The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

Note: Sometimes life is full of funny coincidences.  I wrote this blog post a few days before Lizzy posted her review of The Fountain on Locust, a Saint Louis restaurant that serves Cedar Crest Ice Cream! Sometimes I feel like a broken record on this blog.  "This ice cream is really good.  This ice cream is really good.  This ice cream is really good."  I'll just chalk it up to ice cream being generally really good, and not to me being boring. So, here I go again.  Cedar Crest Chocolate Malt ice cream is really good.  I picked this flavor up because I inherited a love of chocolate malted milkshakes from my father.  Anytime we go to the good ol' Malt Shop in Fenton, you can count on dad to get a chocolate malted milkshake, no matter what other offerings there are.  I won't get one every time, I mean sometimes a girl has to go for the cookie dough or Reese's Pieces, but I do appreciate a true, delicious classic from time to time. Whe...

Peanut Butter Pie is one of my favorite (non ice cream!) desserts ever because it is delicious and soooo easy to make.  If you're really lazy you just buy a pre-made graham cracker crust, mix together peanut butter, sugar, cream cheese, etc... pour it in and stick it in the fridge for a couple hours.  My secret to good peanut butter pie is to use 1.5 to 2 times as much peanut butter as the recipe actually calls for. Needless to say, I was pretty excited when I saw this beauty pop on the grocery store shelves around Christmas of 2012 and immediately grabbed a pint.  I remember being really disappointed by that flavor of ice cream and thinking it didn't taste anything like peanut butter pie.  Because of that I had avoided picking up another pint until now.  I decided I should grab one and put it on the blog before it was gone forever. This ice cream is described as Inspired by a favorite family recipe, our Peanut Butter Pie Ice Cream is made with ribbon...

Located just East of St. Louis University, The Fountain on Locust is one of my favorite St. Louis restaurants. They boast great food, great ice cream, fun cocktails and ICE CREAM COCKTAILS! Combining ice cream and alcohol is really an amazing and wonderful thing and I don't quite understand why it isn't done more often. So to continue to describe The Fountain on Locust, which is really tough because there are so many cool things about it. First, the interior is all art-deco-y which is super cool, and has made The Fountain the most photographed restaurant in St. Louis! They also can serve you the world's smallest ice cream cone and world's smallest ice cream sundae. How cool is that?! The only problem is, their ice cream treats are sooo good you would never want to order just a little bit! For one, some of their sundaes are made with Zanzibar chocolate ice cream (which I think I talked about in my Cookie Dough Creations post), which is so unique and amazing. They als...

Wow Madeline has really been killing it with the number of posts these last few days. I feel like a slacker. Gosh, what have I been doing with all my time? Well I'm about to get really real with you dear reader, I don't review every ice cream I eat. Sometimes I just feel like mindlessly shoveling ice cream in my face and not really thinking about how good it is or isn't. Because lets be honest, it's ice cream, it tastes good, and it's fun to mindlessly shovel in your face. Also sometimes, I forget to bring my camera or something. Also if I actually wrote a post about each and every ice cream I ate I would do nothing else with my life. And although write now I basically run and eat ice cream and do nothing all day, I will soon have a job and, you know, have things to do with my time other than write this blog. Until you, dear readers, start paying me to write this (which I would love), I'll have to keep this AmeriCorps gig. (Although with this "job" I d...

It seems like forever since I've reviewed a Talenti flavor!  Today I'll be reviewing the Caramel Cookie Crunch flavor.  This described as Crunchy chocolate cookies are combined with Talenti's Dulce de Leche and blended in just as the gelato is being hand filled into the jars, transforming standard cookies and cream into a luxurious treat. First let me say that I enjoyed this flavor, so much so that I polished off the pint in about 3 minutes flat. (Yes! There is at least one thing in life that I'm good at!) On your marks!  Get set!  Go! The Dulce de Leche swirls were not very prominent.  There was a subtle caramel flavor suffused throughout the entire pint, but the swirls themselves were very thin and very similar in flavor to the base gelato.  The cookie chunks were small and beadlike, sometimes with 3 or 4 of these little beads clumped together.  In size and variation they reminded me of a box of Nerds candy.  They were crunchy and ta...

