The Hands-Down Best Candy Bar Ice Cream Treat Comes From This Old-School Brand

We love candy bars. We also love ice cream. It turns out the best of both worlds lies in their combination: candy bar ice cream. We tried and ranked 10 candy bar ice cream treats, and it turns out that while a few of the novelties were mere shadows of their candy bar selves, one brand aimed for the rafters and hit a home run. (I'll explain the loose baseball connection in a bit.) In our opinion, Baby Ruth ice cream bars are the best candy bar ice cream bar you can get at the store.

We first noticed that these frozen treats had lots of texture, studded with peanuts from end-to-end. After we examined its interior, we discovered that, like the candy bar, the ice cream was accurately nougat-flavored. It was garnished with the right amount of caramel, which also had little pieces of peanuts mixed in. Out of all the ice cream bars we tried, this was the one that came closest to its checkout aisle counterpart.

A Baby Ruth (in this case, the candy bar, not the ice cream version) starts with a dense nougat filling, which is layered with caramel and absolutely covered with roasted peanuts before being enrobed in chocolate. The treat was originally released in 1920 by the Curtiss Candy Company, who originally named it Kandy Kake. So that means this classic has been around for over 100 years now.

Despite popular belief, the candy bar wasn't actually named for Babe Ruth. Instead, it was likely named after the daughter of President Grover Cleveland, whose nickname was indeed Baby Ruth. That didn't stop Babe Ruth from suing, however. Another fun fact is that the marketing for the product was pretty wild at first — at one point, Baby Ruth bars were dropped from airplanes across at least 40 cities as a stunt.

The ice cream version we ranked is brand new, having debuted in April of 2026. The old-school candy bar's longstanding existence just goes to prove that nougat, roasted peanuts, caramel, and chocolate might seem simple, but it's a historically loved combination. In the case of this candy bar ice cream, Baby Ruth still nails that hearty chocolate satisfaction, but this time, in the freezer aisle.