Trickling Springs Creamery in Chambersburg, PA is home to some of the best ice cream on earth.

A few weeks ago, my local farmer’s market (Yoder’s Amish Farmer’s Market in Leola, PA) had a Trickling Springs ice cream demo in their parking lot. I’ve been buying their chocolate milk, nonfat milk, and 2% milk at the farmer’s market for a few weeks, and find it absolutely delicious! My husband did too, and we devoured a half gallon of chocolate milk over the weekend the first time we had it.

I asked them to scoop up a quart for me, and I took it home. It was mostly melted at the time that I bought it, and barely holding up by the time that I got it home. I snuck a little spoon full before sticking it in the freezer and was blown away by the full chocolate flavor and creamy texture. When hubs got home, he agreed that Trickling Springs Creamery ice cream is the best that he’s ever had. (Granted, he’s never had Braum’s to compare it to, and I’d have to say it’s a pretty close race there- but I still think Trickling Springs wins the battle).

I don’t really know how to explain to you the creamy deliciousness of Trickling Springs Creamery ice cream. It’s made with fresh, low heat pasteurized milk. This means that while they’ve killed off the bacteria, the enzymes are mostly intact, which means that MOST lactose intolerant folks can eat Trickling Springs Creamery ice cream or drink Trickling Springs Creamery milk and not have to take Lactaid or, ahem, disappear from society for several hours. I should know. My body won’t tolerate even small amounts of traditionally pasteurized milk, but I have NO problems at all with Trickling Springs milk and ice cream.  Most of their ice cream is made with real sugar, not HFCS (but check the labels before buying because some of them do).  The milk is from local farms who pasture their cows, which means that the milk is from grass fed cows making it much healthier and tastier than conventional milk and ice cream. In fact, I’ve noticed that Trickling Springs’ milk is naturally sweet, and honestly, even their nonfat milk tastes better and richer than conventional whole milk! I’m a firm believer in the benefits of full fat dairy, however, and so I prefer the whole milk for health reasons. But for taste reasons? I’m perfectly happy with Trickling Springs’ nonfat milk (skim milk).

Because Trickling Springs Creamery uses REAL ingredients, most of them fresh, their ice cream is actually healthier for you than conventional ice cream that you’ll find in your local grocery store’s freezer section. It may not look any healthier if you simply go by the nutritional profile chart that they use, but if you read the ingredients list, I’m sure you’ll see the difference!

Now, being that the Trickling Springs ice cream is so good, we went through that quart rather fast. And, in fact, it’s so good that when we decided to cancel our trip to Knoebel’s Grove due to the heat, we decided to instead take a little road trip out to Chambersburg and buy our milk and ice cream. We live in Lancaster, so this is no quick run!

We programmed our new Garmin nüvi for 2330 Molly Pitcher Highway, Chambersburg, PA, 17202 and headed out, stopping at the Chick Fil A in York for “breakfast”. We’d expected the drive to take at least 2 hours, given that much of the drive was supposed to be on Rt 30. It seemed the most logical way to go. However, as we were pulling out of the West Manchester Mall in York, PA, our Garmin didn’t tell us to take 30. No, it told us to take 74. Really? Well, hubs was in an adventurous mood, so we followed the Garmin’s instructions, following 74 out to 81 (with a few side streets to cut off part of the 74 trip), and arrived at Trickling Springs Creamery in Chambersburg, PA from York in just over an hour, making our total trip just over 1 1/2 hours! No joke! We sliced off at least 1/2 hour of the drive, and had quite a nice trip, too, as neither 74 nor 81 were crowded, and the scenery is lovely. Just the kind of thing that you hear tourists raving about our area.

We got to Trickling Springs Creamery retail outlet and were surprised to find that it resembled a cross between an old time-y country shop and a deli. I’d expected a more Turkey Hill like atmosphere, and here it was a lovely place to sit and have lunch, buy ice cream, milk, eggs, cheese, and grass fed meats, and even sit on the porch and enjoy the day (assuming that it WASN’T over 95 degrees out, of course).

The outside is a lovely log cabin looking building, with a humongous bench (and a more normal sized one as well) on the porch. Inside, it still has that cabin-y feel, with the deli in the center of the building, crafts on either side, seating, fresh baked breads, and pastries in the front. Along the left side as you walk in is the grass fed beef, the left side of the back has a glass window where you can watch production if you’re there while it’s running, the back right has the milk and eggs, and the right side has the cheeses and ice cream. The deli will slice meats and cheeses for taking home, or, it appears, to eat right there.

I once asked what the black forest ice cream was (I really didn’t know) and the girl behind the counter gave me a spoonful to try! It was delicious, and I bought a half gallon. If you’re wondering, their black forest ice cream is their wonderful chocolate with the most amazing fudge and a little bit of cherry.

The girls that were behind the counter were all lovely, friendly, and helpful. One actually told me that if you bring in your cooler, they’ll pack it for you so your purchases won’t roll around on the way home (we didn’t take her up on her offer, but did consider it).

While I do prefer their glass bottles for preserving the wonderful flavor of their milk, we chose all plastic bottles due to our long trip home. 4 gallons of milk in glass bottles  while traveling Pennsylvania high ways just didn’t seem all that appealing to us.

Once we had our haul, we bid our farewells, I snapped a few photos of the outside, and off we went.

Now, we did stop at the Chambersburg Mall on the way home, and much to our surprise, our Garmin did NOT tell us to get back on 81 to get home. Instead, we were treated to some of the loveliest, traffic-less roads in PA! Not a highway to be seen until we reached York (to stop at Round the Clock Diner for dinner).

I still can’t believe how easy it was to get to Chambersburg from Lancaster, and if it weren’t for having to drive 30 to York, I wouldn’t mind making the trip myself more often!

Naturally, despite the trip being easier than expected, we loaded up anyway since there’s no reason to tempt fate. So what did we buy?

1/2 gallon of chocolate

1/2 gallon of black forest

1/2 gallon of coffee

1/2 gallon of black raspberry

1 pint of black cherry

1 pint of blueberry cheesecake

1 pint of butterscotch toffee parfait

But seriously, if you have 4-5 hours some Saturday, I highly recommend taking a trip out to Trickling Springs Creamery and buy yourself a gallon or 3 of ice cream.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 1:27 am and is filed under Gettysburg Area, Near Lancaster County. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.