I Tried the 4 Most Popular Dairy Queen Dip Cones, This Is the One I’ll Order Again

Picture it: A crisp cake cone filled with a core of vanilla soft serve supporting two perfectly smooth orbs of the same and topped with the signature flick-of-the-wrist DQ curl (seriously, the company trademarked the curl, which is supposed to resemble a “Q”). Dairy Queen’s dipped cones are an essential at the frozen treat fast food hot spot, rivaling the chain’s beloved Blizzards as the reason for a stop there.

And with new menu items being introduced there all the time, it can be hard to make a decision when it comes time to order. If you’re in the market for a dipped cone and are in such a predicament, we took one for the team and tried the four most popular, classic dipped cone flavors and found the very best. Ahead, discover the history of the DQ mainstay and the one you should order on your next visit.

The Sweet History of Dairy Queen’s Dipped Cone

Long before DQ registered its cone-crowning achievement with the U.S. government, the classic ice cream cone had a virtual monopoly on summertime fun. After all, legend has it that the idea was hatched at a fair. And not just any fair—the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. That’s allegedly when waffle pastry vendor Ernest A. Hamwi noticed the ice cream stand beside him had run out of dishes. Hamwi simply took his thin, wafer-like waffles, rolled them into a conical shape, and passed them to his grateful scoop-wielding neighbor. From that moment on, anyone caught eating ice cream from a dish seemed pretty lame, indeed (at least until some mad genius decided to spoon it into miniature baseball helmets).

Dairy Queen completely changed the game 34 years later when they invented soft serve (or so they claim, but who are we to quibble with the Queen?). Now instead of fretting over how many hard and slippery scoops you could reasonably stack and balance, you could simply swirl the light, creamy soft serve almost as high as you please. Throw in the advent of the flat-bottomed, wafer-style cake cone that was engineered to offer insulation between warm hand and cold treat (have you ever looked at the deceptively intricate structure of one of these things? It’s a modern marvel.) and you have portable ice cream perfection.

Almost.

One of the few problems with soft serve is that, unlike traditional ice cream, it typically only comes in one or two flavors: Chocolate or, more often, plain old vanilla.

Enter the dipped cone. While DQ didn’t invent that (at least we don’t think they did), they did perfect it, turning the cream-topped cone upside down (see, structural integrity!) and dunking it in a flavorful sauce that hardens into a crisp candy shell. This not only protects your quickly melting ice cream and enhances its texture, but more importantly, it adds flavor.

But all dipped cone flavors are not equal. Here are our rankings of the best DQ cone dippers—including the one we’d delve into again and again.

The 4 Most Popular Dairy Queen Dipped Cones, Reviewed and Ranked

4. Peanut Brittle Crunch

Technically a secret, wink-wink, IYKYK, off-menu item, this is actually more of a coating than a full-on dip. The traditional vanilla soft serve is delightfully dusted with colorful sprinkles and peanut-y brittle bits that add a pleasing crunch and salty sweetness to your cone. Unfortunately, mine had a hard time sticking to the ice cream, so much so that the thoughtful DQ crew member gave me a little cup of extra topping on the side to dash on as I licked.

3.  Confetti Cake

Is there a better combo than cake and ice cream? One of the latest additions to the (official) menu, this festively-speckled dipped cone gives you the rich flavor of confetti cake along with your smooth soft serve—and you don’t even need a fork.

2. Cherry

Do you fondly remember when, as a child, your loving grandparent snatched your cherry-flavored candy and replaced it with a bowl of butterscotch? No. No you don’t. Because it never happened. No loving grandparent would ever be so cruel. But that’s exactly what DQ tried to do with its cherry dipped cone a couple of years ago. The results were predictable.

Needless to say, that menu edit lasted about a year. Cherry is back, but only seasonally, swapping with butterscotch in the winter (when apparently no one wants to have fun). So savor this fruity treat, which pretty much tastes like an icy cherry dipped in ice cream, while you can.

1. Chocolate

A timeless classic. This cool treat has been on the DQ menu almost since the beginning, and with good reason. Everyone knows there’s no better way to accentuate vanilla than with its frozen polar opposite, chocolate. This is one to be savored, as the smooth dark-brown shell breaks off with each bite and melts slightly slower than the ice cream on your tongue, providing a prolonged flavor experience. That is, if you can keep from wolfing it down and ordering a second.