The Great Toronto Ice Cream Sundae Challenge: Pralines and perfection

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It's not really my style to gush. Okay, maybe it is a little from time to time, but when you get excited about something it's tough not to. It's tough not to gush when you're plowing through two weeks of ice cream sundaes and a place gets it pretty darn near perfect. Prior to my visit to Sweet Creamery, there's always been something amiss, be it lackluster ice cream or shoddy presentation. There's always been something forcing the whole "it's really good, but" response.

ICE CREAM: 5/5

As anyone who has ever spent time in cottage country knows, one of the best things about the drive out of the city is a roadside stop at Kawartha Dairy. Growing up, we'd head up to my Grandparents place near Balsam Lake, which conveniently meant a drive through Uxbridge for a scoop of the stuff. I remember my mother always — I mean every time — ordering Pralines n' Cream.

It was the perfect way to break up the drive and keep the kids happy, and as such I've developed a lifelong affinity for Kawartha Lakes Dairy. I mention this of course because Sweet Creamery serves Kawartha Lakes ice cream. And my sundae, in addition to butter pecan, had a scoop of pralines n' cream.

TOPPINGS: 5/5

As with the Lansdowne Cone, Sweet Creamery makes things easy for its clientele by posting a sundae menu with each dish named after a local street.

There's the Carleton (Raspberry Thunder ice cream, hot fudge and chocolate chips), the Parliament (Peanut Butter Chocolate ice cream, peanut butter sauce, hot fudge, whipped cream and Reese's Pieces) and, my personal choice, the Sackville. Featuring a truly decadent combination of both Butter Pecan and Praline's n' Cream ice cream, caramel sauce, whipped cream, white chocolate chips and a cherry on top all served inside a waffle bowl.

PRESENTATION: 5/5

Sweet Creamery has found the answer to all my presentation complaints. They're a mainly takeout ice cream parlour that manages to make their sundaes look just as impressive as the diners and restaurants out there. It's time to forget about paper cups and embrace waffle bowls. This dish, sitting on a paper plate, looks every bit as impressive as those served up in parfait glasses, though perhaps without the classic feel. Consider me impressed.

VALUE: 5/5

At $7.75 this place isn't cheap, but it's worth it. As I said, the sundae was enormous, and delicious, and beautiful to look at. It was a perfectly constructed frozen sculpture, a lovely table ornament — for a good 30 seconds before it was dismantled and became just a plain ol' perfect dessert.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS: 5/5

Did I say perfect? That's right, perfect. Sweet Creamery knows sundaes, and the Sackville is everything I've been looking for this past week and a half. It's a decadent pile of sweet toppings perched on two scoops of dense, creamy ice cream sitting in a waffle bowl. There are no weak points. It looks and tastes great, so I'm not sure what else one needs in a sundae. If sundaes were good for you I would eat this every day of my life and be the healthiest man around.

FINAL SCORE: 25/25 (100%)

Previously in this series: