Our Story
Home Sweet Cone is your local shop for premium-quality, thoughtfully crafted homemade ice cream in central Iowa.
Sometimes you just need a delicious scoop of ice cream—one that reminds you of sunny days at the beach, perfect sunsets, and time spent with your favorite people.
Childhood memories are what inspired our founder, Colleen Strohmaier—and we’re bringing those delicious homemade flavors to central Iowa, one scoop at a time.
Meet the Founder
As a kid in Connecticut, Colleen’s first job was at a walk-up burger, hot dog, and ice cream stand. Scooping ice cream and making shakes were her responsibilities, and she has such fond memories of this part of her life!
When her family relocated to Iowa, they all sought to find a new favorite ice cream spot, but struggled to find ice cream that reminded them of the spots they grew up with. The opportunity for delicious homemade ice cream was there—and after 10 years in the corporate world and one amazing ice cream class, Colleen decided to leave everything she knew and take a risk becoming a first-time small business owner. After months of planning, recipe testing and everything else starting a business entails, Home Sweet Cone made its debut in July 2021!
Frequently Asked Questions
Premium ice cream, huh? What does that mean?
Well, there’s a fun little term called “butterfat” that is a key component of determining the quality of ice cream. Did you know that for a product to legally be considered ice cream by the Food and Drug Administration, it must have at least 10% butterfat? Our product has 16% butterfat and consists of all-natural ingredients in our ice cream mix. That means you should be able to pronounce everything on our ice cream base ingredient list!
How is your ice cream made?
In addition to having the highest quality mix as the base of our ice creams, we use the best of the best ice cream machine (also known as a batch freezer) to produce our ice cream. Take the best quality mix and best-performing machine, add in a lot of creativity and a whole lot of fun, and you get premium ice cream!
Can you accommodate special dietary requirements?
We offer several dairy-free and gluten-free options—see our menu for the full list of flavors offered! We do our absolute best to prevent cross contamination within our production kitchen and serving area but please know we cannot guarantee there are not trace amounts of allergens. Please let your scooper know if you’d like a sanitized scoop and they will be happy to use one for you!
What is your ice cream base made out of?
The ingredients in our all-natural base include: cream, milk, cane sugar, skim milk, nonfat dry milk, 2% or less of locust bean gum, and guar gum.
What is your dairy-free ice cream base made out of?
The ingredients in our dairy-free ice cream base include: coconut cream, cane sugar, water, tapioca syrup solids, 2% or less of carob bean gum, and sea salt.
What is your homemade waffle cone mix made out of?
The ingredients in our homemade waffle cone mix include: wheat flour, sugar, vegetable shortening, wheat protein, corn starch, butter, buttermilk, egg white, and water.
What is your dairy-free/gluten-free waffle cone mix made out of?
The ingredients in our homemade dairy-free/gluten-free waffle cone mix include: certified gluten-free oat flour, potato starch, maple sugar, organic cane sugar, flax, cinnamon, sea salt, and water.
Can you have more than one flavor?
You bet—the more flavors, the merrier! Choose 1, 2, or 3 scoops, and it is up to you what flavors you want for each scoop. Get your favorite for each one or mix it up! We offer a split-scoop which is the equivalent of 1 scoop but you get to choose 2 flavors of ice cream. You can also have your favorite flavors blended into a milkshake or malt.
Do you also sell baked goods? Are they homemade?
We sell a variety of treats that we bake in-house—get one to go, pair it with a scoop of your favorite ice cream, or even make your own ice cream sandwich! Throughout the year we offer seasonal items such as hot cocoa bombs, which are homemade, and we also partner with local small businesses to offer their custom creations like homemade poptarts!
What toppings do you offer?
View our menu for the full list of toppings.
Can I make a custom order?
Absolutely! Visit our custom orders page to learn more and find out how to place an order.
Do you do catering?
We sure do! Head to our catering page to learn how you can bring premium homemade ice cream to your next event.
Do you use artificial dyes?
We do not! Any color in the ice cream comes from the ingredients themselves or an all natural color dye such as spirulina, beet extract or turmeric. We cannot omit all dyes though! Ingredients such as gummy bears, M&Ms, even some cookie we use, do contain artificial dyes but we can assure you the color of our ice cream does not come from food dyes!