Perry's Parkerhouse Cherry Ice Cream

Time to cover the last of the 100th year classics that Perry sent over to me awhile back. The first three have been a mixed bag, so let's see what this simple sounding flavor has in store...

Perry's Parkerhouse Cherry Ice Cream

Amaretto Ice Cream with Maraschino Cherries

Essenti Brownie Sandwiches

I love a classic ice cream sandwich and a tick above that is the mighty ice cream cookie sandwich, but is that the ultimate sandwich style treat? Iunno, because I do love.... brownie ice cream sandwiches and oh was I shocked to see a giant box of them at market basket. I sprinted across the double wide aisle over to the end cap and quickly grabbed a box for the house. I didn't even look at the price because I knew I had to have...

Essenti Brownie Sandwiches

vanilla ice cream surrounded by two rich chocolate brownies

Rolo Frozen Dairy Dessert Sandwiches

[New for 2018] Like Nestle (Edys/Dreyers) rebranding last year's candy flavors after the actual candies that inspired them, I was thinking that the two new rolo treats were just gimmicks, especially since frozen dairy dessert is involved. But guess what? If it's a gimmick, it's a tasty gimmick, at least when it comes to....

Rolo Frozen Dairy Dessert Sandwiches

ROLO caramel swirled into caramel frozen dairy dessert
and sandwiched between two soft chocolate cookies

Brown Cow Yogurt

So how many of you have noticed that the terribly named "Oh My Yog!" isn't on store shelves anymore? I did because it was pretty much my favorite yogurt of all time (except maybe Columbo's Smurf yogurt). I have no interest in the greek or tangy yogurts out there, though I will eat them on occasion (I'm looking at you Chobani Flipz). I want sweet yogurt and oh is it hard to come by nowadays. The good news is that while Stonyfield may have cancelled Oh My Yog!, they did put something else in it's place.

Brown Cow Whole Milk Yogurt

Blue Bunny Chocolate Hazelnut Bunny Snacks

[New for 2018, Discontinued] So you probably remember that Blue Bunny sent over a bunch of free samples. The cinnamon cereal cones were great, but let's break in to the new bunny snacks. I've already picked up the brownie ones on my own, so let's take a crack at....

Blue Bunny Chocolate Hazelnut Bunny Snacks

chocolate hazelnut flavored reduced fat ice cream with a hazelnut fudge ribbon
dipped in chocolaty coating and hazel pieces drizzled with chocolaty coating7

Perry's Heavenly Hash Ice cream

[Returning for 2018] I still have two more free samples of Perry's 100th year classics to try. Now a long time ago, I did a post about the difference between Rocky Road and Heavenly Hash because they are quite similar and I would always confuse the two. Basically HH has chocolate chips and RR does not. Simple enough right? Ok, knowing that, let's dive in to...

Perry's Heavenly Hash Ice cream

chocolate and marshmallow swirled ice cream
with Swiss chips and roasted almonds

Edy's Triple-FIlled Chocolate Fudge Cores Ice Cream

[2018-2020] Are you ready for another Edy's core review? Recently super shopper @candyhunting found a fifth core flavor at dollar general. That flavor rocks a strawberry base and for some reason rocks the brown packaging instead of the yellow slow-churned packaging, but no matter, because that's not what we are covering today. Instead we have the one that tries to lure us in with the thought of cookies & cream (& lots of fudge).

Edy's Triple-Filled Chocolate Fudge Cores Ice Cream

chocolate fudge cores with swirled cookies & cream and chocolate light ice creams

Outshine Strawberry Yogurt & Granola

[New for 2018] You know the best part about today's review? it was on sale.... to be specific, the three bucks I plopped down is pretty much the most you would want to pay for this, and even then, it might be a bit much. Let's take a look at....

Outshine Strawberry Yogurt & Granola

Haagen-Dazs Vanilla & Caramel Trio Ice Cream

[2018-2020] I am shocked at how long I've managed to hold off on trying this free sample. I'm a big fan of Haagen-Dazs and I do appreciate the novelty of the Trio lineup. I would definitely pick up a Trio over a Magnum pint if for nothing more than the quality of the ice cream. Magnum might have a little more chocolate pop and #funfactor to go with it, but Trio is a better quality product. If you prefer a much lighter ice cream as the backdrop of your chocolate layers, hey, that's your choice, but this is what I prefer.

