Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream: A shop that offers a wide variety of ice cream

A combination of banana ice cream, blue-dyed vanilla ice cream and caramel dripped onto the ground as I attempted to simultaneously hold three sticky, stacked ice cream cones.

The newly opened Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream in the Oak Park Shopping Center is a walk-up shop nestled between a Chipotle and BIBIBOP. A blue, red and white overhang sits just below the royal blue “Handel’s” sign.

After making it through the 15-person long line, I stepped up to the window of the shop to place my order of homemade ice cream.

After a less than five-minute wait, my three ice cream cones — each two and a half scoops high — were handed to me through the window.

I chose to try three out of over 100 flavors of ice cream — Monkey Business, Blue Monster and Graham Central Station.

I’ve never had banana ice cream before, but Monkey Business tasted like it came fresh off a banana tree and straight into the ice cream machine.

For a banana enthusiast, this is the perfect order, but unless you really like bananas, I would recommend choosing a different flavor.

While I’ll gladly grab a banana to pair with my breakfast or as a quick after-school snack, this ice cream was too sweet and tasted too much like banana.

The creamy, overly sweet taste of the banana was made even sweeter by the caramel ribbons swirled throughout. The only relief from the sweetness of the melting, smooth ice cream was the chunks of chewy dark chocolate brownie sprinkled in.

Despite the banana overload, the ice cream itself was smooth and rich but not too heavy. And, I would order Monkey Business purely to pick out the brownie pieces.

While this wasn’t my favorite scoop of ice cream, it was a unique flavor and one that isn’t found in every ice cream shop or grocery store.

The next flavor I tried not only added to my sugar rush, but also dyed my mouth and hands entirely royal blue — the usual effect of any brightly colored, kids ice cream.

The Blue Monster ice cream was just as I expected — the typical Sesame Street version of cookies and cream ice cream. The waffle cone was towered high with two scoops of vanilla ice cream injected with loads of blue food dye and mixed with Chips Ahoy and Oreo pieces.

The whole pieces of Oreo are far better than the blended pieces of cookie in your typical cookies and cream ice cream. The Chips Ahoy cookies added another chewy texture to the ice cream to contrast the creamy sweetness of the vanilla.

Blue Monster was a quality version of Cookie Monster ice cream, but if you’re going to spend $6 on an ice cream cone, I would recommend trying a flavor that you can’t get at any other ice cream shop.

The final cone I tried was by far the most creative and tasty. Graham Central Station had a base flavor of graham cracker ice cream with a salty undertone. Chewy graham cracker pieces and crunchy, chocolate-coated crackers were layered throughout the ice cream. 

These contrasting textures added an extra level of depth to the sweet ice cream, and the dark chocolate coating of the graham cracker added a much-needed bitterness to combat the sweetness of the ice cream.

While I’ve had s’mores ice cream before, this was more unique than the typical vanilla ice cream mixed with graham cracker, chocolate and marshmallow.

Rather than naming this ice cream a bland “Graham Cracker,” they chose a name that made me laugh, much like many of their other flavors — “Chocoholic Peanut Butter Ripple,” “Chocolate Ooohh…Dough!” and “Snappy Turtle” — some of the next on my list.

Each of these flavors had its pros and cons and unique flavor profiles, but one thing they all had in common was an incredible ice cream base. The ice cream itself — regardless of flavor — had a creamy texture and the right level of sweetness.

Plain chocolate and vanilla ice cream never miss, but if you’re going to make the trip to the Oak Park Shopping Center for ice cream, make sure to step out-of-the-box and order one of their more unique flavors.

While in the future I’ll be avoiding any banana-flavored ice cream — and the mess of attempting to hold three ice cream cones at once — I will surely be making the drive back to Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream.