Cool Treats: How Do You Like Your Ice Cream Floats?

We sometimes forget how good ice cream floats are. A big, creamy scoop of vanilla ice cream floating in a cold, foamy mug of Coca-Cola.

Wait, Coca-Cola? Not root beer? Exactly. Our ice cream floats (Brown Cows, if you will) are always made with Coke. And we add a very important step that makes the foam icy and slushy. Read our tip, below, and tell us your own...

The float above looks like it's been stirred and blended a bit, doesn't it? Well, our key to a successful float is putting it back in the freezer for about 10 minutes once it's made. When we plop in the vanilla ice cream, the Coke foams up, and we like that foam to be almost frozen, forming a film around the ice cream.

We also only use vanilla for our floats — we are traditionalists in that sense. But with the Buttermilk Rosemary and Honey ice creams floating around this site, we're starting to think of more sophisticated combinations. Maybe using a grown-up, sparkling soda?

How do you make ice cream floats? What flavors are your favorite?

(Image: Flickr member valvados, licensed for use under Creative Commons)

Comments (23)

it's always root beer at my house!

I like the ten minutes in the freezer, I'll have to give it a try, although we're not known for being patient in my household.

I make an old fashioned root beer float. A big frozen glass mug 1/2 filled with root beer. A giant scoop of vanilla bean ice cream stuck on the rim of the glass and a bendy straw. The ice cream can then be dunked into the glass where the root beer will begin to foam up. It's fun to just stir, drink and add the remainder of the bottle as you go. A healthy shot of vanilla stoli can be added to the mix for an adult refresher.

Vernors and vanilla ice cream is also a tasty combination.

Okay, this is going to sound weird, but I actually prefer my floats to be made with Diet Coke; because something in the diet soda makes the ice cream form a lot of ice crystals. Yum!

Coca-cola? Blasphemy.

oh good lemon thinks like me- i was worried i would be the only diet coke user! I think it makes this kinda crunchy ice crystals right away. That is my fav part so I would rather have a coupla of tiny ones with just the right crunchies then one large one. I can't wait till my compresser ice machine comes in the mail this week!!! I might make floats first.

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I think ice cream with soda is a nice idea, but I'm a fan of the original. A&W root beer vanilla bean ice cream.

They make pre-made root beer floats now: http://www.slashfood.com/2008/01/14/a-root-beer-float-in-a-bottle/

if i ever order a float, it's with coca cola and chocolate ice cream. i don't like root beer or vanilla ice cream. try it, it's good!

Vernors and vanilla ice cream for me. We call those Boston Coolers (although I don't know why). I do like root beer too.

The ones my Mom made us growing up were vanilla ice cream and Vess red cream soda (she grew up in St. Louis) or else, my favorite, freshly made lemonade with orange sherbet. Delicious!

oddly enough, I just ahd one last night! With Diet Pepsi *gasp* and yes, the crunchies started almost right away.
I tried it with cranberry soda and it just wasn't the same.

I've never been a fan of root beer, so a coke float always float my boat. but I ALWAYS use soft ice cream (the kind that swirls out of the big and noisy aluminum ice cream makers), because it always makes it a bit softer and creamy when it instantly mixes with the coke.

I love diet orange soda with vanilla ice cream....
but a traditional Barq's Root Beer and Haagen Dazs vanilla hits the spot on certain hot, late afternoons.

Ginger ale & vanilla for me too - and I'm from Boston as well. How strange. I didn't know these things were regional. Although, I never knew about the root beer float until much later in life.

agree with leanne - chocolate coke floats are hands-down the best imo!

Growing up, it was always Coke and either Sealtest fudge swirl ice cream or Breyer's vanilla. I don't think I ever had one with root beer til I was a teenager.

red cream soda with all-natural vanilla ice cream

I am in the chocolate ice cream camp as well. Yall are the only other people I have heard of who use chocolate though. I like mixing Blue Bell Dutch chocolate ice cream mixed with Barqs Root Beer. Its phenomenal.

Coke and vanilla is my longtime favorite, but I also recently tried - and LOVED - cream soda and vanilla ice cream. Delish!

Ack!!! It must be root beer! However, I do like a less-sweet root beer rather than an A&W or something like that.

I'm a little late to this, but Haagen Dazs chocolate ice cream and Mug cream soda. My dad used to take me as a kid to Haagen Dazs for ice cream sodas with chocolate ice cream and "vanilla" soda. We've always had difficulty explaining this combo when we ordered and so I decided to make them myself. For some reason, Mug is the only cream soda that tastes right.

Can't stand root beer, but I am firmly in the Diet Coke plus vanilla ice cream camp. That's how we've made them since I was a kid. It's also good with grape soda, too.

I grew up in South Africa which clearly must have been the back of beyond because the only kind of float we ever got was coke and vanilla ice cream. Delish all the same!