Haagen-Dazs Vanilla & Caramel Trio Ice Cream

vanilla and caramel ice creams swirled with white chocolate and caramel sauce

High Road Malt Shop Sundae Ice Cream

[By Nick] 6 years, I’ve been writing about ice cream for 6 years. Sure, it’s not in the same capacity as I used to but it’s still astonishing to say the least. Without Dubba, none of this would’ve even been possible. I went from some kid talking to him daily about new products on the market to (in my eyes) one of his best friends (or annoyances). Of course without you all, this site wouldn’t have even existed in the first place. So thank you all for your continued support not just for me but for Dubba, On Second Scoop and the frozen dessert world as a whole.

Recently High Road sent me a care package out of the blue with a bunch of their new products. I’ll never complain about free ice cream. Sadly, half the container died in transit. Thankfully, the one flavor that stood out the most to me survived the trek.

High Road Malt Shop Sundae Ice Cream

Malted Sweet Cream, Jammy Cherries, Praline Peanuts, Caramel Fudge

Blue Bunny Cinnamon Cereal Mini Swirls

[2018 only] Hey, guess which company has a new PR person? Wells! aka our old friends at Blue Bunny are finally are friends again. It was weird to finally get an email from Wells again since the last rep had zero interest in talking to me ever. The original rep I first dealt with was great with samples and answering questions and hopefully we can get back to that again. Ok, you probably don't care about that, what you do care about is what's new and for that we've got free samples of the two new mini swirls and the four new bunny snacks. Of all the new Blue Bunny stuff, nay of all the new stuff in general this year, this one was easily near the top of my to-do list:

Blue Bunny Cinnamon Cereal Mini Swirls

cinnamon cereal flavored reduced fat ice cream dipped in a vanilla flavored coating
topped with cinnamon cereal pieces all inside a cinnamon cone

On Second Scoop through the years

Somebody was pointing out the new blog header image the other day and I thought "hey, I should recap those for the ten year anniversary!"  Let's see what I can dig up from my archives!

If you remember this, I am very impressed.

(click on all the images for larger views)

2nd & 3rd year
I forgot about the original font, I think I kind of miss it.
This graphic sat on top of a lot of different background themes.

4th year
I've been eating Talenti for awhile now hehehe.


5th year
Duff Goldman has actually responded to me a few times on Twitter :)


6th year
There's also a version of this with Cuatro Leches instead of Flan


7th year
I started updating the header throughout the year as new stuff came out


8th year
How time flies...


9th year
And the one I recently replaced.

2018 marks the first time that I used all the ice cream in my freezer to create the header. I'm still not positive that I love it, but nothing says that I can't change it in a few months. I have a totally different theme that I would like to roll out, and looking at this list, I think it's way over due.

Ok, I hope you had a laugh at this. Good night!

State of the Freezer Address The First Decade Edition

That's right folks, it's the 10th anniversary of my very first blog post. Ten years! That's nuts.... no, apparently I'm nuts for hanging around this long. I don't think I planned on still being here ten years later... in part because I thought I'd be some famous flavor guru consultant by now. As you can tell, I am not, but we all need to have dreams. That was mine. It's long gone now. Wow, that went downhill fast. I just mean that I've accepted my fate that while I may be the world's longest running ice cream archiver, there won't be any fame or fortune going with it. I wouldn't know how to handle fame anyway, though I guess I did work up the courage to be on an awesome podcast for four and a half years, so that's gotta be something for someone with social anxiety right? Ok, enough of this, on to the positives, but first, a little freezer talk.

This is the boring upstairs freezer. Not super boring mind you, but this houses our regular ice creams and whatever is currently being reviewed on the blog like chocolate churro (bleck) and some new gelato fiasco. The Trio and Blue Bunny mini swirls will be up next probably. This picture is accurate except for the Friendly's ice cream cake ice cream that my daughter brought up from the basement freezer afterwards (yup, it's back for another year)

And now happy stuff: so what have I accomplished in ten years? Well, blogging says I'm approaching ten million page views, that's something right? Ofcourse, I think that factors in web browsers pre-fetching webpages. Google Analytics has the blog pegged at just 5.1 million actual page views. The top review of that time? Possibly my favorite Ben & Jerry's flavor, the mighty Milk & Cookies with 24,000 page views. That's not the coolest part about that though. I've met John the flavor guru who created M&C and he told me that he had read the review. I was honored to say the least. He's pretty great and meeting him and the rest of the Ben & Jerry's crew was definitely one of the high points of this blog in the last ten years.