Let me get this out of the way.  I'm a fail-blogger and got no pictures of this ice cream.  Just imagine chocolate-y goodness with more chocolate-y goodness mixed in and you'll get the picture. The Haagen-Dazs Limited Edition flavor Midnight Cookies and Cream is described as We blend buttery ribbons of and chocolate wafer cookies into smooth chocolate ice cream for the indulgent twist on the classic cookies & cream. First I will review the actual ice cream and then I will bitch and moan a little bit about the description of the ice cream. Haagen-Dazs' chocolate ice cream is, in my opinion, what really makes it a premium ice cream blend.  I think it is my favorite chocolate base.  It's unfortunate because they really don't have that many flavors that use a chocolate base.  They have this one, Rocky Road, Chocolate and Peanut Butter, and Chocolate Chocolate Chip, but I think that is it.  I really really think they should develop more and more uni...

Today I have a new to me brand, Kemp's Ice Cream.  I have seen various Kemp's dairy products in the refrigerated section at the grocery stores since I moved to Minnesota.  I have so far avoided picking up any Kemp's ice cream because I thought it was a store brand.  Kyle wanted to pick up some ice cream after we went salsa dancing yesterday. (He knows better than to dig in to my stash without my permission!)  At our local Cub Foods he picked out a 1.5 quart container of the flavor Classic Chocolate Cupcake for about $5 (this was the sale price, I think the regular price is $6). From the image on the front of the carton it is clear that the 'classic chocolate cupcakes' in question are Hostess Cupcakes.  The ice cream is described as Chocolate cake flavored ice cream swirled with white frosting and sprinkled with chocolate cupcake pieces. I have to say, this was a pretty faithful representation of the 'classic chocolate cupcake.'  The first thing I...

Kyle and I randomly decided to go to Wal-Mart the other day.  (This may not actually have been so random, I've had my eye on Sam's Choice Ice Cream for quite a while.)  In the ice cream aisle I decided to pick up a quart of Sam's Choice Coffee and Donut ice cream. I'm kind of surprised that I haven't seen this flavor combination before now.  I mean, coffee and donuts go together so well as do ice cream and donuts.  (Don't believe me?  Go try it.)  I had really high hopes for this ice cream in the sense that its really difficult to do a bad coffee ice cream, and donut chunks can only enhance things.  Boy were my expectations blown out of the water.  This is a contender for best ice cream of the year.  Wow. This ice cream is described as Coffee Ice Cream with Swirls of Icing and Donut Pieces .  The first thing you notice when you open the pint are the, uh, interesting looking icing swirls.  The icing melds nicely with the cof...

So Mallard's wasn't actually the only place I got frozen desserts while visiting relatives in Bellingham. While walking in the Fairhaven neighborhood, we spotted a very happy woman walking down the street eating an ice cream cone. We obviously stopped her and asked where she had gotten it. She smiled and pointed us toward Sirena Gelato, which she said was just the best. Most of what I saw of Fairhaven was quaint quiet streets and adorable brick buildings. Sirena Gelato was no different and they added to the feel of the neighborhood with their old-timey looking wooden sign hanging outside the shop.  One thing I liked about Sirena, meaning siren or mermaid in Italian, was that on the menu next to each size, they told you how many different flavors you could get in each size. For example, in a small you could get up to two and in a medium up to three. Sometimes I go into a shop and I don't want a certain portion size so much as I want to try a certain number of flavors. But...

