Coffee & Treats in Ocoee

At 50 calories per serving, the only things missing from d'Lites ice cream are artificial sweeteners and sadness. Each day at the shop, two specialty flavors guest star (chocolate and vanilla are available every day), including concoctions such as honey-roasted pecan, piña colada, English toffee, blackberry, and more. In all, d'Lites has more than 200 flavors in its recipe Rolodex. The shop slings soft serve into cups ($2.39–$4.19), cake cones ($2.99), and luxurious chocolate waffle cones ($4.09), as well as into specialty creations such as shakes ($3.09), sundaes ($3.89), and their signature Banana d'Lites ($4.19). If you want to shower a newlywed in sprinkles, order them and any other extra toppings for $0.55–$0.75 each, and if you're on the run, grab a to-go pint ($5.09).

Named for both the instrument of the enterprise and the creamy flavor-bomb that instrument releases, Scoops dishes, cones, and sundaes up a wide range of rich Hershey's ice cream flavors. Hershey's (no relation to the famed chocolatier) frozen concoctions are made from the finest ingredients such as pure vanilla and fresh cream, and promise to please even the most discerning aficionado of freezered treats. Top a regular cone with a scoop of rich chocolate ($2.82), or leave a large dish of the white-chocolate roadrunner raspberry ($3.76) in the dust with a series of sweet scoops. For bigger hungers, indulge in an Edgewater sundae, which tops old-fashioned vanilla creamed curds with brownie, hot fudge, whipped cream, nuts, and a cherry ($4.23 for a small).

Gwen Willhite founded Cookies by Design in 1983, when an unsatisfying brainstorming session about gift ideas led her to ponder one exciting question: why should flowers and sweets remain separate? Her solution was to design the cookie bouquet, where custom, hand-decorated cookies are displayed on sticks and arranged like flowers in gift baskets. Her invention quickly became a popular gift among locals, particularly those allergic to real blooms or too bashful to look at naked cookies.

Twenty-five years later, there are more than 200 Cookies by Design locations across the country. Each shop's team of bakers creates cookie baskets with a degree of care that matches Willhite's original vision, decorating and arranging sweet shapes for birthdays, holidays, and any other special occasion.

Touting more than 80 flavors of low-calorie, flavor-packed frozen yogurt, Tutti Frutti earned a feature on CNBC and has continued to expand since opening its first shop in 2007. Inside each store, self-service yogurt machines unleash velvety-soft yogurt into accommodating cups or empty purses. Their constantly rotating flavors include royal red velvet, pomegranate, or choco-peanut-butter. Most flavors fall within the range of 20–25 calories per ounce, with dairy-free options and no-sugar-added concoctions also available. A toppings bar allows eaters to further customize yogurt creations with a spoonful of fresh fruits or a sprinkling of nuts. Their flavors contain ample amounts of probiotics, known for potential health benefits that may include strengthening immune systems and lowering cholesterol and blood pressure. Organic probiotic yogurt for dogs is available in four flavors. In addition, Tutti Frutti offers a selection of soy-based yogurts as a non-dairy choice for vegans and partners with Nutrition & Education International to donate 10% of soy-product proceeds to help fight hunger in Afghanistan.

Brick columns topped with ivory triangles ascend over the Greensboro Scoop Shop's sprawling outdoor patio, a spread the eponymous Ben and Jerry could never have imagined when they slung their first scoop from a ramshackle gas station in 1978. Although renowned for flagship flavors such as Chunky Monkey and chocolate fudge brownie, Ben & Jerry's vaulted itself into the upper echelon of ice cream with playful, candy-studded concoctions named after celebrities, such as Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, and Jerry Garcia. Velvety scoops can be reimagined as ice-cream cakes or drizzled in fudge and nuts to forge towering sundaes that patrons can chase with strawberry-cheesecake milkshakes, an ideal treat for those born with a straw proboscis.

Ben & Jerry's came from humble beginnings—in 1978, its eponymous founders served ice cream out of a renovated Burlington gas station, and delivered pints of their now-classic flavors to grocery stores out of the back of Ben's VW Squareback wagon. Today, its myriad shops dispense cups, cones, shakes, and smoothies brimming with a variety of quirky flavors, including Phish Food and Cherry Garcia, named for famous revolutionary Jerry Garcia. The duo is also famous for their social responsibility, which is evident in their community activism and in their use of fair-trade products, such as cage-free eggs and sustainable, growth-hormone-free dairy.