The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

The Haagen-Dazs Artisan Collection is a recently new offering of 5 flavors from Haagen-Dazs.  For each flavor Haagen-Dazs collaborates with an artisinal chocolatier/jam maker/confectioner to produce an ice cream inspired by the products. At Target I recently picked up two flavors, and have a review of the Spiced Pecan Turtle flavor.  This is described as Working closely with Christohper Elbow Artisinal Chocolate, we created an ice cream recipe inspired by their spiced pecan turtle.  Together we combine chocolately spiced pecans and swirls of caramel blended into rich chocolate ice cream. Elbow is a really funny last name. The first thought I had after taking a bite of this ice cream was, "Whoa, this tastes like Christmas."  I don't know what it's called, but there's some type of dense chocolaty dessert spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, orange, and possibly other spices in the same family.  If you know what I'm talking about (and hey, I don...

Next in our cookie core reviews we have Spectacular Speculoos.  This is described as Dark caramel and vanilla ice creams with speculoos cookies and a speculoos cookie butter core. Madeline's Review:  The first thing I expected to taste in the ice cream was the spicy goodness of speculoos cookies, but the first thing I actually tasted was vanilla.  I won't say much about the vanilla base because it is the same old Ben and Jerry's vanilla base. The dark caramel was interesting.  I know what makes chocolate dark, but I do not know what makes caramel dark.  I suppose this caramel ice cream leaned a bit toward molasses flavor, but not that much.  Overall, it was a pretty mild flavor. The speculoos cookie chunks were super duper crunchy, which was awesome, and they were also quite tasty. The speculoos cookie core didn't have quite the same crunch as the other cookie cores (but this might be due to fluctuations in freezer temperature).  It...

Lizzy and I finally have our phalanges on the eagerly awaited Ben and Jerry's Cookie Cores!  Since we got these from our respective Targets as approximately the same time, we decided to write joint reviews of all three.  Lizzy suggested we start with Boom Chocolatta and off we went! This is described as Mocha & Caramel ice creams with chocolate cookies, fudge flakes and a chocolate cookie core. Here's my (Madeline) take: When you eat Ben and Jerry's core ice creams you definitely have to go in with a strategy.  There are so many different components.  Do you try to get balanced spoonfuls? Do you try to sample each element individually? Do you dive in with no regard for life and limb and wake up 5 minutes later on the floor with ice cream dripping down your chin?  I chose to try each element individually; however, I suggest you do not use this approach because individually each element (except the core) was kind of 'meh,' but together they were l...

I am super excited that brands are starting to produce frozen custard.  The world needs to be made more aware of this splendid treat. Before we talk Edy's let's talk frozen custard.  Frozen Custard, more specifically  Ted Drewes  Frozen Custard, is an institution in St. Louis.  Ask any St. Louisan to give you a list of top 5 typical St. Louis things to do in St. Louis and Ted Drewes is definitely on the list.  To quote Ted Drewes himself, "It's really good guys and gals!" Just thinking about it, I want to go back home just for some Ted Drewes. Here's the facts.  Per the FDA guidelines, frozen custard must contain 10% milkfat and 1.4% egg yolk solids.  In addition, frozen custard does not have as much air, withan overrun (amount of air added during freezing) of 15-30% (whereas ice cream sometimes has an overrun of 100%). with only about This gives it a texture that it denser and creamier than ice cream. There is a difference between the cust...

I know I'm sort of late to the party with this one, but I live in rural Missouri and it takes us a while to get flavors out here. In fact, I didn't even get this flavor in Mid Missouri, I just finally got an opportunity to go to Target when in St. Louis. This flavor came out in December and it is a limited batch flavor. Everyday that ticked by without me finding it in a store caused me great anxiety. What if it disappeared forever before I got a chance to try it?!?! The original Half Baked was really truly my first Ben & Jerry's love. I was pretty sure that a peanut butter version would be like that first significant other you have that actually tops your crush from 4th through 9th grade that you really should have gotten over when you were 10 but you secretly thought you would love forever. Meeting that person that trumps that is a big deal, and I thought this flavor would be the ice cream equivalent of that. I was really scared I would miss it. But don...

This past Saturday was Ice Cream for Breakfast Day, a very made up holiday . This holiday is celebrated the first Saturday in February and recently has been gaining in popularity. This year in St. Louis THREE different ice cream shops, Jilly's Ice Cream Bar, I Scream Cakes, and Serendipity Homemade Ice Cream, were celebrating the occasion. I was having a really difficult time deciding which event to go to. If there had only been two events I might have tried to hit both, but with three I decided I might as well pick one. I have been to Jilly's a number of times because it is really close to where all my St. Louis friend live, so I decided to pass on that. Either Serendipity or I Scream Cakes need some Big Muddy love. I ended up going with Serendipity for two reasons. One, they were giving away free mugs if you wore your pajamas to their event. I love mugs, especially free ones, and I'll take any excuse to wear PJs in public (still disappointed that my school has not h...

