories, 8 grams fat, 5 mg cholesterol, 35 mg sodium, 21 grams carbs.

The Good Humor man may not have handed it to you, but you'll want to have this treat at hand all during the summer. The chocolate flavor hits you the moment you take a bite and satisfies all the way through. The balance of chocolate and ice cream is perfect, and the cake-like coating is lightly sweet and offers a great texture contrast. Final score: 95.

Blue Bunny Vanilla Champ! Cone: 330 calories, 19 grams fat, 35 mg cholesterol, 110 mg sodium, 35 grams carbs.

The testers never thought any cone could beat the Drumstick, but this one did it by a whisker and also notched the highest score in the test. Think of it as Drumstick 2.0, with the ice cream a little creamier, the chocolate a little richer and the cone a little crisper. This just might be the perfect ice cream treat. Final score: 97.

Of course, the ultimate ice cream treat is still the one you make in your own ice cream freezer, preferably while sitting on the front porch turning the crank and waiting for it to freeze. But if you don't have time for that kind of thing, now you know where to look for a substitute.