I Tried And Ranked 10 Candy Bar Ice Cream Treats From Worst To Best

Ice cream was invented much longer ago than you think, but it took a while for candy to come along and sweeten the desserty deal. Candy bars first started being mass-produced in the mid-19th century, and with the rise of ice cream parlors and pharmacies, the two indulgences were housed under one roof. When beer taps ran dry during Prohibition, ice cream bars rose in popularity in the 1920s. It's not clear which branded candy bar first made the leap to an ice cream bar, but the fine folks at Heath & Sons transformed its namesake toffee bars into frozen treats on a stick by at least 1959. It would take a few more decades before other candy manufacturers warmed up to this icy idea, and today there are many options to pick up at your local grocery store or snack bar.

The Takeout loves candy bars and ice cream bars. The intersection of the two is one of the most delicious of all Venn diagrams. We identified 10 popular candy bar ice creams that are widely available to find out which one was truly the best of the best. This dairy-heavy, supremely nutty, caramely, chocolatey, and in some cases peanut buttery herculean task was tackled with the utmost seriousness to declare a winner. If you are unsatisfied with the results, we encourage you to try this yourself at home.

The Nestlé Crunch bar launched in 1938, and became a branded ice cream bar in 1977. While the Nestlé branding disappeared in the U.S. when it came into the hands of the Ferrero Group in 2018, the candy and the ice cream bars have continued its presence on shelves.

Out of all 10 desserts we tried, this was the only one that didn't bother with branded packaging on each individual treat. Each bar weighed in much heavier than the others in this ranking, but I'm not sure if the 55 grams included the handy dandy stick in its measurement. There was physically some girth to it, and I felt the heft when feeding the bar to my face.

Chocolate encapsulates the entire bar, which is a relief as you don't want any ice cream showing at the bottom for fear of melting drips. The only thing that's glaringly obvious with this bar is the lack of crisped rice pieces buried in the chocolate coating. Both sides of the bar that I had looked to maybe have about a dozen tiny dots each. Not sure if this has always been the case with the Crunch ice cream, but whatever the excuse is, it is visibly pathetic. Taking a bite of this bar reminded me a lot of Dairy Queen's Dilly Bar, but in rectangular form. That's a good thing, but the bad is that this bar barely packs nor backs up the texture and name emblazoned on the box — Crunch. For shame.

Mounds landed on shelves in 1920, and its nutty younger brother Almond Joy followed 26 years later. The latter began to spread its joy in the form of an ice cream bar in 2026.

When you open a package of actual Almond Joy, you're greeted by a pair of snack-size ones, each visually delivering its promised almonds. They look like giant mounds in a mausoleum made of chocolate. The ice cream bar doesn't even bother with the same look. It's one long bar, and instead of whole almonds, you get little slivers of them in the chocolate. Inside, the ice cream is pure white, and finished with a small creek filled with a liquefied chocolate filling.

One bite and you can tell this is an outlier, especially in comparison with the other nine. The ice cream looks like vanilla, but it's where the coconut flavor lies. It's certainly a unique ice cream bar experience, but as one of my testers aptly noted, "It tastes like suntan lotion." They actually meant that as a compliment, but to me it summed up why it's not a bar that's easily enjoyable as a whole or worthy of constant trips to the grocery store to restock. Almond Joys have always been an acquired taste, and you have to be a giant fan of the candy bar to be one of the ice cream bars. For many of us, it will be one of the last ones touched in our Halloween bag haul.

Mars first debuted Twix in the U.K. back in 1967, and we Yankees finally joined the fun by 1976. This chocolatey cookie candy that's a loose portmanteau of "twin sticks" remains one of the best in the biz, a personal favorite, and as a candy bar, the best on this list. The U.K. once again beat us to the punch with an ice cream bar version by 1993, and we got in on the action at the dawn of the 21st century. Somehow in all that time, I'd never gotten around to trying one of my favorite candies in ice cream bar form.

I had real high hopes for this one, and assumed it would be a tasty slam dunk. When I removed it from the wrapper, I knew something was askew. First, there was a single bar instead of a pair, and it wasn't even that rounded smooth-edged. It looked identical to the Snickers ice cream bar, which also itself didn't look like the candy bar that inspired it. Looks aren't everything, but I already felt deceived.

The bar was certainly a tasty nibble with vanilla ice cream joined by caramel and a smattering of cookie pieces, all wrapped in chocolatey coating. And yet, I have a major gripe about those cookie pieces, or lack thereof, housed in each bar. The cookie's patterned texture and taste barely registered here, and therefore denied the crunch the candy is renowned for. Out of all the bars, this felt like the biggest missed opportunity.

