Adventures in Tasting All the Ice Cream
Happy Belated National Ice Cream Day! For anyone who doesn’t know, National Ice Cream Day is always the third Sunday in July so this blog is just about a week late. That being said, we had a lot of ice cream to test out.
Throughout the week, we tried five different brands of ice cream and we made three types of ice cream too! (One brand got tried twice actually!).
On National Ice Cream Day, we braved the heat and walked to Carvel! I don’t know how hot it was, but we were melting by the time we arrived at the shop. And when we got the ice cream, it started melting almost immediately.
Baros tried the Maple Walnut and Mint Chip and I grabbed the soft serve Strawberry and Vanilla Bourbon Toffee Swirl. We managed to grab a few pictures inside before braving the heat! And then by the time we crossed the street to take off our masks and eat/take another photo, the ice creams were already melting!
Already Melting
It was sooooo hot outside!
We were very happy with our ice cream! I have to say that Carvel is not my favorite ice cream. It’s on the sweet side of ice cream. That being said Baros’ flavors were yummy and I really enjoyed their new flavor, the Vanilla Bourbon Toffee. It mixed so nicely with the strawberry. It was a great way to start our week of Ice Creams for National Ice Cream Day.
Walking, Melting and Eating
Then on Wednesday, we took a longer walk to Ben and Jerry’s and got more ice cream! Well, Baros got a strawberry Lemonade Smoothie and I got a proper ice cream. It had been a really long, rough day, so I needed a large ice cream! Sometimes ice cream is a wonderful cure all. Ben and Jerry’s is creamy and delicious and somehow not too sweet given all the crazy mix ins. I know Baros can’t eat all the flavors because sometimes that bit of marshmallow puts the sweetness over the edge.
yummy new flavors!
I got two of the newest flavors Boots on the Moooo’n and Chip Happens plus one of the older fruit flavors, Berry Berry Extraordinary Sorbet as a contrast. Boots on the Moooo’n is milk chocolate ice cream with fudge cows, toffee meteor clusters and swirls of sugar cookie dough. Yum. It was really yummy. Chip happens is also a chocolate ice cream base but it has fudge chips and a crunchy potato chip swirl. I was a bit on the fence about that flavor until trying it, but it was actually wonderful. It had a nice crunch and a hint of salt that really added to the melding of flavors. The berry added some relief from all the chocolate.
I would definitely get all three flavors again! Honestly, Ben and Jerry’s has always been one of my favorite ice cream brands. I love the crazy flavors and mix ins and I love that they stand up for what they believe in. They consistently put their money where their mouth is. I have great respect for that. And well, their ice cream just tastes really good. It’s a win win.
Then on Friday night, some of you may have caught our live stream on Facebook. If you didn’t yet, don’t worry, you can catch it here! We did some ice cream trivia and then tried four different flavors of ice cream.
We tried:
Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey
Magnum Dark Chocolate and Mint
Häagen-Dazs Spirits Rum Tres Leche
Talenti Layers Lemon Berry Pie
We only had a few bites of each so don’t worry, we didn’t wind up in sugar coma! (although it was a close call!) We had just enough of each to figure out which was the worst and which was the best (although best is still up for debate).
Our least favorite was surprisingly Häagen-Dazs Spirits Rum Tres Leche. It’s only a little alcoholic but somehow the rum flavor was artificial and overpowering. It was incredibly sweet and the one that Baros and I each had a hard time with. I love Häagen-Dazs generally speaking but this flavor was not something I will eat again (we’re going to make smoothies from the remainders of the pint!). If you like rum and sweet, maybe this flavor is for you, but if you don’t we say “Skip it”.
For the other three flavors, we couldn’t agree. I basically couldn’t decide which is unsurprising. Baros put Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey in third place, Talenti Layers Lemon Berry Pie in second place and then the Magnum Dark Chocolate Mint in first place.
In the video, I was pretty convinced that Chunky Monkey was first place and the other two were tied in second place. But now I’m not so sure!
Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey was the flavor I was convinced I wouldn’t like it because I don’t always like banana flavored things. But it really was delicious. The ice cream was smooth and creamy and the chocolate and walnuts added some much needed contrast in texture. In retrospect, Baros was right in saying that it had the most fake tasting flavoring. Both the Talenti and the Magnum were more mellow in flavor but also more natural. Chunky Monkey definitely has some artificial flavoring going on and is also quite sweet. Still it’s delicious and we definitely recommend it if you like banana!
The Talenti Layers Lemon Berry Pie isn’t too sweet and has that lemon sourness that we love. It’s layered with graham cracker crumble, blueberry jam, pie crust and lemon gelato. I love those flavors combined. There’s the sour from the lemon, sweet from the blueberry and a little crunch from the graham cracker. My only complaint is the layers. I’d actually prefer it to be swirled and mixed together. As it stands, it can be a little difficult to get all the flavors at once since you need to dig down into the pint to get a little of each flavor. It’s nice that each bite is different, but if you want all 4 flavors and textures together, it’s hard to accomplish. I imagine that it’s even more difficult if you’re trying to make cups of ice cream. In order for each cup to have all the flavors, you need to somehow scoop vertically. That’s the main reason that Talenti Layers wasn’t first place.
The Magnum Dark Chocolate Mint was delicious and not crazy minty or too sweet. Some mint ice creams can be overwhelming but this was pretty subtle and the dark chocolate is delicious. I even really enjoyed the packaging that encourages you to crack the chocolate swirls inside. Peppermint and Belgian Chocolate = Heaven. No complaints about this ice cream. We strongly recommend it!
Then, later that night, we made our first ever batch of homemade No Churn Ice Cream and Saturday morning we did a live stream making 2 more flavors of the ice cream as well. We made three flavors:
Double Chocolate Mint
Nectarine Mint
Roasted Cherry andNectarine Ice Cream with Chocolate Chunks
Baros and I really liked the two fruit flavors. The chocolate was also good but it was heavier than the other two flavors.
This homemade ice cream is not the same texture or consistency of store bought/churned ice cream. It’s more mousse-like in consistency and has a different melting point but it’s wonderful that you can create any flavor you want! I think our main issue with this homemade recipe is sweetness. One of the primary ingredients is Sweetened Condensed milk so the ice cream is innately sweet. On Saturday morning I used less, but still… it’s a lot of sweetness. Delicious but yeah sugar coma is real.
I’ll be adding the recipe in another post soon (this post is long enough already!) so we’ll keep you updated!
Of all the ice creams we tasted, my absolute favorites were the Ben & Jerry’s new chocolate flavors. Baros’ favorites were the Talenti and Magnum.
What are your favorite ice cream flavors and brands? What would you recommend we try whenever we do our next ice cream taste test?
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