7 Secret Menu Flavors At Cold Stone Creamery You'll Wish You Knew Sooner

Cold Stone Creamery seems like a relic of a bygone, strip-mall-on-every-street era. The brand isn't as old as you may think; it was started by a couple in Arizona in 1988 and eventually spread to all corners of the country via its franchisers. The novelty of the ice cream here is quite unique; you pick out a base flavor and then tell your Tastemaster (yes, they're really called that) what mix-ins you want added to your ice cream. The first one is free; then, each additional one will cost a little extra. Or, of course, you can turn to its line of pre-made Signature Creations, too — but where's the fun in that? 

You don't have to be a tasting or ice cream mixing expert to decide on a formula for your next Cold Stone Creamery ice cream. Rather, you just have to take a quick peruse on the internet to see the fun, whimsical creations that other folks have come up with. In an effort to see how delicious these secret menu combinations are, I ordered some of the most creative ones I could find and tasted them. The ice cream concoctions that I included on this list had a solid, sweet flavor with appealing bits of texture — and all of them have a little bit of whimsy thrown in there for good measure. 

I'll be the first person to tell you that I don't like pineapple. I will also be the first person to express caution over sliced fruit that has been sitting in a cooler all day, waiting for who-knows-what-bacteria to colonize it. But, I proceeded with trepidation to sample this pineapple upside-down cake flavor. And honestly, I'm kind of glad that I did.

This ice cream is made with a cake batter ice cream base, cake pieces, and pineapple. Some folks on the internet suggested adding maraschino cherries to this ice cream, but the Cold Stone that I went to purchase these ice creams didn't have any listed on its menu. So, it might be a BYOMC kind of deal, depending on which franchise you go to. 

After a small request to the staff, I was very surprised to see that my scoop of this ice cream was adorned with two maraschino cherries. Unfortunately, these cherries seemed like an afterthought, as I didn't get a whole chunk of cherry in each bite. The pineapple was also sparse and was frozen, so when I did find a piece of pineapple, I really did find a piece of pineapple — frozen pineapple, that is. 

Overall, I think this ice cream would be better if the cherries were chopped into the ice cream and it was ordered with double pineapple pieces (and canned pineapple isn't all that expensive, is it?). But this secret menu flavor gained a spot on this list because it is still really well thought-out; the cake pieces and the vanilla base are in good company with the pineapple. It would be nice if the chain's menu focused on more tropical-inspired creations like this one. 

I'm a big fan of Häagan-Dazs' dulce de leche ice cream, so it's no surprise that I would be a fan of Cold Stone's secret menu rendition. This ice cream is made with a French vanilla base with caramel and cinnamon added to it. The cinnamon and the caramel work really well together and make for a cohesive bite that resembles the same flavor of dulce de leche — just without the richness of a thick caramel sauce. 

At first bite, this secret menu concoction really screams Cinnamon Toast Crunch (just maybe add some crunchy graham cracker pieces, and you'd be there). I would also say that it could have been classified as a churro ice cream since it gives off warm, cinnamon-y notes and a satisfying mouthfeel. So, I would say that in the category of likeness-to-namesake, it loses a few points. 

The ice cream's French vanilla base doesn't do any favors for the rest of the ice cream. However, I think that swapping in the cinnamon roll ice cream that was used in the arroz con leche secret menu flavor I sampled would have been a solid move, as it would have offered a slightly sweeter taste. I think that if you prefer an ice cream with caramel and a little more complexity than a ho-hum scoop of vanilla, you can grow to appreciate this selection from Cold Stone Creamery. 

Coconut cream pie is a delectable dessert that I find folks love even if they're not super big fans of the tropical fruit. And even if you don't like coconut, I can say that you'll probably be a big fan of the secret menu twists on this dessert. The coconut is mixed in with several other ingredients, including graham cracker pieces and whipped cream. 

The biggest thing that I think this secret menu flavor offers is a delectable and distinguishing crunch from both the graham cracker pieces and the shaved coconut. It's amazing that Cold Stone could keep the graham cracker pieces super crunchy rather than letting them go limp in the ice cream scoop. Another big thing that I noticed with this ice cream was that its texture was super voluptuous, which I believe is because the whipped cream helped it keep its shape a little more than the other flavors that I sampled. 

The coconut flavor of this ice cream is pleasant and light because the base of the ice cream itself is not coconut. If the base were coconut, it would make this secret menu concoction a little too overwhelming. But as is, it has a pleasant and light mouthfeel that's bound to please folks who are coconut enthusiasts and those who only appreciate it in moderation. However, if you aren't a fan of a slightly gritty mouthfeel, this might be an ice cream that you'll want to skip.

If you're from the St. Louis area, you know the significance of gooey butter cake. Luckily, you won't have to travel all the way to the Gateway to the West to get your hands on a sweet, frozen concoction inspired by a chocolatey version of the classic dessert. Honestly, though, I did not know what to expect when it came to the chocolate gooey butter cake secret menu flavor. Some folks who have suggested it have recommended using the plain vanilla cake addition, but since I was thinking that it needed to be as chocolatey as possible, I opted for the devil's food cake addition instead. Besides this cakey addition, this cake batter-based ice cream concoction also contains fudge and brownie pieces. 

