Treat of the Week: Skinny Cow Low Fat Ice Cream Sandwiches Part I: Vanilla

Part 1: The vanilla kind, fresh from BJs. I was so hungry, I popped the box open in the parking lot and grabbed one for the ride home. I was excited, nothing like a frozen 'appetizer' before dinner. It tastes like ...those cheap little mini cupcakes you get from the supermarket, except they're frozen. Wow. I can't believe how thoroughly disappointed I am right now. I've gotten so use to the fudgcicles that I was expecting another winner. Oh well, not all treats are truly "treats".

Nutrition: 140/15/3/4

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip from Uhlman's

Call it a brain lapse, but when I saw the name on the flavor board, I was expecting Chocolate Ice Cream with those little peanut butter chips you can buy. Instead, I got chocolate ice cream with peanut butter swirl and chocolate chips scattered throughout. The chocolate ice cream was good as always. The dry, quality peanut butter kind of reminded me of Turkey Hill's Chocolate Peanut Butter ice cream. The chocolate chips didn't really add anything, but luckily they were scattered and not over abundant (like in the Black Raspberry Chip). Chocolate to peanut butter ratio is good, but expect a chocolately peanut butter flavor, not a reese's peanut butter cup flavor.

Edy's Fun Flavor Cherry Chocolate Chip A Frozen Dairy Dessert Review

I have mentioned in the past that I have tried this flavor, but it was on sale this week, so I bought my wife a fresh container with thoughts of giving it a second scoop review. Now, the cherry chunks are bothering me, but overall, this is a respectable ice cream. The cherry ice cream is fairly mild in flavor, but has a very pleasant fluffy texture to it. Wait, oh geez, it's another flavor they are calling a "frozen dairy dessert". I may have to change the blog name if this keeps up. Anyway, that explains the texture, and in this case, I think it works for the cherry flavor. The chocolate chips are average and don't really add much, expect maybe some crunch. To be honest, I think I'm actually enjoying it a little bit ...while I'm avoid the cherry chunks anyway. So, if you love cherries, check this out, otherwise, well, it's up to you!

Nutrition: 130 / 45 / 0 / 1

Treat of the Week: Friendly's Ice Cream Cake

Ok, if you want to get technical, Ice Cream Cake was already a treat of the week back in may, but that was a Carvel Ice Cream Cake. We we're at a birthday party at Davis Farmland today. While the kids we're busy decorating their own cupcakes, the well prepared host parents brought a nice Friendly's Ice Cream cake for the adults. Like I've said before, how can you beat ice cream cake? Sure, you might get lucky and get a great store bought cake, but there are no guarantees, and I've eaten way too many bad cakes. With an ice cream cake, you know exactly what to expect, every time! Technically, the cake was a bit to big, but me and several other dads did our best to help out by going for a second helping. I do love ice cream cake!

Breyer's OVERLOAD! Brownie Mud Pie A Frozen Dairy Dessert Review

Breyer's Brownie Mud Pie OVERLOAD!

chocolate frozen dairy dessert with brownies,

chocolatey covered almonds and a caramel swirl

To smush or not to smush...

I guess smushing relates to the bigger question, how do you eat your ice cream? I figure there are a few levels of meltedness to eat your ice cream:

1. Right out of the container - beware of brain freeze!
   
2. In a bowl - freshly scooped
   
3. In a bowl - that has melted just a bit to facilitate spooning
4. In a bowl - very melted, or smushed together, so as to be more like a milkshake

Ya know, I wonder if its a generational thing. As I've mentioned before, I'm not that old, but I did grow up in the time of very few flavors. It wasn't until my later teen years that I started seeing all kinds of fun flavors. Actually, I was in college when all the fun really started. Anyway, my point being, if you grew up with 31 flavors instead of 3, I'm guessing the urge to smush isn't really there since there is no need for it.

So, as a kid, you had to spice up your own flavors. You could either put your fixings on top, or smush them in. I even remember my mom buying me a hand held blender so I could make milkshakes whenever I wanted. Man, I loved that thing.