When I picked up the 1.5qt Kemp's Cookies 'n' Cream, I also picked up a 1.5qt of Kemp's Caribou Coffee Java Chip because there was a buy one get one free coupon and obviously I take advantage of this whenever possible.  This flavor is described as Dark chocolate chunks in creamy coffee ice cream. My experiences with Caribou Coffee: I've had Caribou Coffe granola bars which were in grocery stores when I was in middle and high school but have since been discontinued.  These were really amazing.  I've had multiple pastries from the Caribou Coffee in downtown Minneapolis as it's right on the way to dance and sometimes I need a pre-ballet bear claw.  There were good, but nothing extraordinary.  I know I've had a dark roast coffee from the same Caribou, but I remember nothing about it.  This probably means its better than the burnt swill that Starbucks serves, but not as good as coffee from some of the small local roasteries I've had. Unfortu...

This one has been on my Eldon bucket list for a while now. I have heard from many people in Eldon that I had to get a Eldon Drive-In banana split and review it. I had also been told that if I get one of these I should split it with some one. Haha split a banana split. Ha. Ha. However, I would never. Because I care about you guys, my Dearest Readers. I want to give you guys the most accurate picture of the full experience of the Eldon Drive-In banana split. And if that is me feeling like I am going to vom, or actually voming, than so be it. I would not be able to consider myself a respectable ice cream blogger if I didn't eat every last bite of this banana split. I wouldn't throughly be able to comment on the size if I didn't eat the whole thing. I was also pretty confident I could eat the whole thing no problemo. I ate a light dinner that night and I have years of ice cream eating experience to rely on. Trust in your training. Granted, I think my friend Claire would...

Saturday was National Ice Cream for Breakfast Day, and I obviously really wanted to go out and get ice cream for breakfast.  I'm was sure  that there would me an ice cream parlor somewhere  in the twin cities holding an event for breakfast.  I mean Lizzy had 3 events in St. Louis to choose from.  Unfortunately, Minneapolis really dropped the ball on Ice Cream for Breakfast day.  No special hours, nothing.  I decided I still wanted to get ice cream, and could celebrate the day by having ice cream for breakfast-for-dinner.  It's a stretch, but whatever. I also want to mention something really cool that Izzy's is doing for the first part of February.  Each day for the first 13 days of February, Izzy's will donate $2 from each single scoop cup or cone purchased to a different charity each day as part of their  13 days of giving .  They also give you a coupon for $2 off a pizza at a local pizza parlor which is awesome.  My purcha...

I don't think there's such a thing as a bad cookies and cream ice cream; it's incredibly hard to fuck up, and fuck it up Kemp's does not.  On their website, Kemp's describes this flavor as Chocolate sandwich cookies in vanilla ice cream. Keepin' it simple.  This is one of the ice creams in Kemp's 'Old Fashioned' line.  The whole point of this line is to offer classic flavors that bring back memories of delightful ice cream moments from your past.  Or something like that.  I threw away the pint without taking a picture of the blurb about their Old Fashioned ice creams.  Cookies and Cream definitely fits the category of classic ice cream flavor. On to the review!  My overall impression was that this was a very solid slightly-above-middle-of-the-pack Cookies and Cream Flavor.  I think in the future, it would be a great ice cream to use as the base for a sundae.  It's good enough to hold its own, but wouldn't overshadow the rest ...

I came to the realization a while ago that I have not reviewed a sorbet yet on this blog. I'm not the biggest sorbet fan, but I am a fan of finding decent dairy-free alternatives to ice cream, and sorbet is not a bad choice for that purpose. As you know I have also been trying to become a more organized person, and Talenti containers are the way I am trying to do that. I'd also never tried any Talenti sorbet and heard really good things about it, so the Talenti Roman Raspberry was an obvious choice at HyVee the other weekend. The first thing that struck me about this sorbet is that the first ingredient of it is raspberries. I have definitely seen sorbets where the first ingredient is water or sugar. This was reflected in the taste. This sorbet tasted exactly like raspberries. Sometime raspberry sorbets can taste like a tarter version of real raspberries, which is not something I love. There was a bit of tartness that was just like real raspberries and a bit of tart/...

I mentioned in my review of Dove's Unconditional Chocolate that I picked this pint up at a nearby gas station.  The real reason I went to the gas station was to pick up a pint of 2nd Street Creamery, as they are the only store in the immediate area that sells the brand. They had a selection of a few different flavors including the cookie dough and Copper Kettle Caramel, but since Lizzy reviewed both of these flavors recently, I decided to pick up Truck Stop Fudge.  This ice cream is described as Chocolate ice cream with marshmallow and fudge sauce. The short story, included on the pint, is Everyone in the car expected Angie to take the highway off-ramp lovingly referred to as the "Truck Stop Fudge" exit.  It can't be helped, that fudge has a stronger gravitational pull than our earth's core. The longer story, from the website is It was like any other trip down I-29 heading for Kansas City.  As we crossed over the border from Iowa to Missouri, ...