Overall, the cake and brownies in this ice cream came through more prominently than the fudge (in other words, double the fudge when you order this at your local shop). It was hard to detect the cake batter flavor in the ice cream itself because the cakey additions took center stage; I would recommend using a chocolate ice cream and doubling up on the cake and brownie additions to really add to its overall flavor and make it scream "gooey chocolate butter cake." In other words, to make this ice cream more convincing, it needs to have equal parts add-ins to ice cream. This is because when I ordered it as-is, my brain didn't jump to "molten cake" — it just said "ice cream with cake pieces."

However, I think this decadent secret menu flavor could be a favorite for folks who absolutely love all things cake and chocolate — and you can always customize it to make it uniquely your own. If you like a Cold Stone ice cream that has some chunks of excitement going on, you might want to consider ordering this flavor. 

Four words: cotton candy ice cream. If you're under the age of 10, this might spark glee. But for the adults, thinking about this flavor is nothing short of horrifying. So imagine how bewildered I was to see a secret menu flavor that someone had concocted that contained not only cotton candy ice cream but an even stranger bedfellow: cinnamon roll ice cream. 

This ice cream flavor is supposed to be modeled after the Mexican rice pudding dessert called arroz con leche. Normally, there's cinnamon present, along with vanilla, sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and whole milk. It's rich, it's flavorful, and it's not something that I thought could have been pulled off by combining cotton candy ice cream with cinnamon roll ice cream. 

But this flavor really works — and it's one that made me audibly say, "Why don't I hate this?" When I ate the cotton candy ice cream alone, it was oppressively sweet and had a Pop Rock candy bite to it. However, the cinnamon roll ice cream, balanced by notes of vanilla and cinnamon, is a pleasant foil to the overwhelming sweetness of the cotton candy. 

I don't think that if you ate this ice cream flavor blindfolded, that arroz con leche would be your first guess as to what it's supposed to be imitating. But it was my favorite secret menu flavor that I sampled here because it just works. It doesn't scream Mexican cuisine, but it does make eating cotton candy ice cream a far more enjoyable experience.

Strawberry ice cream isn't for everyone, but Cold Stone knows how to balance everything out with its strawberry shortcake ice cream flavor. This ice cream has a couple of obvious additions — like strawberry ice cream and strawberry pieces — but it also mixes in chunks of yellow cake and whipped topping. The whipped topping is not something that I could easily detect, but the mouthfeel of this whole ice cream just made a whole lot of sense. There was a great balance between the sweet ice cream, frozen strawberries (though there could have always been more of them), and spongy cake pieces (which, again, should have been more present in this ice cream to really sell the "cake" part of the equation). 

The biggest complaint that I have about this ice cream was that the strawberry pieces were frozen, so they crunched against my molars. I expected something more reminiscent of a strawberry compote — the stuff that you would normally find atop a soft strawberry shortcake. This would have made for a little bit of a softer bite. 

Honestly, I'm surprised that strawberry shortcake isn't a regular flavor offering at Cold Stone Creamery. There's nothing in this ice cream flavor that's really unlikeable — I just think that you have to nicely ask your Tastemaster for more cake and strawberries for it to truly be excellent.

I'm from New England, so you know that I take any regionally inspired-dessert quite seriously. That includes Boston cream pie — a dessert stacked with layers of pastry cream, vanilla sponge, and chocolate ganache. When you have a slice of this cake that's done really well, it can be life-changing. Cold Stone's rendition of this classic American dessert? Like the pineapple upside-down cake, it has potential — but needs direction. 

The cake is made with a French vanilla ice cream base chopped up with yellow cake, fudge, and whipped topping. It's very thick and has an excellent mouthfeel. I found that unlike some of the other flavors that I sampled for this review, the Boston cream pie had a far better ratio of cake to ice cream. Every bite was interspersed with cake and fudge. 

However, the fudge is slightly "off" in that it doesn't mimic the same texture as the ganache on top of a Boston cream pie. Moreover, the whipped cream falls short of that unctuous, beautiful pastry cream sandwiched in the traditional dessert. Another noticeable shortfall is that this cake isn't as tooth-hurtingly sweet as the classic dessert — which is both a blessing and a curse. 

I'm the last person to complain about this ice cream, especially when Cold Stone could potentially do so much to upgrade it (before it adds it to its official menu). You could double the fudge, or the brand could add chocolate frosting to its menu specifically to upgrade this scoop (though it would probably benefit other Signature Creations, too). The brand could also add marshmallow cream to its menu for a sweeter flavor and one more reflective of authentic Boston cream pie.

For this review, I did some basic research about Cold Stone's secret menu offerings to see what other people have come up with using their local store's ice cream and topping options. It's important to note that this list is not exhaustive, as Cold Stone's menu items change regularly. For example, one secret menu item, peanut butter and jelly, is made with peanut butter ice cream and watermelon sorbet — the latter of which my store did not offer. So, I could only select the flavors and toppings available at my store at the time of writing. 

I ordered each ice cream online based on the secret menu description. When I tasted each flavor, I looked for several things. The first was the balance of texture and flavor in the ice cream. In other words, although someone did make a secret menu flavor, it doesn't mean that they necessarily should have made a secret menu flavor. There had to be some cohesion to each idea and I wanted to have a decent guess at the flavor the ice cream was trying to get at when I was sampling it. 

For this review, I included both the positives and the drawbacks of each dessert. Every ice cream is going to have its negatives (heaven knows that I've critiqued even my favorite pint of Ben & Jerry's before), so I wanted to provide a cohesive assessment of each one. While some might have fallen short of their namesake, I can confidently say that I would order all of these ice creams again — I may just tweak my order a little bit when I do so.