Anyway, nothing brings me back to my childhood addiction more than some classic All Natural Breyer's. In this case, it's their very tasty chocolate ice cream. Even now, decades later, I still can't help but let my classic Breyer's get soft and smush it into a tasty paste. If you want to be really crazy, you can always dip some fresh pretzels into the paste, mmmm, fantastic stuff.

Their Vanilla/Chocolate/Strawberry also takes me way back. Notice I didn't say Neapolitan, I mean, I didn't even know what Neapolitan was because Breyer's was pretty much the only thing we ate and they didn't call it by that name.

Side note: How is smush not in my Firefox spelling dictionary?

Nutrition: 140 / 60-4.5 / 1 / 2

Who doesn't want an ice cream calendar?

update: not sure if they are still available, but call Turkey Hill's customer service department at 1-800-MY-DAIRY to see if you can still get your free 2009 calendar.

Black Raspberry Chip Ice cream from Uhlman's

July is a special month around of house, so we decided to go out for dinner ...but then there is no room for ice cream afterwards. Hmmm, what to do? Ahhh, forget dinner, let's just go for ice cream! Time for the family to try my favorite new spot.

Now before we went out, I already knew what I wanted to try: Uhlman's take on a personal favorite, Black Raspberry. But wait, this is the ice cream blog, it's all about expanding our horizons and appreciation for ice cream. So, after some preliminary debate, I decided I would aim to review the Black Raspberry Chip when we got there. (OK, technically I have tried Breyer's version of this, but we all know what I think of that).

Ok, so we headed to Uhlman's and I went with the black raspberry chip. In retrospect, should have went with the Original, the one, the only, plain old yet perfect Black Raspberry. It was the usual, high quality Uhlman's ice cream, but there were just too many chips. The black raspberry flavor was totally buried by the tasty chips. To be honest, even if they had been smaller chips, and much fewer, I still don't think I would have approved. Black Raspberry is meant to be served one way, plain.

So, while I'm sure there are lovers of this flavor, I will not be one of them. In retrospect, I should have taken the advice of my trusted adviser and not messed with the sanctity of black raspberry. Live and learn!

If you are curious, my wife was pleased with the Chocolate Raspberry Truffle and agreed with my previous thoughts on it. Our daughter went with the hot fudge chocolate sundae, though after seeing all the chocolate chips in my ice cream, she said she wants to try the BR Chip next time.

Turkey Hill Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream

There's always been something different about Turkey Hill's version of cookie dough. It's just something that sets it apart, something I can't quite put my finger on ...literally ...I mean, it's all gone, I can't put my finger on something that's been eaten (ok, technically I could, but let's not go down that road)
For the longest time, I just assumed it was the cookie dough that gave Turkey Hill that unique flavor. But, like so many other great flavors, I took it for granted without stopping ...to read the label: "Brown sugar and molasses flavored ice cream swirled with chewy cookie dough and dark chocolate chips." Wow, I've just assumed that everyone mixes cookie dough with vanilla and that's that. Instead, they try and take it up a notch. Now, if you eat just the ice cream without a cookie dough chunk in it, the flavor is VERY mild, almost none existent, but throw in a CD chunk, and all of a sudden you are in a whole new place. I'm sorry to say I can't describe it exactly, but if you love cookie dough, you need to give Turkey Hill's a try.

Nutrition: 160/70/0/2

Heath Crunch Ice Cream from Uhlman's

Before heading out for your lunchtime ice cream, please follow these simple instructions:

1. Check your wallet for ice cream funds
2. Travel to your favorite ice cream destination

Now, doing this in the wrong order is a bad idea, especially if you just finished putting all your quarters in your wife's car so she has money to park. Since going to the bank was on the other side of the city, I had to pay for my ice cream lunch with a one dollar bill, 27 dimes, and a nickel.

