Hey friends! This week, Esther and I are bringing you a special Frugal Foodie Friends segment focused on desserts! Be sure to check out Esther’s post here.

Museum of Ice Cream

Many of you have probably seen the bright, candy-themed pictures taken in the MOIC circulating instagram and snapchat for the past few months. But even more than taking some amazing pictures, I was excited to get the chance to celebrate and enjoy one of my all-time favorite foods: ice cream.

I visited the MOIC on a beautiful Sunday afternoon with a friend from church and one of her friends. I didn’t quite know what to expect, other than lots of color and some ice cream samples. When we entered the building, I was surprised that instead of an open space, it was set up as a series of connected rooms, each having its own theme.

The first room was simply a pink room with decorative walls filled with beads, plastic candy, and knick knacks. We also got some Dove chocolate. The next room had pink phones where you could scream for ice cream. Room three was Hollywood themed and contained our first ice cream sample from none other than Salt and Straw (my favorite)! They even had their own Hollywood stars, like Marilyn Mintro, The Fresh Pint of Bel Air, and Jimmies Fallon.

Next was a hall with swings and a room full of pink and yellow bananas! Then we got to the most instagrammed part: the sprinkle pool.

There was also a fun mint-themed room…

…a popsicle room…

…whatever this room was…

…a gummy bear room…

…an artistic room with cones plastered on the wall and “chaos” cookie dough in cones…

…and a breakfast room with an ice cream sandwich swing to end it all.

Truthfully, I wish there were more ice cream samples in the museum. It would have been awesome to try different kinds of ice cream from all over the world. But I appreciated the fact that the museum was more interactive and experiential, rather than educational. It was really fun to walk through all of the different rooms because you never knew what was coming next. I enjoyed my trip to the MOIC and am glad I went!

Dessert Goals – LA Dessert Festival

Like the MOIC, Dessert Goals also started in New York before it came to LA. Funny enough, I found out about Dessert Goals because it popped up on facebook as a recommended event near me. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to go. So I asked my community group ladies to join me, and six of us ended up going (only a week after MOIC for me – sugar overload much?).

I’ve been to several chocolate conventions in my day, so I was more familiar with this kind of event than most of my friends. I don’t think they expected so many vendors to be there – there were about 30! Though it was fairly similar to other dessert conventions, there were some fun added touches to the Dessert Festival, such as a free candy bar from Dylan’s candy, a salt bar for when you had too much sugar, an instagram garden, and a piñata petting zoo.

They had some really interesting desserts there, and almost every vendor gave out free samples, which was surprising to me!

Probably the most interesting thing I tried was Maya Brigadeiro Brazilian sweets. They describe it as a fusion between a truffle and a caramel, which is very accurate. The texture is really interesting and so are the flavors! I tried coconut and passion fruit and they were both very tasty. They are also gluten free!

After going around and sampling everything I could, I ended up trying a chimney cone filled with ice cream from Sweet n’ Hollow. Apparently it’s a popular European dessert. It reminded me of a crispy churro cone with ice cream in it. Thankfully a friend and I shared it because there was no way I could eat the whole thing.

My friends and I had a great time at the festival and I hope I get to go to more things like it in the future! Gosh I love desserts. Now if only we can get a chocolate festival to come to LA….

I hope you enjoyed my special Frugal Foodie Friends dessert update! Be sure to check back next week for my July Friday Favorites roundup!