Waterhouse Country Store- Gifford's Ice Cream

Shop Name: Waterhouse Country Store



Location: Windham, NH



Boo's Rating: 4 Screams



Waterhouse Country Store serves Gifford's Ice Cream, which is fairly common for many ice cream shops in NH. For a small "country store," there were MANY flavor options, too! I love the names of a lot of the flavors, including the one I tried- "Wicked Good Chocolate." You can't get more New England than that! And how was my ice cream? Wicked good, of course! It was rich and creamy, and the cake cone was fresh. Delicious! Overall, they earned 4 screams. It was wicked good, for sure.

Udderly Delicious

Shop Name: Udderly Delicious


Location: Lincoln, NH

Boo's Rating: 4 Screams

I know, I know- 4 screams? For real? Yes, for real. Udderly Delicious is not only utterly delicious, but the shop is a hoot! You can see the mayhem I created trying to get a candid photo of the employees with my cone (I particularly like the girl diving into the cash register to avoid being in the pic). As you know from my Oregon Dairy blog, I LOVE the cow hats on the ice cream shop employees. But that's just the beginning of the greatness at Udderly Delicious. It's a little tourist-y, but there were a bunch of locals there as well, so I won't brand them a "tourist trap." Having side-stepped that landmine, Udderly Delicious didn't cease to impress. For starters, they have LOTS of flavor choices. Among those choices? GRAPENUT. Raise your hand if you've ever had Grapenut ice cream? That's what I thought. Not too many of you, right? It's basically vanilla ice cream with Grapenuts cereal mixed in. You either like it or you don't. I remember summers at home as a kid, pouring Grapenuts cereal on top of my ice cream and then sitting in the living room, watching TV, hoping I'd get to stay up just a little later! Anyway, as for the ice cream, it's a surprisingly delicious combination. It's a rare find, even for NH ice cream shops so U.D. gets mad props for having it on the menu.


"What else makes them great?" you ask. Well, I'll tell you. They also have an ice cream sundae bar. Uh-huh. You read that right. An ice cream sundae bar. See?

Totally awesome, right? Well, guess what else is awesome? Made-to-order ice cream cookie sandwiches. Also, free chocolate sprinkles (jimmies) for kids! Check it out:

I'm no kid, obvi, so my sprinkles weren't free, but I ordered them anyway, on top of my chocolate ice cream on a cake cone. (Side note: U.D. called it a "cake" cone, too- more evidence that it's the correct term.) So, forget about all the extras like ice cream sundae bars and made-to-order ice cream cookie sandwiches because even without all that, the ice cream was delicious. Rich and creamy, it didn't disappoint. Good job, U.D. You get 4 very loud screams. Holla!!!

Here's one last picture of Kevin & Melanie, my friends who joined me for this tasty blog trip.

P.S. One more SUPER COOL thing: The U.D. had brownies for sale that were GIGANTIC!!! My only vacation regret is that I didn't try one.

Chelsey's Ice Cream

Shop Name: Chelsey's Ice Cream

Location: Campton, NH

Boo's Rating: 3 Screams

Chelsey's Ice Cream is located inside Chelsey's "A Wicked Cool Country Store." At first I thought Chelsey's would be a total tourist trap, but it was actually a fabulous store! It was full of really cute decorative items as well as NH souveniers and all kinds of stuff. (Even a jewelry-making station- perfect for the kids on a rainy day.) Inside Chelsey's Wicked Cool Country Store was Chelsey's Ice Cream. The saleslady on the store side convinced us to try it with her description of the "Belgian Chocolate Dip." Mmmmmm... delicious! Unfortunately, the only ice cream flavors available were chocolate and vanilla soft serve. They had lots of "Flurrie" options, which my friend Melanie tried. Bonus points for Chelseys- they let her combine TWO different Flurrie flavors- Butterfinger AND Snickers. Yum! Melanie's Flurrie was LOADED with mix-ins, which we know for busy ice cream is really important. I tried vanilla ice cream dipped in (are you ready) Dark Belgian Chocolate. Holy cow. It was the most delicious ice cream dip I've ever had. I don't know if it's just their dip recipe, but the coat of chocolate on the ice cream cone was SO thick! Most dips you can just lick right off. This dip required me to bite into it in order to get to the ice cream underneath!

Unfortunately, with only 2 flavor options, I can't really give Chelsey's the highest rating. What they had was good, but really it was all the exciting options you could ADD to your ice cream that made it good. The ice cream itself was pretty much your basic soft serve. So, 3 screams it is, Chelsey.

Blake's Old Fashioned Ice Cream

Shop Name: Blake's Old Fashioned Ice Cream

Location: Manchester, NH

Boo's Rating: 4 1/2 Screams

The picture really covers it all. Let's be honest, whoever decided to dip a cake cone in chocolate and then also dip into chocolate sprinkles is a genius! I haven't had New England ice cream in quite some time and my first cone back didn't disappoint. Blake's Old Fashioned Ice Cream was never one of the places I frequented when living in NH, but now I really regret that. I ordered the Triple Chocolate Ecstasy on the type of cake cone described above. It was so delicious and rich that I couldn't even eat enough ice cream to get down to the cone! I ended up getting a dish and scraping almost an entire scoop off just so that I could taste the delicious cone I'd ordered! The ice cream was so rich, so chock full of chocolate-y goodness, I was in complete ice cream heaven. Hence, the 4 1/2 screams rating.

As you all know, I've been on vacation in New England for the past 10 days and just returned last night. My next few posts will cover the 5 ice cream establishments I visited over that vacation. I really meant to visit more shops, especially the ones I remember being my favorites growing up, but we know what they say about the best laid plans, right? Anyway, it really got me thinking about different ice cream shops in different places. In the spirit of National Ice Cream Month, I'd like to hear from all of you about your favorite ice cream shop. Tell me what makes it great- the ice cream, the employees, the atmosphere- whatever it is that makes it your favorite. It doesn't have to be in the Lancaster, PA area- it can be anywhere. Wherever it is, I want to hear about it!

Coming Soon....

I know that all four of you who read this blog are waiting with eager anticipation for my big "NATIONAL ICE CREAM MONTH" blog entries. However, I am currently away on vacation and am not blogging regularly. (I prefer sitting in the sun and shopping.) However, I have kept up my ice cream research while on vacay and will post those shops as well. Coming soon are:


Blake's Old Fashioned Ice Cream
Manchester, NH

Raymond's Frozen Custard Ice Cream
Raymond, ME

Chelsey's Ice Cream
Campton, NH

Udderly Delicious
Lincoln, NH

Gifford's Ice Cream (at the Waterhouse Country Store)
Windham, NH

I'll be back soon! In the meantime, please leave a comment telling me your favorite ice cream shop and location and I'll make sure to visit as many as I can!