The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

Text-heavy but awesome post ahead! TL/DR: Met David of David's Famous Gourmet Frozen Custard and had an awesome time. Today I had the awesome luck and good fortune to meet David of  David's Famous Gourmet Frozen Custard .  Now, how did a math graduate student and occasional (ok, you all know I'm lying) ice cream eater end up at a Kowalski's grocery store in Stillwater, Minnesota? About a week ago, my sister picked up a pint of David's Butter Mint frozen custard. She loved it. She reviewed it. She tweeted about it. Lo and behold David and his son/Vice President and General Counsel got in touch with us to let us know that David would be visiting several Twin Cities area Kowalski's this past weekend handing out samples, and that if we wanted to meet David we should show up. I was all over it. Obviously. It kind of sucks that Lizzy missed out on this, since it was her review that started this whole thing in motion, but she has the consolation of soon moving t...

At the beginning of April, Izzy's posted on their Facebook page that they would be making a limited edition, available through April, avocado flavored ice cream.  Darby's Avocado Honey and Almond ice cream is inspired by the movie  While We're Young  showing at the Landmark Theater.  I read this and immediately knew I had to pick up a pint.  My last experience with an avocado frozen dessert was the truly, despicably awful  avocado frozen yogurt from Yogurt Lab .  It was the worst. I was ready for some avocado ice cream to swoop in and avenge the terror inflicted on me by this frozen yogurt. Thankfully, Izzy's Darby's Avocado Honey and Almond was up to the task.  I couldn't find a description anywhere, but it's pretty self-evident from the name. First things first.  This ice cream tasted like avocado, not vomit!! Not only did it pass that very low qualification, it was delicious! This ice cream was very very sweet.  If it h...

Mega post alert. I first noticed this brand at Hy-Vee because of the distinctive packaging. Not many ice cream brands put the face of an old dude with funky glasses and an orange bowtie on their pints. I also was intrigued by the lemon flavor. Lemon frozen custard? Hmmm. When I actually got to David's on my ice cream to do list, I was faced with indecision, as per usual, as to what get. I went with butter mint because I wasn't actually sure I knew what a butter mint was. I had a hunch about butter mints and a simple Google search has proved me right. Butter mints are those kind of soft and sweet and not super sweet after dinner mints. Yum. Since I'm already talking about the flavor of butter mint I'll review the pint first and then talk about the company. Not often do I think of ice cream as visually pleasing. I opened this pint while my roommate was cooking her dinner and I said, "Wow that's pretty" as I opened it. She probably thinks I...

Last weekend it was in the 70s (not snowing like Tuesday. The 21st. I mean, c'mon April! What the hell!) and a I had a lovely afternoon helping a friend move and then throwing a frisbee around.  After this we went back to a friends house for a rousing game of Settlers of Catan.  While there, my friend Alex mentioned that he had a pint of Talenti's Black Cherry that he was not fond of, and was wondering if I wanted it.  I obviously took him up on his offer.  I mean, my number one rule to live a happy life is to take as much free ice cream as you can as often as you can. Talenti describes this as "Simple, classic, sweet-cream gelato blended with pieces of tart black cherries. Made with fresh milk, cream and hints of vanilla and lemon, this gelato tastes like you've got your priorities right." So, here's the review.  First, I have to commend Talenti on the quality of their product. I took this home on the bus, giving it about 40 minutes to melt before I ...

As part of my life quest to east as much ice cream as possible and write as many inane reviews about ice cream as possible, this year I have been attempting to try something from every place in Eldon to get ice cream. Unfortunately, I did not get any ice cream from Sonic before it closed back in the early Fall. (I am considering just going to a different Sonic in order to feel a true sense of completion.) Today, as far as I am aware, I completed that quest. Today, I got a vanilla milkshake from Hardee's. Hardee's does not have many ice cream options. They have chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry shakes and malts all available in only one size. I decided to go as simple as possible with the vanilla milk shake. I may go back and get a chocolate malt and throw that into my chocolate malt head to head between Eldon Drive-In and Cree Mee I did last year. I paid about $3.50 for this shake. I was pleasantly surprised that my $3.50 got me whipped cream on my shake. Cool. Hard...

