Etiquette for Cake with Ice Cream

A new twist on ice cream and cake puts ice cream in the cones and places decorated cupcakes atop them. One can eat these by holding them in one hand and starting from the top. Or one can serve them placed on their sides on plates for eating with a fork and a spoon. The ice cream cone is delicate enough to easily break and eat with a fork. The crunchiness adds a fun texture to the cake and ice cream mix!

How to Eat Ice Cream with Cake Properly

DEAR MISS MANNERS - What is the proper way to serve ice cream and cake? I have seen it served in the following ways:
• Together on a crystal dessert plate.
• Ice cream in a goblet on dessert plate, cake on same plate.
• Ice cream in goblet without plate, cake on separate plate.
• Ice cream in dessert bowl, cake on separate plate.
• Together in soup bowl.

If they are served in the same dish, does one eat the cake with a spoon?

Should the ice cream be served first and the cake distributed after all the ice cream has been served?

Or should a slice of cake be added by the host before serving to the guest?

GENTLE READER - This is one of the few matters of table etiquette (milk is another) in which the key factor is the age of the guests.

People of all ages know that ice cream and cake is best eaten by mashing the ice cream down into the cake with the back end of a spoon, preferably while chanting rhythmically but tunelessly to oneself. But only people under the age of 5 can get away with it, and then only when Miss Manners isn't looking.

In order to allow adults to simulate this enjoyment, which is to say to eat ice-cream-and-cake rather than two separate desserts, the items are put on a plate together, with the ice cream on top of the slice of cake or, more dangerously for the tablecloth, off to one side.

The adults are issued both dessert spoons and forks. They may alternate using these, eating the ice cream with the spoon and the cake with the fork, or may keep the fork in the left hand and use it to push ice cream-soaked cake into the spoon, which is held in the right hand. They are not allowed to hum. — By Miss Manners, aka Judith Martin, 1987

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia