At long last, a true Creamery option is finally available in the HUB.

This week, the Berkey Creamery and Penn State Bakery’s long-awaited partnership, Cow & Cookie, spontaneously opened for business near the HUB Sbarro. Even with little notice, our staff was beyond eager to head over and try things out.

The stand’s signature dessert is the “Quake” — a soft-serve ice cream treat blended with fruit or Penn State Bakery products. With about a dozen flavors to try, our staffers got to work and reviewed some of Cow & Cookie’s new offerings.

Matt DiSanto — Brownie

In all honesty, I was blown away by these new Quake desserts. Mine, which was packed with chunks of Penn State Bakery brownies and blended with vanilla Creamery soft serve, was a perfect treat on a spring day. I applaud Cow & Cookie for generously mixing in toppings. I had a piece of brownie in just about every bite.

Moving forward, I’d love to see the stand experiment with some new soft serve flavors. Chocolate soft serve, for example, would turn this brownie Quake into a chocolate lover’s dream. The vanilla soft serve was good, but the plainest flavor can be only so exciting, you know?

This dessert was great, especially for $4.99 — about 50 cents more than a cup of Creamery ice cream and almost $2 cheaper than a pint. The portion was generous, and I’ll be back soon for more. Having a real Creamery option in the HUB is going to be dangerously convenient.

Vik Raj — Strawberry Cheesecake

I firmly believe that strawberry cheesecake is the best dessert ever, no questions asked. So, when I saw the strawberry cheesecake option, I knew it would be the first Quake I tried. As soon as I took the first bite, I knew I’d made the right choice.

The bits of cheesecake paired absolutely phenomenally with the strawberry ice cream, and I was absolutely in awe. Every single time I would take a bite, the texture made for an incredibly enjoyable experience. The strawberry ice cream even felt different from the Penn State Creamery as well! Those bits of strawberry felt more prominent and much sweeter than normal.

It was so good that I got halfway through before taking a photo of it…sorry, readers.

Overall, it was an incredibly enjoyable experience, and I can definitely see myself getting this order again in the near future. And by that, I mean I’ve already made plans to place another order tomorrow!

Caitlin Burns — Cheesecake

I thought Cow and Cookie was really good. Sometimes, cheesecake-flavored things can miss the mark, but this Quake had cheesecake pieces blended in, so the flavor worked really well with the normal ice cream. Because pieces of cheesecake were blended in, you still get little pieces of a cheesecake crust, which also added something to the flavor and gave it some texture, which I enjoyed.

My only complaint is that I wish they had a smaller size. I couldn’t finish the whole thing and ended up throwing some of it away, especially because I got it on a break from class. I think a kid’s size would be a beneficial addition to the menu.

Charles Reinert — Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

Overall, this was a very positive experience. However, I’m not sure about this particular flavor. The ice cream was very good and the mixture of cookies thought the dessert was very generous. However, I didn’t get a whole lot of “cheesecake” flavor — mostly just vanilla and chocolate. But this is mostly a nitpick.

The price is fair and the service was super quick, and I’ll definitely be ordering one again — maybe just a different flavor next time

Devon Craley — Blueberry

I was really excited to hear that there was going to be an ice cream place in the HUB, and it definitely didn’t disappoint. The whole process was very easy, and it was ready in under five minutes.

I’ve had a lot of ice cream in my life, and while it wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, you can certainly do a lot worse for $4.99. Blueberry is a flavor that I would definitely order again. I really enjoyed how it was more of a thicker milkshake than actual ice cream. The blueberry flavor was very strong, as it had actual pieces of blueberry in it, which I thought was a nice touch.

I’m sure that the other flavors available at Cow & Cookie are just as good maybe better, but I would strongly recommend blueberry Quake. A five-minute wait for a $5 cup of ice cream is a tough deal to beat.

Adam Babetski — Candy Cookie Pieces

This was pretty much a Dairy Queen Blizzard, and if they had turned it upside down before giving it to me, it would have been hard to tell the difference. That’s not a bad thing at all.

Since I never have anything negative to say about the Creamery, I’ll use this space to lodge a complaint against the Penn State Eats app, which you need to use to order for some reason. I do not like it.

Aside from that, there’s now ice cream in the HUB, and it will get a lot of my business. The service here was fast, the cookies were crunchy, and the candy pieces were candy pieces. Good vibes all around.

Anna Wiggins — Sugar Cookie

I’m just a girl, standing in the HUB, asking for a sweet treat option past 5 p.m. Luckily, Cow & Cookie is open Monday through Friday until 7:30 p.m., and the sugar cookie ~ Quake ~ is quite delicious. Now, I’m worried that I’m gonna get a lot of grief for picking sugar cookie, so let me explain.

First, one of my fellow staffers had already volunteered to try the brownie flavor. Second, I hate fruit-flavored ice cream, so blueberry and strawberry were out of the running. Third, after a very unfortunate incident at a birthday party-sleepover in the seventh grade, I despise cheesecake. Lastly, out of every type of cookie, I’d say sugar cookies reign supreme. Now, back to the Quake.

My Quake used vanilla soft-serve with those crumbled blue and white sugar cookies you can buy at any market across campus. Though the vanilla milkshake itself was rather basic (ain’t nothing wrong with that,) the consistency was perfect: not too frozen, but not completely melted. The highlight? Obviously, the massive chunks of sugar cookies. When Cow & Cookie said “Sugar Cookie Quake” on the menu, they were not messing around. Not only were the sugar cookie inclusions generous, but the size of the sugar cookie crumbles was also enough to feed a small ant colony for a few days. Well done, Cow & Cookie. I imagine I’ll be seeing more of you in the future.

Michael Tauriello — Brookie

I went with the brookie Quake and, while the presentation showed extreme promise, I was just slightly underwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong. This is Creamery ice cream we’re talking about here. It’s still good stuff, but I think I expected a bit more. The vanilla ice cream was extremely fresh, it tasted great, but I couldn’t help but think it was a little overpowering, and maybe that was the point. The brookie pieces were, for the most part, too crushed up to enjoy. That led me to focus on the more mundane-tasting vanilla ice cream.

You’re probably thinking this is a harsh review, and it is, but I will certainly take another couple of stabs with different flavors in the near future. There’s clearly a lot of love going into the Cow & Cookie stand, and I know I’ll find the right flavor soon.

Mikey DeAngelis — Blueberry Cheesecake

This isn’t the sort of flavor I would normally spring for, but I wanted to try something different from this new place. The flavor was really quite good thanks to the awesome blend of Creamery ice cream and the blueberries they put in there. I ate mine outside the HUB, and it was a nice day out, so the fruity favor was quite refreshing. My only “complaint” (if you can even call it one) is that the blueberry skins kept getting stuck in my teeth, but that’s a minor issue.

The ice cream itself is obviously better than what you’d find in a Dairy Queen Blizzard, but there’s something I prefer about the candy mix-in options in those (Reese’s are my go-to). I’m not ready to call my shot on the Quake vs. Blizzard debate, but I’m excited to go back, try more flavors, and see where my opinion ends up.

Alex Petersen — Chocolate Chip Cookie

The service here was great. There was no wait, which was refreshing for a place like the HUB, and I have to hand it to the employee making the ice cream. She was working by herself and busting out one of these Quakes almost every minute. Plus, the portion size was perfect. It was enough to satisfy me, but also not too much for me to finish.

The ice cream itself was underwhelming. I didn’t feel like there was a good cookie-to-ice cream ratio. There was a lot of ice cream but not a lot of extra going on inside. If you want to treat yourself, it’s a solid choice for the HUB. For now, I certainly would not go out of my way to get one of these.