Being starved and feeling silly with a hand full of dimes, my last minute decision went with Heath Crunch ice cream. As always, I was not disappointed. As I mentioned in my review of Breyer's Heath English Toffee, there is the danger of getting too much of a good thing. Luckily, the mastermind behind Uhlman's was careful and nailed the flavor right on the money. It's a nice mild ice cream with the perfect blend of heath chunks throughout. They didn't bother messing with a caramel swirl and I fully support that decision. Great job Uhlman's!

Turkey Hill Moose Tracks Light Ice Cream Review

So I've tried Breyer's double churned. I've tried Edy's slow-churned. Time to try Turkey Hill's cold-churned. For all we know, these all mean the same thing, but let's dig in & see what's up.
Ok, initial impressions are good with Chocolate Nutty Moose Tracks. It describes itself as Chocolate light ice cream with choco peanuts, peanut butter cups, and Moose Tracks® fudge. Let's be clear though, there are 2 tastes hitting the old tastes buds. The first is a respectable light chocolate ice cream. The second one is the moose tracks fudge, which has a distinct dark chocolate flair to it. Oooo, I do enjoy the dark chocolate and this flavor is winning me over. Yeah, I was only going to try a couple bites, but I've stumbled into a treasure trove of tasty tracks. On the down side, I think I've only hit one or two peanuts and pb cup pieces so far and there is a decent size whole in this fresh container of ice cream.

On Second Scoop: Dug into another section of this ice cream. Tried to pay more attention to the very small and thin peanut butter cups, which I did find more often. The choco-peanuts still escape me, I only got one cluster (though it was a tasty cluster). The dark chocolate overtones weren't as noticeable the second time around. While this is a tasty flavor, I'm thinking it suffers a bit from bad scattering of the tasty add-ins.

Nutrition: 140 / 50-2 / 2 / 3

Treat of the Week: Friendly's Reese's Pieces Sundae

We were more than happy to accept my mom-in-law's offer to treat us to Friendly's a few weeks ago (sorry for the delayed post). I've always enjoyed a tasty treat from Friendly's, though we don't stop as much as we probably should ...maybe because their regular food is just awful, but anyway.

There were so many choices, including the forbidden fudge brownie sundae (but would the brownie chunks be fresh?). I decided to go with my old friend the Reese's Pieces Sundae, my only regret was going with the smaller 3 scoop sundae instead of the 5 scoop (pictured above). I say this because while my sundae was full of tasty swirls of fudge and peanut butter, there seemed to be a lack of ice cream to mix it with, maybe a 'scoop' has shrunk like everything else. Seemed like at least the top 1/3 was all whip cream. I had to dig way down to get to the vanilla ice cream underneath. Don't get me wrong, it was very tasty, but I ran out of ice cream long before I ran out of toppings. I wound up pouring in the last bit of my wife's chocolate milkshake into my dish so I could salvage the remaining toppings. The good news is then I got to also taste the sundae with chocolate ice cream for comparison with the vanilla. Either way is good, though I think next time we stop I will go with the chocolate ice cream to be different.

On a side note: my daughter was more than happy to try the new Create your own Sundae. What kid doesn't love playing with 3 little bowls of toppings to spread over a big bowl of ice cream? We all left content (and full) with our choices.

Edy's Loaded Chocolate Fudge Brownie

Unfortunately the Loaded line was discontinued, 
though it's spirit lives on in the pint sized MAXX flavors
check out the MAXX chocolate fudge brownie review here

As a rule of thumb, we avoid sugar substitutes is our house, in particular Sucralose (Splenda). We're not 100% organic eaters or anything, but I've -never- liked Sucralose. Edy's Loaded actually uses Sorbitol, a sugar alcohol, and technically it's not artificial ...it just happens to be a laxative if you eat to much. Ok, where in the Sam Hill am I going with this?

