Best of 2014!!

With 2014, our first year of blogging, officially over and 2015 upon us, it is time for a "Best of 2014" post!! First off, thank you guys for making this such a great year. We started blogging April 8th, 2014. So we aren't a whole year old yet, but the idea of this blog is. Madeline suggested starting an ice cream blog over winter break of last year. We've posted 123 reviews and have had over 5,000 views of this blog! We've eaten a lot more ice cream than any other year of our lives and learned a lot. It is only going to get better from here! After eating all of this ice cream, there are definitely some flavors, swirls, scoop shops, mix-ins, and more that deserve a shout out!  Here is our best of 2014, the best of our first year, list!!

Best Ice Cream Bar or Sandwich:
Lizzy's: Magnum Infinity Chocolate Ice Cream Bar
Why? The cocoa nibs. The cocoa nibs in the dark chocolate coating of this bar took it from good to great.


Best One-Store Exclusive Flavor:
Lizzy's: A practice that I don't totally love is this whole exclusive flavor thing because it sends me all over the place searching out amazing sounding flavors. But more and more companies are doing it and Ben & Jerry's Nutty Caramel Swirl, exclusive to 7-Eleven took the cake for this category.
Why? The nougat base was super unique and the simplicity but density of the chunks made this flavor a one of a kind experience!



Best Texture:
Why? This new shop makes their ice cream in very, very small batches, 2-3 servings at a time, with liquid nitrogen. This super fun process yields an amazingly smooth and creamy, almost frozen custard like texture. 




Madeline: This was, hands down, the easiest category for me to pick a best-of.  Moving to Minnesota this year, I was introduced to many upper-midwest exclusive ice cream brands, one of which was Cedar Crest.  The first Cedar Crest flavor I tried was Chocolate Malt.  To sum up, the texture of this ice cream is like a chocolate mousse, just colder.



Best Froyo:
Why? I usually don't like cake batter ice creams, because I think they taste too strong and artificial. This was neither. It was surprisingly subtle and really tasted like real cake batter!



Madeline's: In general, Ben and Jerry's Greek Frozen Yogurt, but specifically their Vanilla Honey Caramel flavor.  This was such a grown up and delicious flavor!



Best Gelato:
Why? This flavor had a surprisingly bitter, dark chocolate, cocoa powdery flavor!


Madeline: My best pick for best gelato is a tie between Haagen-Dazs Pomegranate Swirl and Talenti Double Dark Chocolate.  The Pomegranate Swirl was such a huge surprise from a company whose gelato has previously disappointed me.  The Double Dark Chocolate was just amazing.  It was one of those pints you will finish in one sitting.


Best Swirl:
Lizzy's: The pretzel swirl of Ben & Jerry's Candy Bar Pie
Why? Ben & Jerry's turned pretzel into a swirl and it was tasty and not weird. 

Madeline's: I have to agree with Lizzy.  A pretzel swirl is like nothing I've experienced before and it was amazing. Read my review here


Best Base Ice Cream/Plain Ice Cream:
Why?  Probably because they used orange oil! This ice cream tasted exactly like a dark chocolate orange!! 


Madeline's: Haagen-Dazs White Chocolate.  The White Chocolate base features in the popular White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle and the seasonal Peppermint Bark.  It is a subtle, sweet flavor that just adds a bit of oomph to these two flavors.



Best Mix-In:
Lizzy's: The Ovenly Chocolate Stout Cake from Steve's Bklyn Blackout 
Why? This cake was so dense and sooo chocolatey!!
Honorable mention: The Greyston Bakery brownies from Ben & Jerry's ice creams


Madeline's: While I agree with Lizzy that the cake and the brownies were awesome, I have to go with Graeter's signature chocolate chips/chunks for best mix-in.  I don't even want to say anything about them.  If you haven't tried them, go out and fix that now.



Biggest Suprise:
Lizzy's: Mallard's Ghost Pepper Lime. I didn't think I would like spicy ice cream. I loved it. Read more below.
Madeline's: Haagen-Dazs Pineapple Coconut.  For some reason I thought this ice cream was going to be absolutely foul, but everything about it was great!



Best Scoop Shop Flavor:
Lizzy's: Mallard Ice Cream's Ghost Pepper Lime
Why? I didn't think I was gonna like this super spicy ice cream. However, the flavors were so bright and you could really taste the cream which balanced it out. It was a wow!
Honorable mention: The Thai Iced Tea ice cream from Izzy's. 

The ghost pepper lime is on the left.

Madeline's: So I debated whether to pick anything for this category because my favorite scoop shop flavor by far this year was Sebastian Joe's Raspberry Chocolate Chip.  I didn't review this flavor, though :(

Best Scoop Shop:
Lizzy's: Jilly's Ice Cream Bar. Reviews here and here and here and here.
Why? They've got it all. Unique flavors, like Lucky Charms; decadent flavors, like Kaboom; St. Louis flavors, like Gooey Butter Cake; and every thing in between. And they execute all of these things so well. This place is sure to please everybody.




Madeline's: Izzy's Ice Cream.  Read reviews here and here.  Izzy's is the ice cream shop for the indecisive.  With every single or double scoop, you get to choose another flavor for a tiny 'Izzy' scoop to go on top.  Also, the Minneapolis Izzy's location is in a really cool building next to a nice park next to the Mississippi, so you can lounge in the grass and eat ice cream.



Best Ice Cream of the Year:
Lizzy's: 2nd Street Creamery's Can't Tell Me No! Cookie Dough
Why? Because I absolutely love cookie dough. And this flavor was packed with cookie dough without being overwhelming. This pint was pure bliss in the form of brown sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla, and cream. 




Madeline's: I honestly thought it would be really hard to pick a single favorite ice cream of the year, but when Lizzy and I first started talking about this post one ice cream jumped to mind.  This is an ice cream that I almost didn't find.  One day, I just happened to try out a new ballet studio.  The car just happened to need gas on the way home.  I just happened to decide to actually go inside the gas station.  And there I found 2nd Street Creamery's Almond Butter Hazelnut Fudge, my favorite ice cream of the year.


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