The lovable, breakable KitKat wafer candy was born in the UK back in the 1930s, and has since seen endless flavors filling its chocolate coating. While the flavors are fun, the strength and beauty of a KitKat always centers on its actual center — those strips of wafer. In 2025, KitKat's talents were borrowed to form a fudgy ice cream bar on a stick, which was initially exclusively sold at Sam's Club, and is now available most everywhere.

Unlike its compatriots in this ranking, only five bars come in a box, but the lack of quantity was made up for in sheer size. A single KitKat ice cream bar weighs in at a whopping 64 grams. Unsheathing this fellow, I could already tell this was a step up over the lackadaisical Crunch bar. The wafer bits were aplenty and physically larger, protruding through its chocolate surface. A quick look within revealed another departure from the usual ice cream bar as some sporty tiger stripes of fudge added pleasing visual beauty to the ice cream beneath the chocolate.

While the bar was certainly a quality one and completely satisfying, it suffered the same issue as the Twix — it somehow seemed to be missing a core ingredient, and here it's KitKat's wonderful wafer. I know it's in there. You can see it from the exterior, and even a bit in the interior, but taste-wise, it barely registered. This bar shouldn't be judged on its KitKattiness, but it's hard to avoid comparing it when it doesn't exactly come off as Kat-nip.

The slogan "Snickers satisfies" is no lie. The bar, apparently named after a horse, has been around since 1930, and was also one of the earlier candies that got the ice cream bar treatment. The first of its kind arrived by 1989, and has forever felt like an ever-present option at stores. The popularity has even warranted a line of frozen Snickers "Minis," which come in a handful of flavors.

I don't remember what the old-school bars looked like, but the ones that came in the box I purchased didn't really look like Snickers. Instead of a veiny chocolate drizzled topography on top, it sort of looked like a boxy rectangular Whatchamacallit with some peanuts embedded in a chocolatey coating. While vanilla was long the ice cream flavor within the bar, the one chilling out within this frozen Snickers is now peanut butter. It's finished off with a long dollop of caramel.

The Snickers Ice Cream Bar remains a quality one that you can count on whenever the need arises. And while the peanuts and the caramel pitch in a pinch of that sumptuous Snickers taste, the other bars on this list do a better job of recreating the candy bar experience in their respective ice cream bars. The peanut butter ice cream here was a little bit more restrained than the similar ice creams I tasted in the Reese's Crunchy Peanut and Butterfinger bars, and in a way, that held it back from achieving top-level greatness. Maybe it's time to switch back to vanilla and restore some of its former top-shelf glory.

Nestlé launched the $100,000 bar in 1964. Since 2018, this nostalgic caramel and chocolate candy headlined by crispy crunchies is now under the ownership of The Ferrero Group, and now goes by the name 100 Grand Bar. It was turned into an ice cream bar in 2025 by Wells Enterprises, which also happens to be an independent operating company of the Ferrero Group.

Out of the candy bars in this ranking, the 100 Grand seems to be one of the least popular and lacking in cachet. However, in its beautiful red packaging, it certainly lured the eyes in with curiosity. Unwrapping this feller, its shell sported a familiar terrain as seen in its actual candy counterpart — chocolate-coated crisp looking like a pebble-lined path. Cut in half, the likeness of the candy bar continued, although the amount of caramel has been reduced to make way for the ice cream.

The end result is an all-around excellent ice cream bar. The fun begins at that exterior chocolate shell, where the crisps had a fantastic textual crunch to them. The caramel came in a decent dosage, and was complemented by the vanilla ice cream quite well. What really sold it was that crispy crunch. One in the tasting party wasn't a fan, and noted it didn't have a pleasant aftertaste. I, for one, enjoyed its before, during, and aftertastes. The Crunch bar barely scratched that surface, and where it failed to rise to the occasion, the 100 Grand was totally money. Open your heart and wallets to this bar for sure.

Ever since 1928, the name Reese's has been synonymous with peanut butter. The brand's flagship cups were tailor-made frozen desserts by simply putting them in the freezer. Over the years, the brand has seen its share of ice cream products, including bars since at least the late 1990s. There's a plethora of frozen Reese's products currently on shelves, but our focus is on its 2026 bar innovation (with an elongated name): Reese's Crunchy Peanut Ice Cream Bar.

The Reese's Crunchy Peanut Ice Cream Bar was not messing around when it came to peanut butter, coming to the table with multiple tastes and textures. Once I broke the bumpy chocolatey shell coating, there was a calming wave of brown hues. The peanut butter flavored ice cream was infused with Reese's peanut butter, and then Reese's peanut butter sauce was nestled in there. If that wasn't enough, might you be interested in some crushed peanuts to top things off?

Reese's peanut butter awesomeness is on full display with each and every bite of this lovely ice cream bar. It's an all-out peanut butter rager, and you almost don't want the party to end. This is a surefire winner, although I will say it's not the kind of bar I'd want to eat a ton of. And if they're open to future tweaks, how about adding a little crunchy crispness, like the one the excellent shell that surrounds Reese's Pieces. Imagine all those amazing chews.

