Breyer's A&W Root Beer Float

UPDATE - June 2009 - Breyer's A&W Root Beer Float has been discontinued.

Breyer's A&W Root Beer Float

Vanilla ice cream with a A&W Root Beer flavored Sherbet Swirl

I hate to say it, but I knew this was a mistake from the very first taste. I like root beer (though it's been awhile), and I love ice cream, but this just doesn't work for me. You're probably asking why I bothered buying it in the first place. I was trying to be open minded when I picked this up, but I just can't get over that soda feel to the whole thing. Yes, I should have expected it, that's the whole point of this flavor. I just expected something more mellow I guess. Wow, am I making any sense whatsoever?

I actually tried to cover up the flavor with Nesquik, but it wasn't strong enough. I tried to add some more Nesquik, and a hint of strawberry, but that was even worse. Ya know, it almost had a coffee flavor to it after that. Yeah, into the sink it goes. Sorry. I'm sure this is good to float lovers, but it's just not for me.

Nutrition: 130/40/0/2

Walgreens Rocky Road Ice Cream

Wow, making a lunch run to Walgreens was a lot more dangerous than I imagined, and I'm not talking about the "foolish person" who stopped in the entrance to decide which side of the parking lot to park in.

Walgreens Rocky Road Ice Cream

Chocolate Ice Cream with Mini Marshmallows and Almonds

Attempting Grape Sherbet

My daughter enjoyed the Hola Fruta! so she thought we should try making our own sherbet this week. We went to Walmart to pick a juice concentrate to mix with the milk for the sherbet. I should know better by now, but she went by color, so we wound up going with Welch's concord grape concentrate = the purple container.

Dubba's Grape Sherbet

The base was originally 1 cup of grape concentrate, 2.5 cups of 2% milk, and 1/2 cup of half & half to make up for the missing fat from the 2% milk. The flavor was very strong, so the list went on: 2 tablespoons of sugar, another cup of 2% (with a bit of half & half), couple more table spoons of sugar. Still strong, but we dumped most of the mix into the Ice-20 anyway (it wouldn't all fit).

The finished product is decent, but still potent. My daughter's first comment was "it's not bad, but it's not good either". Oh man, that's something I would say. As always, her opinion was quickly changed as she dug in. She went with a second dixie cup of taste testing by the time all was said and done. My wife also enjoyed it, definitely different than our past experiments.

On Second Scoop: The flavor has mellowed a bit, basically tastes like a grape popsicle now ...well, a milky grape popsicle anyway. You know, store sherbet often uses skim milk, so maybe I could try taking it down a notch sometime and see what happens (a nice ultra pasteurized 1% milk might work)

Hola Fruta! Raspberry Sherbet

The freezer is very full, but I wandered through the ice cream section anyway. I saw a couple of sale containers I wanted to pick up, but then I spied Hola Fruta! I do get a sherbet craving now and then, and so I somehow I convinced myself to spend $5.49 for a quart of this "All Natural" sherbet. Dinner was going to take a while to cook, so I went in for the sampling.

It's good! I like it. It does have a smidge of that salty flavor that hits you with some sherbets, but overall is it well made. I enjoyed it so much, I had some more after dinner as well. I like the texture too, kind of reminds me of the time when I mixed some vanilla ice cream with my cheap sherbet. It's funny, because if I had to describe it after my first serving, I'd say the aftertaste was like eating a Raspberry Tootsie Roll. On second scoop, I realized just how natural the flavor was. If you let it melt just a bit, you really are hit with that real raspberry flavor. I was really impressed at how it hits you more like fruit than as a frozen treat.

If you don't mind spending a bit extra on sherbet, and you want something a bit more real, give it a try! --Nice: there website shows their sherbet with a slice of Angel food, oh I bet that's good.

Nutrition: 140/10/0/1

Topping of the Week: Frosted Rice Krispies

Ok, don't ask me how I thought of this on the way home. It was a long day and I was headed home one and a half hours later than I usually leave. I was trying to decide what to grab for food on the way home when I started to think about Ice Cream instead. I could crack have some Edy's or maybe crack open the Breyer's Cookie Dough, but then it hit me. I bet frosted rice krispies would taste great on the right ice cream. Hmmm, sounds like a job for Turkey Hill's Chocolate Pretzel Ice cream.

