I Tried The Viral Fruit Roll-Up Ice Cream Experiment, & I Have Thoughts

You've been there. You're sitting at home with a big ol' bowl of ice cream in your lap and think, "This is good. But let's complicate it!" Milkshakes? Amateur hour. Using a cone? Been there, done that. No, no, no. You want to really do something weird with your ice cream. You want to go from enjoying sweet, smooth, cold, and reliable ice cream to enjoying cold, reliable ice cream in a crunchy package that, even at first bite, makes you feel like you need an immediate root canal and also an insulin shot. TikTok, of f*cking course, has the answer: Wrap your ice cream in a Fruit Roll-Up.

"But that sounds chewy. You're not supposed to chew ice cream."

"But aren't you just adding sugar to more sugar? How can this possibly be healthy?"

"But... why?"

The answers: It is, and nope! That's precisely what you're doing. Oh, it’s definitely not (what ice cream is?). Lastly, because FOMO is real.

That's right. I tried it so that you don't have to — unless you want to. Honestly, it's fun. And I'm not at all writing this on the way to the dentist. (Though, perhaps I should be.)

How We Got Here: Fruit Roll-ups and Ice Cream

As with most viral food trends, this new fad started on TikTok. It seems to have originated back in 2021 when someone had the bright idea for TikToker @trinhdoesthings to make a little frozen Fruit Roll-Up mochi ball with ice cream. It spiraled from there, with social media quickly switching over to, essentially, an ice cream burrito using a Fruit Roll-Up as the tortilla.

Home chefs tried to "perfect it," and even famous millionaire chefs attempted to make it at home. Giada De Laurentiis called it "remarkably delicious," although the entire world would be shocked if she ever admitted to eating it again. (Also, it probably makes it more delicious when you're not the one who has to go to the grocery store, wait in an insanely long line, and use self-checkout to buy the damn ingredients. *Shakes fist in Target Shopper*)

The Recipe for Fruit Roll-ups and Ice Cream

Hold onto your aprons, y’all. This is one seriously overwhelming shopping list and recipe.

You need:

• Fruit Roll-Ups
• Vanilla ice cream

You can be as simple or as focused with this as you want. Even Giada just plopped some ice cream on a flattened Fruit Roll-Up and then folded it like a burrito before smooshing it down a bit to evenly disperse the ice cream. That alone is enough to give you an idea of what everyone is doing.

Make It Fashion

Change the Size

Many people swear the best way to eat this concoction is by making it in smaller sizes like mochi, pinching it together like little dumplings, and then freezing the treat again. When you freeze a Fruit Roll-Up, it hardens. Because it’s so thin, though, it just adds a nice little crunch before you get to the ice cream. Nothing you should break a tooth on or anything — just a slightly more manageable texture than the warm, chewy variety. For best results, you’ll want to trim your Roll-Up so you don’t have a bunch of excess on each bite-sized treat.

Play With Flavors

Vanilla is a good jumping-off point and goes well with whatever flavor of Fruit Roll-Up you have in your pantry. (Or whatever box is still available at your store of choice.) If you really want to feel like you’re eating something gourmet? Play with different flavor combos! Fruit Roll-Ups come in a few flavor varieties. They’re all good with vanilla, obviously. But also try these combos:

• Strawberry Sensation Fruit Roll-up and... strawberry ice cream, mango ice cream, banana ice cream (or yogurt!)
• Tropical Tie-Dye and... orange sherbet, raspberry sorbet, strawberry ice cream
• Blue Raspberry and... lemon sorbet, lime sherbet, strawberry ice cream

An Honest Review

OK, but is it any good? Sure. I think the frozen, slightly crunchy option is the best way to go — it wasn’t an altogether pleasant experience to chew on a warm Fruit Roll-up for oh-so-long while my mouth was also filled with frozen ice cream. I’d say Giada is half right. It is remarkable, but “remarkably delicious” might be a stretch.

I think this could be a fun treat to try once, maybe twice. Well, for adults anyway. Your kids are probably going to want it after every meal. If you’d rather they didn’t blow through the rest of that box of Fruit Roll-Ups in one sitting, making little cheater mochi is a super cool thing to bust out mid-summer for your kids. You could even try doing it together if you’re into giant messes.

Our family will be donating the box of leftover Fruit Roll-Ups to our school snack pantry and going back to eating ice cream the old-fashioned way: in bowls the size of our faces.