Back to the beginning. We were at a birthday bash a few weeks ago, and being non drinkers, we did not partake in the adult beverages to help cool us down. No worries, my buddy planned ahead and stocked up the freezer with some tasty Edy's Loaded ice cream. I was more than happy to crack open a fresh container of Chocolate Fudge Brownie while my wife dug into the Cookies N' Cream. Mmmm, the fresh ice cream hit the spot on a warm summer night. Loaded has visited our freezer before and it is always tasty (not 100% sure I've tried them all). The only real downside is that the ingredient list is kind of extensive, not that the double churn flavors aren't the same way. So, if you need a tasty treat and you don't mind all the 'extra' ingredients, pick up a container of Loaded.

Nutrition: 120/35/1/3

Chocolate Raspberry Truffle from Uhlman's

No leftovers for lunch today ...time for a field trip to my home away from home, Uhlman's. It's hot outside, but there is a cool breeze over by Uhlman's as I dig into some Chocolate Raspberry Truffle ice cream. The base is Uhlman's fantastic chocolate flavored ice cream. Mixed in is a wonderful swirl of raspberry, not to tart, not to sweet. To earn the truffle name, there are some chocolate bits mixed in throughout the ice cream, though they are hard to describe. They aren't chocolate chips, not quite brownie bits, but somewhere in between. The important part is they are very tasty. Overall, another great flavor to review. My only mild complaint is that I wonder if it could use just a smidge more raspberry swirl. I was really enjoying the chocolate and raspberry mix, but hey, it's a swirl, not every bite can be the perfect ratio. When you don't get enough raspberry, you still get a big taste of delicious chocolate!

on second scoop: My wife is a big fan of any chocolate and raspberry combo, so she decided to give this flavor a try. Overall, she agrees that this is top notch ice cream, BUT she also agrees that the raspberry swirl just isn't consistently prevalent enough.

Dubba's Rice Krispy Treat Ice Cream

It's the weekend, time to make some ice cream. For some reason (maybe it was the marshmallow swirl in the last review), I got an idea, rice krispy treats are made with marshmallow, I wonder if I could I make a rice krispy treat ice cream.

Dubba's Rice Krispy Treat Ice Cream

1.5 Cups of whole milk

1 cup of half & half

1/2 cup of confectionary sugar

(still out of regular sugar)

1 teaspoon of vanilla

2 big globs of marshmallow fluff

1(?) cup of frosted rice krispies

Didn't add the rice krispies until almost the end, so they did manage to stay respectably crunchy. They are also the frosted kind, so they tend to last a little bit longer anyway. I also tried to add in an additional glob of marshmallow fluff along the way ...technically it did mix in eventually. Overall, it came out pretty good. Pretty much tastes like a vanilla frosty with rice krispies mixed it. the marshmallow flavor didn't really come through ...hmmm, doing research:

From the marshmallow fluff website: How do you make ice cream topping?
"Place a small quantity of Fluff in a bowl, then slowly add warm water while mixing with a fork. Or, place 4 heaping tablespoons of Fluff and 3 tablespoons of water in a microwave-safe container, then microwave on high for 15 seconds. Remove and stir."

Ahhhh! So that's how you prepare marshmallow fluff. Ok, so, I still think the flavor of marshmallow is the way to go. I also still haven't mastered getting to the right ice cream texture, but, that's what practice is for (gonna take percentage of milk down a bit further next time)

What is Heavenly Hash?

No No, not that hash ...Heavenly Hash Ice Cream. I don't think I've ever had Heavenly Hash ...or have I? Hmmmmm. Off to the Internet I went in search of the answer. You would think I would get 3 million hits, but I didn't, just a few stragglers. From what I could tell, Heavenly Hash is just Rocky Road with chocolate chips. Time to verify this with a little help from my friends down at Uhlman's.

Oh yeah, that makes 3 for 3. My delicious sugar cone of Heavenly Hash was (almost) as I expected. A Fantastic chocolate, a well circulating marshmallow swirl, a few scattered almonds, and delicious huge chips of chocolate. How can this place make so many tasty flavors? The only thing that threw me for a loop was the use of the big fat almonds. I'm use to little wussy almonds that you just get a hint of, but these were big mighty almonds. I don't know if that counts as a complaint. I just wasn't prepared. As always, I enjoyed every bite, and now we know the difference between Rocky Road and Heavenly Hash.