My friend Lucy, who is from the Seattle area requested that I review the Mallard Ice Cream Shop while I was visiting family in Bellingham. But this reader request started well before Lucy asked me to stop by. I have been hearing about this ice cream shop for a long, long time. I've been hearing about it from My Aunt Muriel (Ducky), my Uncle Kelly (Drake), and cousin Shea (Duckling? Though at 15 years old and 5 foot 11, he's not so ling-y any more). And, yes, the duck themed nicknames came way before their passion for this duck themed ice cream shop and the two are, in all seriousness, a lovely situation. But seeing as this is a blog mostly about ice cream, and only a little bit about my life (thought you probably hear about my life more than you would like), I won't have time for the explanation of the duck themed nicknames. And I have quite a lot of ice cream to write about in this post. First a little about Mallard's. Located in Belligham, Washington, which by my ob...

Lizzy has already posted a review about this ice cream, but there were several things about this pint that compelled me to write my own review. The last few pints of Ben and Jerry's I have had have been somewhat disappointing in the mix-in department.  B&J's is known for their huge chunks.  In fact, they developed these signature chunks in many of their flavors because co-founder Ben Cohen cannot smell, so the chunks provide an enjoyable texture as well as an enjoyable flavor. This ice cream really delivered on the chunk front.  This is described as Peanut Butter Ice Cream with Peanut Butter Cups.   The peanut-butter cups usually appear as halves in the ice cream, but a whole one would be about the size of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.  I shared this pint with Kyle, and sharing this ice cream with another person is a competitive sport.  We were both digging for chunks with each bite to ensure that the other person wouldn't get an unfair number of ch...

Man, Lizzy keeps beating me to the punch on these shared reviews! As you already know I spent a lovely 8 days at home in St. Louis, during which I got to see Lizzy.  Before I came home we were drawing up a list of potential ice cream shops to visit.  (These things take hours of serious planning.)  We both agreed that, no matter what, we had to stop by Ted Drewes Frozen Custard. Ted Drewes is a St. Louis institution.  I literally cannot think of one native St. Louisan I know who would not put Ted Drewes in the top-3 of must-do attractions when visiting St. Louis. As you can tell by the name, Ted Drewes does not serve ice cream, they serve frozen custard, which has more cream and egg yolk than ice cream.  Ted Drewes serves a multitude of different frozen custard sundaes, but their signature offering is the 'concrete.'  A concrete is served in the same type of cup as a milkshake but is much, much thicker in texture.  It is in fact, so thick that yo...

Dearest Readers, it's the moment you have all been waiting for.  It is also feels like this is the moment I've been training for my whole life. Your favorite ice cream duo since Ben and Jerry finally reviews home-town favorite Ted Drewes. Now, of course, Ted Drewes doesn't serve any ice cream; they serve frozen custard! For those of you that aren't from St. Louis or Wisconsin (another spot where this wonderful frozen dairy dessert is popular), you might not really know what the difference between ice cream and frozen custard is! I'll tell you. If you've had frozen custard, you'll know that it's a lot creamier than ice cream. There are a few reasons frozen custard is creamier than ice cream. First, frozen custard contains at least 1.4% egg yolks, way more than ice cream. Second, frozen custard contains at least 10% butter fat, also way more than ice cream. Last but not least, frozen custard contains less air than ice cream. Because of these three th...

Oh what can I say about Cherokee street, a street where hipster culture and hispanic culture mash lovingly into one another with taquerias next to discount furniture stores next to an employee-owned anarchist bakery.  That's just St. Louis for you.  The street's vibe is more down and dirty than the curated hipster experience shown whenever NBC Nightly News showcases the latest artisanal mayonnaise craze exploding out of Brooklyn. I Scream Cakes is definitely on the hipster end of this spectrum.  They make custom cakes as well as functioning as an ice cream scoop shop.  The first thing I noticed when I entered the shop was that these ice cream makers were not kidding around with their flavors.  I think mint-chocolate chip and vanilla bean were the only 'ordinary' flavors on offer that day.  You can see why I put ordinary in quotation marks by reading Lizzy's review of mint chocolate chip ice cream  here. When Lizzy and I walked in the woman worki...

