The wife and I were walking along 9th Ave. on Friday evening and spotted a sign in a window boasting Donut Ice Cream sandwiches. The picture on the sign made it clear that they meant ice cream sandwiched between two halves of a donut, and not a sandwich made out of donut-flavored ice cream, though I’m sure that would be delicious too.

Anyway, obviously I knew I had to have that, so after dinner we stopped by the place — Holey Cream, on 9th and 53rd.

The guys behind the counter were extremely liberal with samples, which was cool since they had a lot of worthwhile ice cream flavors to try. When I asked to order a donut ice cream sandwich, though, the guy asked if I could wait two minutes.

Since there was no one else in the store, I had no idea what was up. Turned out the dude was looking out for me; about a minute later he pulled from somewhere — we smelt it before we saw it — a tray of freshly baked piping hot donuts. Sweet.

You first pick an icing for the donut. I went with chocolate, because I sometimes find vanilla icing on donuts a little too sweet and I knew I’d be stuffing the thing with ice cream besides.

Second, you pick a topping for the donut. I went with crumbled Oreos, because duh.

Last, you choose an ice cream. Here’s where I screwed up a bit, I think. I went with their red velvet flavor based on the delicious, cream-cheesy sample I tasted, but without realizing that there were big hunks of legit red velvet cake in the red velvet ice cream.

On any other occasion, that would be a major win. If it were a hot fudge sundae or something, obviously you want the cake in there. But in this particular instance, since the donut was providing all the cake I needed, the extra cake in the ice cream threw off the ice cream:cake ratio a little bit.

And look: Let it never be said that there can be too much cake. One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from my buddy Ripps, who said: “I’m going to die someday. And when I die, on my deathbed, I’m going to say, ‘I should have had more cake.'”

But great sandwiches are all about proportions and I botched this. For this I am a bit ashamed. Also, the red velvet ice cream was particularly sweet even by ice cream standards, and since there were donuts and icing and Oreo crumbles also in play, I might have picked something a little more straightforward.

All that said, the thing was still amazing. It was excellent ice cream on top of a fresh donut. The wife immediately advocated it for the Sandwich Hall of Fame, but after some consideration I talked her out of it. That pantheon is reserved for perfection and near-perfection, and there were some clear flaws in this sandwich — even if they were all my fault.

The good news is that it’s fully customizable, so I’ll be able to take a shot at a Hall of Fame sandwich next time I go, which will probably happen the next time I pass the place.