I got home, put my things down, and reached for a big bowl (didn't want to make too big a mess). I decided to do a quick one spoon taste test and I realized this idea had potential. I scooped out a respectable serving and doused on the rice krispies. It was a bit cold so I let it warm up for a few minutes, and then I dug in. And guess what? I like it! I don't think it would work on just any flavor, but it's working now. Plus, the crunchiness of the krispies totally distracts from the fact the pretzels aren't always crunchy. This totally works. I don't know if it would work with a strong chocolate, but it totally works with the mild chocolate flavor (delivered by the vanilla and fudge) and works great with the chocolate covered pretzels.

Moral of the story: don't be afraid! Worse case scenario: I would have had to scrape off the krispies. Best case: I made myself a no-fuss, no cooking, dinner. Yeehaa!

Breyer's Mrs. Fields Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches

Update: These have moved from Breyers to Klondike (see the updated review)

long story short: I am an ice cream reviewer who has had a very rough day, though I need to remind myself it could have been worse. I would have loved to crash on the couch, but the cabinets were in need of restocking, so I headed to super walmart.

Breyers Mrs. Fields Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches

light vanilla ice cream between two mrs. fields chocolate chip cookies

Breyer's Chocolate Cookies & Cream A Fat Free Ice Cream Review

RESCOOPED! --Also, this flavor has been discontinued

So, a container of Breyer's Double Churn Fat Free Cookies & Creme makes up the last part of my first ever foray into sampling free ice cream. Unfortunately, it didn't end well. The chocolate ice cream isn't bad at all, though it is a bit too chocolaty, maybe 10-15% too much cocoa. Sure the texture wasn't perfect, but considering there is no fat, it's pretty good. Plus, there's no strange aftertaste.

No, the real problem is the cookie bits, but in Breyer's defense, I'm wondering if this came about because how the ice cream was shipped. There are no giant cookie pieces in this ice cream, instead, they've been through a heavy duty blender which results in tiny cookie slices that are scattered throughout the ice cream. Unfortunately, many of these tiny pieces are quite hard and unpleasant to bite into.

To be fair, I'm not going to pick on Breyer's just yet. A normal freezer sits around 0 degrees, while dry ice the ice cream shipped with is at a much lower at -100 degrees (both Fahrenheit). I think there is a real possibility that the dry ice damaged the cookies, because they aren't all bad.

If anyone has tried this ice cream, post a comment and let us know how it was.

Nutrition: 110/0/3/3 (whoa, 3g of fiber is a lot!)

I survived Maine....

This is one of those days that I'm glad to be an ice cream reviewer...well, more so than usual anyway. An old friend invited us up to York beach, and after spending some quality time with the sand, we got a quick tour of the town. We hadn't had lunch, so it was time for an early afternoon ice cream break to tide us over until dinner.

Being a beach, there are several local ice cream hot spots, but since it is Sunday and post-Labor day, half the places we're closed. What was open, is the well known Brown's Old Fashioned Ice Cream. Brown's started serving home made ice cream in 1967, but after years of satisfied customers, the owner decided to shut down. Luckily, Steve Dunne decided to keep things going in 1991 and leases the stand to this day. The only real difference is they now serve Shain's of Maine ice cream. I've heard very good things about Shain's and now I know why.

I was looking over the menu trying to find something different, something new, and boy did I. They had a flavor called "Maine Survivor" billed as a vanilla ice cream with a fudge swirl, chocolate chip cookie pieces and peanuts. Now, think about what that might look like. I was picturing a thin fudge swirl and maybe some cookie pieces that were the same size as the peanuts. Boy was I wrong!

What was handed to me was the largest "small" I had ever seen. It was enormous. Plus, there were no little cookie chunks. No No No. They shove gigantic chocolate chip cookies into this ice cream plus giant slices of fudge. Oh, I so regret not taking a picture. It was absolutely fantastic. The ice cream to cookie ratio was probably 1:1, maybe even lower. Fantastic. I thought about it the whole way home it was so good.

I give Shain's major points for originality on this one. I would never have thought to shove a super fresh, giant cookie into the ice cream mixer. Oh, it came together great. Mmmmmm. I know my trusted adviser picks up containers of Shain's now and then, and if I ever see it in a store, I know which one I'm getting. I forgot how much I love cookies and ice cream together.

Side note: My daughter wanted blue ice cream (Cotton Candy from two weeks ago), but settled for Chocolate. My wife tried Razzle Dazzle. It's a vanilla ice cream with a raspberry swirl and raspberry filled chocolate pieces. She liked it, but she wasn't dazzled.

2015 Update: Brown's is being sold. The person who was leasing the facility has opened up Dunne's Ice Cream just down the road. I'm guessing they'll still be serving Shain's ice cream.