Scoop Friday: Penn State Berkey Creamery – Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
Penn State Move-in Weekend: an opportune time for incoming freshmen to take their first steps towards adulthood and an inopportune time for alumni ice cream reviewers to find parking near the Berkey Creamery.
Coming this fall: The Cream Out!
After parking on the western edge of campus, I began my 1.2-mile hike east towards one of the state’s most famous dessert destinations. I passed droves of freshmen floors walking behind their R.A.s escorting them to the lion statue in order to wait for forty minutes in line to take a picture with a landmark that will remain in the same spot for the next four years. I shuddered at the thought of these forced, ice breaker-laden dorm activities I attended years ago. I originally hoped I would meet and socialize with some cool dudes with either party or alcohol connections. Instead, I received the number of a guy named Kevin, who later left me a voicemail about getting pizza and talking about my relationship with god. Still, even if it’s in an awkward setting, a free slice is a free slice.
A few blocks ahead, I observed students giving their parents a long goodbye hug just a few hours before many of them would likely make their first regrettable inebriated decision of their collegiate careers. One decision they’ll never regret in either a sloshed or sober state, barring a lactose intolerance, is taking advantage of the Creamery ice cream’s ubiquity across all of the campus’s dining halls. Some may fear this expediting the Freshman Fifteen, but as every Nittany Lion knows, the iconic chant goes: We are…Penn Stout! Surprisingly, despite living in a frozen treat fanatic’s paradise with up to eight flavors at my disposal, during my undergraduate years, I more frequently consumed the soft, warm, melt-in-your-mouth comfort of the fresh-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies that consistently made me feel slightly less homesick.
Still, when I needed it the most, the Creamery’s ice cream offered me solace. With a brain fried from a weekend of studying for five finals and a dearth of sleep, I exited my calculus exam, where I primarily guessed C, unsure of the result but relieved for a respite away from the drudgery of filling in random circles on scantrons. At 10:30 AM, I stopped at the Creamery on the way back to my dorm and ordered a tranquilizing cone of Teaberry. No longer were the test’s derivatives haunting my thoughts as I devoured one of my all-time most memorable scoops and never worried about limits again.
This Scoop Friday, I once again stepped into the Creamery’s sacrosanct confines and noticed the sight of no line. I took advantage of this rare occasion and quickly stepped up to the ordering window. With Teaberry’s menu run ending each year in July, I decided to blend my two favorite dining hall comfort foods and select one of my favorite overall flavors, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.
Like some of the other Creamery flavors that include an additional word or name associated with Penn State (e.g., Peachy Paterno, Alumni Swirl THON Gold Ribbon Ripple), one day, I’d like to see the boys from the Sigma Chi fraternity recently busted for cocaine trafficking honored properly by renaming the flavor to Chocolate Chi Cokey Dough. I imagine it’d be served in lines and packaged for interstate shipping by young workers including Pablo Scoopscabar.
“Cokey Dough is a hell of a drug!” - Rick James probably
My tastebuds were galvanized by the scoop’s audacity to taste like an actual cookie and not just some commonplace vanilla heavily relying on its cookie dough pieces and chocolate chips to simulate the flavor. Enhancing this state of delight was the ice cream’s golden-brown color that evoked the days of running to the fridge when your mom wasn’t looking and stealing a spoonful of raw cookie contraband. (Salmonella be damned!) With each additional bite, new layers of creativity, distinctiveness, and the identifiable effort used to forge this frozen treat emerge. I marveled at its balancing act of dense yet airy cream that assured me I was getting my money’s or LionCash’s worth. (Mom, please load more $$$ into my account! Thx! Love, Evan) I wished there were a few more cookie dough pieces, but I think the scoop’s overall flavor compensates for their scarcity.
To the class of 2030 (Jesus Christ! Where does time go?), over the next four years, I hope you all get the opportunity to both enjoy lots of different Creamery scoops and make several lifelong friends! I know I sure did!
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