I'll keep this review short and sweet since Lizzy already reviewed the core flavor That's My Jam.  Of the three cores I've tried so far (all except Peanut Butter Fudge), this is by far the best.  It is described as: Chocolate and raspberry ice creams with fudge chips and a raspberry core. It has texture you can actually feel in the fudge chunks (although I still think it could be chunkier!) and the Raspberry core is top notch.  It tastes like a more viscous version of jelly doughnut jelly. Blurry, but you can really see the texture! The only grip I have with this flavor is the raspberry ice cream.  To me the flavor was really faint and totally overwhelmed by the chocolate ice cream.  In the end this wasn't a big deal because the core was raspberry flavored, so there was enough raspberry in the ice cream, but I felt there could have been more!

Because I want to be exactly like Lizzy in every aspect of my life, I also tried a Ben and Jerry's make you own core Sundae.  Lizzy reviewed a sundae she made with the hot fudge core  here .  I loved the salted caramel core when I tried B&J's new Salted Caramel Core flavor.  It was so rich and yummy. I may have had a glass of wine or three before getting ice cream.  Under normal circumstances I have a hard time deciding which flavor of ice cream to get, so under these circumstances having to decide on two flavors that would complement the salted caramel core was nearly impossible. I ended up going with the limited edition, scoop-shop-only SNL flavor Gilly's Catastrophic Crunch and retired-but-still-in-scoop-shops White Russian.  I went with these because I didn't know if I would ever get the chance to try them again! Gilly's Catastrophic Crunch is described as Chocolate and sweet cream ice creams with caramel clusters, fudge-covered almonds, an...

Many of my St. Louis readers are probably looking at the title and thinking I've gone on some fabulous travel adventure and had a chance to stop at some wonderful little ice cream shop in some other state. Nope. Nope nope. I Scream Cakes is the hidden gem of Cherokee Street in South St. Louis. I had never heard of I Scream Cakes until this summer. I thought I knew all the best places to get my favorite food in my favorite city. So maybe it was that this bakery and ice cream shop just focused more on cake, and ice cream was more of a side venture. Or maybe their ice cream wasn't that good. There had to be some sort of explanation as to how this little shop had been flying under my radar. Well after my sister and I visited yesterday, I can tell you the explanation has nothing to do with the quality of the ice cream. Or the quality of the service, for that matter. When Madeline and I walked into this brightly colored store, I, at least, was overwhelmed by the many intriguing fla...

Happy Belated 4th of July Dear Reader! Two days ago, on the 4th, I sampled the second flavor of Graeter's I bought as requested by reader, Sarah! Cookie Dough is just about my favorite flavor of ice cream ever. After how much I enjoyed the Graeter's Strawberry Chip, I had high expectations for this ice cream. Thank you to our wonderful hand model, Madeline. To celebrate the 4th in classic Handschy-Palumbo fashion, we ate burgers/veggie burgers topped with made from scratch guacamole, a watermelon salad, popsicles, and  of course, ice cream. This pint had gotten wedged in the back of our freezer, so when Madeline and I got it out, our ice cream scooping attempts were wildly ineffective. We even waited a few minutes and the ice cream was still very hard. But at this point, we wanted our ice cream NOW so we just muscled it out of the container. So you may be asking, what did the ultimate cookie dough lover think of this flavor? The vanilla base was delightful and pret...

My friend Sarah requested that The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog review Graeter's Ice Cream. Madeline already had, but I hadn't, so I took that as an excuse to go buy some. With Graeter's you normally need some excuse or occasion to buy some, because it can be pricey! However, I when I made a quick trip through the Fenton Dierberg's ice cream aisle, I couldn't believe my eyes. The pints of Graeter's were on sale for 2 for $5!!! What a steal. I obviously bought two and had to try really hard not just grab a cart and clean them out of all their Graeter's. One of the pint's I bought was Strawberry Chocolate Chip. Although there is nothing very interesting about strawberry or chocolate chip ice cream, I have never actually seen this pairing before. Which is odd because everybody loves chocolate covered strawberries! More brands should make this flavor. This pint was also a limited edition flavor, so get it before it's gone! So a little bit about Graeter...