All You Need Is Aluminum Foil To Prevent An Ice Cream Party Mess

With the weather heating up, it's the perfect time of year to enjoy a seriously sweet, refreshingly cold dessert, and while ice cream may be a year-round frozen favorite, savoring a cone of creamy, sweet goodness feels truly amazing as the temperatures soar.

Celebrate the end of summer with an ice cream social — the perfect excuse to get together with friends, and cool off with a few cones. Whether you're trying out an evaporated milk homemade ice cream recipe, or sampling the best store bought ice cream brands, there's just something special about pairing it with a crispy cone.

But if you're hosting an ice cream party and prepping a ton of cones, a melty mess seems inevitable, particularly when using sugar or waffle cones. You might have heard about the marshmallow ice cream cone trick, but if you're saving your mallows to roast around a campfire, there's another way to prevent cone drips without wasting s'mores: aluminum foil. For a quick, cheap solution to a no-mess ice cream party, just wrap the bottoms of your cones in aluminum foil. The only bad part about eating an ice cream cone is typically the dreaded drip from the bottom as your ice cream starts to melt — but with this hack, your ice cream social will be a guaranteed success.

So, if sugar and waffle cones are drippy, why not just switch to a different ice cream vessel? Because nothing beats the fantastic flavor and classic crunch of a hard cone. Sure, bowls help prevent melting mishaps, and cake cones are less likely to drip from the bottom, but it's hard to pass up the sweetness and satisfaction of biting into a crunchy cone after eating scoops of soft ice cream. In fact, people love waffle cones so much there's even a waffle cone ice cream flavor.

Sticky fingers and stained clothes can put a damper on a great party, so this simple trick blocks the runny ice cream from dripping out of the cone, saving your clothes, as well as that last little mouthful of dessert. What's more, aluminum foil can help insulate your ice cream cone to keep it colder for a longer period of time — perfect for parties under the sweltering sun.

Try this trick at home with waffle cones made in your own kitchen. Before your next ice cream soirée, cut a sheet of aluminum foil into squares, wrap them around your sugar and waffle cones and then enjoy a cool, mess-free, sweet celebration.