You might remember that one of my main goals for starting this blog (besides eating more ice cream) was to become a better writer. As you may have noticed, that never happened. You might even argue that I've gotten worse. I meant well, I swear. What has improved are my pictures skills. Just look at my instagram account or my old breakfast sundaes tumblr project and I like to think I can take a decently appetizing photo. Not every shot is a winner mind you because I can get impatient (or nervous), but yeah, I love taking pictures. No urge to be in front of the camera, but you'd probably be surprised about how much time I spend thinking about how wonderous something looks. Uggg, I'm getting tired and losing my ability to make points. I guess I should apologize that a lot of the photos on the blog have been a bit off recently. While cell phone cameras have gotten so much better over the years, they can't completely take the place of  my primary camera whose lens died awhile ago. I did pick up a cheap telephoto lens to verify that the camera still works (and can still be fun from a distance aka outside basically), but it has limited abilities in the world of ice cream pictures. If anyone wants to sponsor a new E-PL9 for the blog, let me know (sorry, couldn't resist, and like I said earlier, everyone needs dreams).

We should probably dive in to the basement freezer where all the good stuff is right? The problem is that it's chock full of stuff and I am feeling lazy (it's now 10pm). Oh, that's another thing to point out, or maybe, something I don't want to point out. Who knows how many countless hours I've spent cataloging the freezer aisle. It's a fun hobby that not a whole lot of people understand (present company excluded ofcourse). I can't believe I've written 1454 reviews. If you did one review a day, it would take you four years to hit that number. Wait, does that make my ten years seem less impressive? hehehehe. Ok, hold on, let me spend a few minutes getting the basement freezer ready. I do need to sleep at some point (I am a decade older than when I started).

Ok, that didn't actually take as long as expected, probably in part because it's more Eggo boxes and frozen corn than I expected. You'll hear about it in the next review, but Blue Bunny likes me again! (those are all free samples you see). I've also got a new banana based ice cream for my son to try as well as the return of Steve's ice cream (Dean Foods rescued them last summer). Actually this picture technically makes me feel bad because I still havent reviewed the mini a la mode cups they sent over to sample awhile ago (my apologies to them).

To recap, I still love ice cream, I love taking pictures, and I am very grateful for all of you for hanging out here at the blog. I know the way people interface with the internet (and each other) is always changing, but I will do my best to keep this giant archive going. Be well and I'll see you later!


P.S. I forgot to add a thanks to all the companies that have sent samples over the last year. Perry's and Gelato Fiasco continue to be good to the blog. I'm happy that Blue Bunny is back to sending stuff. I actually got Haagen-Dazs samples for the first time which was cool. Who else? Cool Haus, Isaly's and Revele all hooked me up with samples. A La Mode sent a ton of stuff after I bought a store damaged box of their bars. I also got a stack of coupons for Solero and Slim Twin (which I might giveaway) as well as a pair of coupons from Graeters. There were a couple other companies offering stuff like Breyers Delights (I politely declined due to my troubles with sugar replacements). I'm not bragging here, just very glad that some companies see the value of keeping this blog in the loop. --- Disclaimer: Nick got a big box of High Road Creamery stuff but I can't guarantee any timely reviews on it.

Ben & Jerry’s Glampfire Trail Mix Ice Cream

[By Nick, New for 2018, Target Exclusive] I sent Dubba these photos a couple of months ago when this flavor was first released. I was one of the first to find it and was so excited to be one of the first to review it. I definitely dropped the ball on this one. Ahhh life, what can you do? Better late than never, I suppose. So let’s skip the jokes about glamping and go straight into the review.

Ben & Jerry’s Glampfire Trail Mix Ice Cream

Chocolate Ice Cream with Crunchy Pretzel Swirls,
Marshmallow Swirls & Fudge Covered Almonds

Hood Chocolate Churro Ice Cream

[New for 2018] For the most part, most of 2018 ice cream lineup has come out by now and all that's left is waiting for this or that to finally hit your local store shelf. While I keep an eye out on sales of what I haven't covered yet, there's still an opportunity to grab the occasional limited edition flavor here and there. I feel like new limited stuff doesn't quite hit us as much as it used to, but then good ol' budget friendly Hood throws us a flavor from way out in left field.

Hood Chocolate Churro Ice Cream

dark chocolate flavored reduced fat ice cream
with a cinnamon crumble swirl

Ben & Jerry's Tonight Dough Pint Slice

[New for 2018, Discontinued] There are three new pint slices this year and one in particular has my attention because it means an excuse to give the Tonight Dough another shot. Now the fact that there are three new pint slices this year might imply that these new treats did pretty well last year. I say might because B&J's isn't know for cycling in a product for just one year. It's more like the lineup would grow, then stagnate, and then fade away. Marketing lesson aside, let's dig in to....

Ben & Jerry's The Tonight Dough Pint Slice

caramel ice cream bars with chocolate cookie swirls
 & gobs of peanut butter chocolate chip cookie dough,
covered in a dark chocolatey coating with cookie crumbs