Dubba's Butterscotch Cookies & Creme Ice Cream

"In 1984, President Ronald Reagan designated July as National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of the month as National Ice Cream Day. He recognized ice cream as a fun and nutritious food that is enjoyed by a full 90% of the nation's population. In the proclamation, President Reagan called for all people of the United States to observe these events with "appropriate ceremonies and activities."

To celebrate this, the first day of Ice Cream month, it seemed appropriate to take a second crack at making some ice cream. I'm happy to report the results came out much better ...yes, cream makes a huge difference. Now, in the back of the Cuisinart Ice-20 cookbook, it mentions fudgsicles using instant pudding and low fat milk. Well, what if i mix that pudding with the regular ingredients? Time to play!

Dubba's Butterscotch Cookies & Creme Ice Cream

1.5 Cups of Whole Milk

1 Cup of Half & Half

1/2 Cup of Raw Cane Sugar

(I used up the regular sugar last time I played)

3/4 package of Instant Butterscotch Jello

5 smashed Oreos

Start the mixer, pour in the ingredients and let it rip. After about five minutes I mixed in half of my Oreos. Waited about five more minutes and mixed in the rest. Now I did cheat and add a smidge of Nesquik. It was an attempt to mellow the butterscotch just a little (I actually used about 7/8 of a package of instant jello, it was too much). The nesquik also gives it more of brown color from the original orange-tan color.

So, the verdict? Really Good! At this point, I'm thinking cookies & creme can be mixed with pretty much anything: Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry ...and now Butterscotch! The instant pudding is definitely an interesting choice and adds a bit of smooth texture to the whole thing. Good stuff! So happy Ice Cream Month everybody! Don't forget, Sunday, July 20th is national ice cream day!

The first Blue Bunny Ice Cream Review

Dubba's Note: Hi! If you've stumbled across this post, keep in mind that the blog was just two months old and this was the VERY FIRST Blue Bunny ice cream I had ever tried. I was not prepared for how different they make their ice cream. I have since come to love blue bunny, but I leave this up for historical purposes.

 
yeah, blue bunny has not gone over well in our ice cream filled household. We have a super Walmart about 5 minutes from our house (which is good considering the nearest grocery store is 12 minutes away). So every time I go food shopping, I walk by "Blue Bunny Ice Cream". It's the same price as Breyer's ($3), so sooner or later I had to try it. My wife had recently finished up her Breyer's Cookie Dough, so now seemed like a good time to try Blue Bunny's Super Chunky Cookie Dough Premium Ice Cream.

It started off ok. I pulled the well frozen container from freezer and dug in with my spoon. Initial impressions were fine. In fact, I think it reminded me of Turkey Hill cookie dough. I put a small serving in a cup for my daughter, and she approved of course, since she always does. Then I scooped my wife a bowl, but it was a few minutes before she grabbed it. Then I put it back in the freezer. She takes a bite of her ice cream, which has now melted a smidge, and is immediately put off. She tries a few more bites and goes "This tastes like garbage smells". That's a pretty rough comment for someone who loves ice cream and would consider cookie dough her #2 favorite flavor (behind cherry garcia). She finished the small bowl to be fair, but she is all done with Blue Bunny, I'm stuck with it now. With this development, I pull it back out of the freezer and it's still in the slightly melted state. I take a few bites, really trying to analyze it. The consistency has changed and it tastes like butter ...and I don't mean that in a good way. I check the ingredients and sure enough, BUTTER is an ingredient! Oh ....ewww, yeah, she's right, melted, the presentation of taste and texture is much worse. I've never seen that happen before. It's gotta be the butter (and buttermilk), which it looks like they put in a lot of their flavors.

Spoons down on Blue Bunny. May you never visit our freezer again.