The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

I know, I know, I know. This blog has existed for like 6 months or so and neither Madeline nor I have reviewed Phish Food. It's really just craziness. We are both HUGE Ben & Jerry's fans and Phish Food is like THE most recognizable Ben & Jerry's flavor. It was the first Ben & Jerry's flavor I ever tried! It's kind of ridiculous that we haven't reviewed it yet. But here I go. What I really think is more ridiculous is that until writing this post I have never listened to the band Phish. I apologize for that one, too. Although, I don't believe it is entirely my fault. I'm gonna blame my parents for that one, too. You guys lived in Burlington, Vermont in the 1980s. How did you not have Madeline and I listen to Phish growing up?!?! Right now I am listening to their album Billy Breathes, released in 1996, the year before Phish Food became a flavor.  I'm digging it. It's pretty groovy. Phish Food is described as Chocolate Ice Cream w...

It must be unofficial coffee ice cream month here at Big Muddy. Not long ago I reviewed Ben and Jerry's Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz and Madeline not long ago reviewed  Ciao Bella Caffe Macchiatto . Though I have to say I was not intending to buy lots of coffee ice cream when I bought this. I really just bought it because the art on the pint really stuck out to me in the store. I really love the black packaging of Haagen-Dazs gelato. And I thought the little coffee cup on it was really cute! If B&J's Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz is a New Yorker downing an espresso while racing to the subway, this cappuccino gelato is an Italian relaxing in a cafe, leisurely enjoying a cappuccino (at least in flavor). I'll give the long description printed on this pint, because I think it does a very good job of capturing this ice cream: "Meet Haagen-Dazs ice cream's Italian cousin, gelato. Bold and complex, Haagen-Dazs Cappuccino gelato beautifully blends cappuccino an...

Oh Ben and Jerry's, why must you release such delicious limited edition batches?  You put out a limited edition ice cream flavor.  I fall head-over-heels-hopelessly in love.  I know better.  I tell myself, 'not this time.' I try to remind myself of all the heartache and pain that comes when a flavor is gone forever.  And yet here I am again.  Candy Bar Pie, I love you, please be mine forever. Here is the description of Candy Bar Pie, may you read it and exalt in its glory: It's the best of your all-time favorite candy bars - peanut buttery, fudge chunky, chocolate nougatty stuff - all together in one outrageously tasty creation, with sweet & salty pretzel swirls to make it even tastier.  It's also a Limited Batch, so seize the flavor while you can. This is "Peanut Butter ice cream with fudge flakes, chocolate nougat, and sweet and salty pretzel swirls." My first thought on reading this description was, "How in the heck do you make a pre...

This was another of the three pints I picked up a couple weeks ago from the Seward Coop.  I picked this one up because Cantaloupe Lime is not a very common flavor.  Also lime sorbet is one of the most awesome flavors of sorbet. Sonny's Ice Cream (and sorbet!) is made here in Minneapolis at  Crema Cafe .  Supposedly their ice cream is pretty good.  I'll have to make it a point to go check it out one day. This sorbet was a bit disappointing.  If you are calling something cantaloupe lime the predominant flavor should be cantaloupe.  Unfortunately the cantaloupe flavor took a major back seat to the lime in this pint.  This didn't make it taste bad; as I said, lime sorbet is awesome, it's just not what I was expecting.  The cantaloupe served to mellow out the lime flavor making it not too acidic or harsh.  Maybe if it had been called lime (cantaloupe) sorbet I would have been happier. The color was quite pleasing.  It was ...

Several weekends ago Minneapolis got a taste of Indian summer.  It was a warm, delightful 80 degrees all weekend, perhaps the last weekend of the year where it is possible to walk to the ice cream shop and laze in the grass as you lick the desultory drips of ice cream that run slowly down your cone. To celebrate, I invited a bunch of math people to go to Izzy’s and we had a fairly good turn out, about 15 people. I saw that they had pumpkin, a seasonal flavor, so I immediately knew I had to get that.  Also, they had an intriguing people’s choice flavor award winner, Irish Moxie.  You can never go wrong with an Izzy’s people’s choice winner.  Normally at Izzy’s I get a single scoop, and was planning to get a single scoop of one of the aforementioned flavors with the other as an Izzy scoop, but I could not, for the life of me, decide which flavor I wanted more of.  The only solution was to get a double scoop with an Izzy scoop of cinnamon.  If there ...

I really want to try the ice cream brand Jeni’s.  They have sooooo many awesome sounding flavors.  The closest place to me that sells the brand is the Seward Co-op.  One day after class a couple weeks ago, I biked over to the co-op after school planning to pick up a couple flavors of Jeni’s.  Instead I ended up walking out with three pints of frozen dessert, none of which were Jeni’s.  The Jeni’s was $9.99 for a single pint and the only flavor they had was dark chocolate.  I’m willing to drop that much money on a pint of ice cream, but it better be an absolutely mind-blowing flavor. One of the pints I did pick up was a new-to-me brand Ciao Bella Caffe Macchiato gelato.  I like that this gelato came in a plastic container with a screw on lid.  Hello new tupperware! This was a pretty good coffee gelato.  It was darker in color than most coffee ice cream or gelato, and I think that they used espresso beans rather than coffee bean...

Confession time.  I ate about half of this pint of ice cream for breakfast this morning.  Granted, I had just run six and a half miles and didn't get enough sleep the last night so I was wicked tired and decided to give myself a treat.  No shame!  Eat ice cream always! This is an example of the quintessential Ben and Jerry's chunktastic-ness.  This flavor is a chocolate ice cream base packed full of chunks of white fudge, dark fudge, chocolate covered almonds, walnuts, and pecans. Ben and Jerry's chocolate base is always superb, so there was no surprise that I loved the first bite I took of this ice cream.  If this ice cream only had the fudge chunks I would say it would almost  be too rich, but since there is no such thing I won't say that.  Since walnuts and pecans are lighter airy nuts (as in, there is lots of air in a walnut.  Just look at one.) it kept the ice cream from being too weighty. I mean, is there really more to say? ...

After thoroughly enjoying Cedar Crest's Chocolate Malt flavor, I decided to check out another flavor.  This time I went for something fruity, to really get an idea of the range of their flavors. I think black cherry is a new ice cream flavor for me.  When I was in the store buying it I thought, "Black Cherry will be a good flavor, I can compare it to the other black cherry ice creams I've had."  Wrong.  I've had black raspberry  ice cream, but as soon as I took my first bite of this bad boy I realized I'd never had black cherry. This ice cream was a lovely purple/red color with whole black cherries amply scattered throughout.  The cherries themselves were yummy and weren't frozen all the way through, so they offered a nice, chewy variation from the texture of the ice cream base.  This ice cream, and I think black cherries in general, have a much darker flavor than Bing cherries, the type most commonly sold in grocery stores. During my fi...

For those of you that know me and Madeline well are probably pretty shocked that this flavor has not been reviewed. Coffee and ice cream are just about my two favorite things in the world and they are Madeline's, too. My life motto might as well be "You can never have too much ice cream or coffee." And the ice cream brand that has perfected the art of too much is definitely Ben & Jerry's. The bar is set high for this ice cream. Before I review the ice cream, lets talk about coffee ice cream. If you ever encounter some crazy individual who does not like coffee, the way you bring them to the dark side is by starting them out with coffee ice cream. Coffee ice cream is the best tool of manipulation used by us Coffee Lords  to convince people to work for the Coffee Empire. After getting them to like coffee ice cream you work them into sugary lattes and then before you know it they drink two cups of black, strong coffee each day and are totally using the force for...