Haagen Dazs Non-Dairy Mocha Chocolate Cookie and Chocolate Salted Fudge Truffle

Haagen-Dazs recently released a line of four non-dairy flavors exclusively available at Target to surprisingly little fanfare. I picked up the two chocolate flavors Mocha Chocolate Cookie and Chocolate Salted Fudge Truffle, because chocolate.  These flavors were both very good, and I was originally planning to write two separate reviews but they tasted so similar that I wanted emphasize their similarity by comparing and contrasting them within one review.

Mocha Chocolate Cookie: A luxurious foundation of rich Belgian chocolate and fragrant coffee is blended together with swirls of cookie crumble and pieces of chocolate cookie.

Chocolate Salted Fudge Truffle: We start with lavishly rich Belgian chocolate for that truer chocolate flavor, before blending in swirls of salted fudge and chunks of fudge truffle for the ultimate indulgence.

Most non-dairy ice cream, including Ben and Jerry's line and many brands specializing in non-dairy desserts substitute almond, cashew, or soy milk for dairy milk. Haagen-Dazs departs from this trend with a water-based product that I would still consider a non-dairy ice cream rather than a sorbet or sorbetto.  Corn syrup is the main stabilizer, but Belgian chocolate comes immediately after in the ingredient list, and is the first 'flavoring' ingredient, so Haagen-Dazs certainly isn't skimping on the chocolate.

The chocolate flavor of the base was very intense. Without any dairy to balance it out, the chocolate verged on a dry, cocoa powder taste, but a nice cocoa powder, not Nesquik or Hershey. In both cases, the texture was pretty decent. Because it was water-based, it froze very hard, and I had to let it sit for a few minutes before scooping. It was pretty thin as it melted down (again, to be expected given the ingredients), but not watery. Despite this, it wasn't icy.

In Mocha Chocolate Cookie, I couldn't taste any coffee over the chocolate. Unfortunately, this was the only coffee element of the flavor, so it wasn't so much a mocha flavor as a double chocolate flavor. The cookie swirls and cookie definitely tasted like a baked good, contrasting with the pure cocoa of the base. The pieces weren't huge, but they were very soft. I'm giving Mocha Chocolate Cookie 🍦🍦/4 cones, mainly because I couldn't taste the coffee.

Mocha Chocolate Cookie.

As with Mocha Chocolate Cookie, the chocolate base of Chocolate Salted Fudge Truffle really overwhelmed the other elements. The moister texture and flavor of the fudge swirl contrasted nicely with the drier chocolate of the base. I picked up just the slightest hint of salt, and would have enjoyed a lot more. The chocolate was so robust that it could have handled a much saltier fudge. The truffles were pretty similar in texture to the fudge swirl, and I initially thought they were just really thick pieces of the ribbon. As such they didn't add a unique flavor to the pint, but I did appreciate the texture they added. I'll give this 🍦🍦🍦/4 cones. It gets that extra cone mainly because it's more faithful to its description than Mocha Chocolate Cookie.

Chocolate Salted Fudge Truffle

These are both good non-dairy flavors, and they are excellent chocolate non-dairy flavors, but I wish they were more distinct from each other.