Arranging a catch-up with good friends you don’t get to see as often as you’d like takes serious planning.

Everyone has such busy lives (how does one get busier after 30? I thought we were meant to slow down…) so just deciding on a date that we are all free is a task in itself.

Our group consists of 5 women who try to meet at least once a month. This year we’ve managed at least 5 get-togethers so you can see how well we’re sticking to this plan.

Anyway, we decided on this past Saturday and initially planned to meet up and have coffee at a cafe on the Waterfront. However, an active one-person campaign started when Shaheema lobbied for us to visit The Creamery. After seeing pics that left us salivating we all got on board and made that our meet-up venue.

I’d heard a lot of good things about this ice-cream parlour and I was really not disappointed. The branch in Mouille Point (there are 2 others in Cape Town) specialises in warm cookies topped with a scoop or two or three of their special homemade ice-cream. You can have it in a sugar cone too but why would you do that when you can have a warm cookie topped with cold ice-cream?

We all opted for the warm chocolate cookie as our base but all of us went with different ice-cream flavours.

I chose a lemon swirl ice-cream topped with toasted marshmallow. It was rather reminiscent of lemon meringue (one of my favourite things) with the tart and acidic flavour of the lemon balancing out the sweetness of the marshmallow, which was very similar to a meringue topping on an actual lemon meringue.  I was happy with my choice and am keen to try more flavours. I’ll pay it another visit when my craving for something sweet happens kicks in again.

Shaheema had salted caramel ice-cream and also topped it with toasted marshmallow. “It was delicious and I want to try the other flavour cookies too,” said Shaheema, who would also like to try the ice-cream atop a waffle instead of the cookie since waffles wouldn’t be as sweet.

Sam tried the barley malt ice-cream and shortbread crumble on top.  “It was totally indulgent;  rich and creamy.  The barley malt ice cream balances the sweetness of the cookie. I want to try all the flavours!”

Ulpha chose sweet cream ice-cream and toasted marshmallow. She says, “It’s a luxury experience because of the rich creamy ice-cream and toasted marshmallow. Even though I couldn’t finish it, it’s definitely a favorite I’ll take again.”

Lastly, Lauren was the only one of us impressive enough to choose two scoops. On her biscuit was “a scoop of dark chocolate and another of salted caramel ice cream with shortbread crumble on top. It was decadent. It was divine. It was a normal person’s monthly quota of dessert. Thank goodness I’m not normal. The salty sweetness of the caramel was well offset by the dark chocolate. And there were generous chunks of chocolate in the biscuit.”

Our final verdict: We all definitely want to go back and try the other flavours! It’s also a treat that doesn’t break the bank. Each of our desserts came to around R56.

As an aside,  we all have to thank Shaheema for giving us all jars filled with sweets and the best greeting card ever. Thanks darling, from all of us.

• For more information about The Creamery, visit their website.