Milky Way is one of Mars' oldest chocolate bars still orbiting mouths to this day. This treat uniting chocolate, caramel, and nougat came into this stratosphere in 1924, and should not be confused with the Milky Way bar sold abroad. Milky Way has lent itself to the ice cream bar format since at least the late 1980s, and the latest and perhaps greatest iteration came to be in 2023.

Chocolate is the dual-headliner here, with a natural milk chocolate shell and chocolate ice cream. Looking to make a bit of noise is a layer of caramel. Apparently Mr. Nougat's invitation to join the party got lost in the mail. A Milky Way is not a candy bar I would normally gravitate towards. I have nothing against it, but a lack of nuts makes it almost a non-starter as nuts make everything better. It's been scientifically proven by my own personal tastes.

Well, one bite of this Milky Way ice cream bar, and I could have cared less about the lack of nuts. That's because chocolate is the true king here. Not a single other bar in this ranking included chocolate ice cream, so this instantly became a standout among the crowded field. On top of that, the chocolate ice cream was superbly rich and creamy, perfectly punctuated by a gooey dose of luscious caramel. There's a simplicity to this bar that the other fussy ones seemed to avoid. This less-ness indeed proved to equal more. But now that this is a certified winner, can we get a version outfitted with nuts?

The Butterfinger bar dates to 1923, and despite its original recipe lost to time during a change in ownership, the current stewards, The Ferrell Group have continued to keep the crispety, crunchety peanut buttery bar relevant. I've never been as big a fan of the bar as Bart Simpson. I like peanut butter, and I like the unique crunch the candy provides, but it's a bit too much for me to handle after a few bites.

When unwrapping the ice cream bar version of a Butterfinger, which debuted in 2026, I tried my best to wrap up all my preconceived notions. The chocolate shell of this ice cream had the same smooth sheen of the candy bar, and the usual golden brown rocky terrain had been replaced by a buttery-looking block of ice cream. That ice cream was designed to ape the flavor of a Butterfinger, and the taste and texture was further reinforced by a healthy amount of Butterfinger crisp wedged between the ice cream and the chocolate shell coating.

I was pleasantly surprised by this bar from the first awesome bite to the very last. It delivered the one-of-a-kind Butterfingery goods, but in a more restrained manner. Instead of being overwhelmed by the depth of the crunch like the candy bar usually provides, it played more of a strong supporting role here. It was perfectly balanced with that ice cream to create a really smooth treat. My teeth particularly enjoyed the signature crispety crunchety strip within this bar, which helped make it more of a standout choice over the other strong peanut-buttery entry — Reese's.

The Baby Ruth candy bar was apparently not named after the New York Yankee slugger; instead, the 1921 born bar honored Grover Cleveland's deceased daughter Ruth. Over a century later, the multi-fasted candy bar earned itself an ice cream bar in 2026 thanks to Wells Enterprises.

I knew right off the bat, by ogling over its physical appearance, that these Baby Ruth ice cream bars were something special. Out of all the bars, besides the 100 Grand, this was the most textured, with peanut pieces aplenty from tip to tail. Slicing this baby in half, there was a lot to unpack. The first thing that captured the eye was not a sea of white ice cream, but a browned one. That's because it's nougat flavored. Resting above it was a healthy dab of gooey caramel, and even more bits of peanuts in the mix. While the chocolate is a key component, it's actually one of the last things I noticed in a bite, which really said something about its power.

This added up to form the most delicious of all the candy bar ice cream bars. There's so much at play here and it's all just so dang enjoyable, from the sum and yum of its parts, to how they play off each other to form a holy whole. It's also the one bar that comes closest to tasting like the genuine article, and my brain, mouth, and stomach appreciated that immensely.

Many candies lend themselves to ice cream, but the focus here is solely on candy bars sold as ice cream bars. In the summer of 2026, 10 were identified that fit the bill, and it took trips to five different grocery stores to acquire them. They were taste tested one by one, in alphabetical order by a group of eight people, including myself, ranging in age from six to 58. This was not a blind taste test. I noted everyone's feedback on the highs and lows of each, and then conducted a second round of tastings by my lonesome to solidify my own findings on these ice cream bars.

While I took the feedback of my taste testing crew under consideration, this chew and review is a summation of my own personal tastes and opinions. I also took into consideration my previous experiences with ice cream bars, candy ice cream bars, the actual candy bars these are supposed to mimic or be inspired by, and my overall impressions of these candy bar ice creams. The ultimate criteria considered for this review were flavor, presentation, size, familiarity, originality, uniqueness, candy bar-ness and ultimately which candy bar ice cream bar was bar none the best of the bunch.