Take Ice Cream To The Next (Nostalgic) Level — Top It With This Boxed Item In Your Pantry

As a kid with working parents, summer days meant waking up late to eat a giant bowl of cereal while watching TV and sneaking in a few scoops of ice cream in the afternoon before mom got home. As an adult, cereal is no longer a daily ritual, but every once in a while a small bowl of ice cream topped with cereal hits the spot. Ice cream on its own has always been one of the best desserts, whether a smooth vanilla scoop with a few berries or a multi-flavored sundae on a hot summer day.

As for cereal, it's possible even as kids we realized we were getting away with something. We no longer serve it alongside eggs, bacon, toast, and a slice of orange (not that we ever did), but that doesn't mean it has no place at home. You just have to mentally move your favorite cereal from breakfast to dessert. The next time you and the kids are home for a movie night, scoop some ice cream into small bowls and pour a little cereal over them for a cold, crunchy confection. And much like the best part of cereal milk, the last bits of ice cream will be infused with a little cereal flavor.

For this sweet combination to work right, you should pay attention to how the individual flavors will complement each other. The more vibrantly-colored and sugar-coated cereals work best over a neutral ice cream canvas. Vanilla is creamy and won't overpower your palate, so Fruity Pebbles or one of the fruity Monster Cereals (if you know where to look) will taste much like they would with a bowl of milk. Another ice cream option is Milk Bar's Cereal Milk, which you can make at home by steeping milk with Corn Flakes and using that as the base for homemade ice cream. When you combine something that already tastes like a cereal bowl with actual cereal, the result is nostalgic bliss.

On the flipside, if you wish to start with a more flavorful ice cream like mint chocolate chip or butter pecan, you'll want the ice cream to remain the star and really only rely on the cereal for texture. This is when Corn Pops, Honey Smacks, or the historic Rice Krispies would make the perfect partners. For chocolate ice cream fans, the best thing to do is top it with even more cocoa flavor, namely Cocoa Puffs or Cocoa Pebbles. You can even drizzle a little chocolate syrup over everything for an extra rich dessert. Chocolate on chocolate will evoke the days of drinking the chocolate milk that remained in your bowl after scooping up all the cereal.