Saturday, May 1, 2010

Breyers Smooth & Dreamy
Rocky Road Ice Cream


2012 Update: This may have happened last year, but Smooth & Dreamy Rocky Road is no more. I can't say I am sorry to see it go, but on the other hand, I would have rather seen them fix it.

Ever since I first met smooth & dreamy, there's always been one flavor that's evaded my grasp. I've mentioned that I shop at around 12 different places for this blog, but for some weird reason, none of them had ever ordered Rocky Road....

Success! After 13 long months of searching, I finally found Breyer's Smooth & Dreamy All Natural Extra Creamy Rocky Road Light Ice Cream which is Chocolate light ice cream with marshmallow swirl and chocolatey covered almonds. Hehhehehe, did I get all the descriptions in there? It was just dumb luck that I found this little guy hiding in a Super Stop & Shop at lunchtime. I was tempted to leave it there (I try not to buy cold & frozen things during my lunch break), but I just couldn't resist. This is the most elusive smooth & dreamy flavor there is. It would just be wrong to let it go.

When I first opened the container, I was shocked by the three large streaks of marshmallow across the top (sorry, no picture). Above is what is scooped about an inch down. Even now, I'm still surprised by the amount of marshmallow floating around here. There's also a fair number of almond bits hanging around. This is possible because rather than coating the whole almond, they've broken up the almonds and then coated them with chocolate. The individual crunch may be smaller, but overall it's more plentiful and I think I actually prefer this approach.

As I'm driving back to work (and painfully waiting at every red light), I make the command decision that I need to try this when I get back to the office. Rocky Road will always be one of my very favorite ice creams and I just can't stand to wait any longer! When I got back to my desk, I opened the container, saw the massive marshmallow streaks before me, and dug in.....

That first scoopful, that first bite, that first taste  ...was all it took to remind me that somewhere along the road Breyers totally messed up their all natural marshmallow swirl. Oh man am I bummed. All this waiting just for this. I just don't get it. It's an all natural swirl, so why does it taste so cheap and artificial? Oh this bugs me to no end. This would be a perfectly acceptable low fat ice cream if it wasn't for that annoying faux artificial taste that permeates every bite.

Am I crazy? Maybe, but having eating hundreds of gallons of Breyers Rocky Road as a kid. I just don't understand and it makes me sad. Sure, I'll still finish the container, it's not so awful that I'll waste. The base ice cream is a low fat churned style with a decent milk chocolate taste and so it's still a refreshing treat. It's cold, it's got some crunch to keep it interesting, and I'm thinking it's probably decent served in a cone. I just think it could be so much better.

Other Smooth & Dreamy Reviews:
Strawberry Cheesecake -- Chocolate Chocolate Chip -- Vanilla Chocolate Strawberry

On Second Scoop: I really really really want to like this flavor, and it's not awful, but it just isn't as good as it could be. Even in a cone, it's still just a sad version of it's former self --- Note: I may never forgive Breyers for messing with their Rocky Road.

4 comments:

  1. Sorry the marshmellows didn't taste great. I hate being let down by ice cream too. Maybe you can write into them and give them some suggestions?

    ReplyDelete
  2. As I've been looking over the last few reviews, it seems as though you've come across a lot mediocre ice cream treats ..

    Even a few Ben and Jerry's and Haagen Dazs (Sp?) seem to have more than a few "meh" taste-treats.

    And Ice Cream is priced as such that sometimes you have to be committed to the purchase.

    So I got to wondering, "why would that be?" -- can't be the milk-cream part - Sure they can skimp on it, but dairy flavor is dairy flavor

    So it must be cost cutting of production practices and/or using cheap flavorings ..

    both of which show a bad trend --

    So far I've staid with Trader Joe's Ice Cream - but they only have 3 flavors; French Vanilla, chocolate and Coffee.

    But at least I can say they are tasty and they don't challenge the food budget too much.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ever since Breyer's was sold to Jack and Jill the ice cream has gone down hill. It has seriously deteriorated since bought up by Unilever - the Dutch multinational. It is now crap: they use all sorts of unnatural ingredients and call it natural; they don't even fill up their containers so they are literally stealing from the customer.
    When you open a 1.5 liter container, notice that there is a beveled edge that is unfilled. Over the course of millions of containers, Unilever is embezzling a lot of money from its customers.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I just tried this ice cream and it's the worst rocky road I have ever tasted. I wanted it to be good because I love rocky road. It's my favorite flavor of ice cream--I've loved it since I was a kid--and I've tried nearly every brand. This one came into my possession by accident and so I thought it would only be fair to give it a try. I could only take one bite. It doesn't even taste like chocolate. I don't know what it tastes like. Cheapness. I'm very disappointed. So disappointed that I wanted to review it on amazon.com, but they only sell Edy's rocky road (probably the best rocky road I can get in Tennessee grocery stores).

    One thing that gets me is, why marshmallow swirl? Why not real marshmallows?

    ReplyDelete

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