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine in Eldon had eaten some of Central Dairy's Candy Bar Whirl and wanted to know what I thought of it. Unfortunately, I had to tell him I had never tried it. I knew I had to fix this at the first opportunity. And similar to my feelings on Blue Bell, I have to eat as much Central Dairy as possible before I move to an area where it isn't sold! Awkward feet are awkward This flavor is described as Thick Caramel and SNICKERS Candy Bar Pieces Mixed into Our Old Fashioned Ice Cream. Okay. Central Dairy does this weird thing where they don't actually describe the flavor of the base of their ice cream. Remember golden ice cream from Tiger Tracks? Like what is that? Again, I have no idea what they mean by Old Fashioned Ice Cream. There wasn't vanilla in the ingredients list and I didn't really taste vanilla. Whatever. Also the Snickers pieces were not all actually Snickers. I got one chunk that I think was an actual Snicke...

Man oh man, Lizzy has been churning out the reviews lately, I have to catch up! A sequence of somewhat random events led me to the discovery of a new-to-me brand and a possibly new favorite spot to buy ice cream.  A few weeks ago, scrolling through my Facebook timeline, I saw one of my friends was going to an ice cream tasting event at a brewery.  Does it get any better than that!?  I wasn't able to go to that event, but I got curious and researched the brand.  The brand is  Sweet Science Ice Cream , a local ice cream maker from St. Paul, Minnesota.  Let me tell you, I was like a kid on Christmas morning looking through their flavors.  THEY HAVE RHUBARB ALMOND CINNAMON AND PEAR RIESLING SORBET AND CARAMEL APPLE CIDER CRISP AND LEMONGRASS GINGER BARK AND OLIVE OIL AND SWEET CORN BLUEBERRY AND BLOOD ORANGE CREAM AND CRANBERRY GRAPEFRUIT SORBET I AM YELLING BECAUSE I AM SO HAPPY OH MY GOD I AM DYING.  dead. Ugh. Amazing.  They also source a...

People are obsessed with Blue Bell. "Blue Bell is all that is good in life" -Chris Beyer "Well over half the calories I've consumed in my 22 5/6 years have been Blue Bell, and it has been the font from which my success and happiness have sprung" -Elliott Peterson "Blue Bell is everything" -Chris Beyer "I was raised on this." -Elliott Peterson "Seriously, my parents never fed me anything else" -Elliott Peterson Okay statement rescinded. My friends Chris and Elliott are obsessed with Blue Bell. I have been reviewing a lot of Blue Bell lately for a few reasons. One, they have really awesome and unique flavors for being so cheap, and they sell in pints, which is pretty unique for brands at their price point. Two, I will be moving to Iowa next year and you can't buy Blue Bell in Iowa! Three, I get lots of imaginary internet points when I review Blue Bell. I have had these ice cream sandwiches in my freezer for a w...

What was I looking forward to the most about running this marathon? Pushing my body to the limit? The exhilaration of crossing the finish line? The camaraderie you experience with the other runners? The Ted Drewes frozen custard sandwiches made with Dad's cookies at the finish line? I'm going to plead the 5th on this one. Regardless, after finishing the race and downing a huge water bottle and a huge glass of gatorade within 60 seconds of crossing the line, my stomach kind of turned at all of the bananas, and bars, and snacks and other food offerings being shoved in my face as I stumbled through the finishing area. But then someone shoved a Ted Drewes frozen custard sandwich in my face. And then someone wrapped a space blanket around my shoulders. My day was complete. So at this point, hopefully all of my dearest readers know about Ted Drewes, so I won't tell you about them. But Dad's Cookies is another cool St. Louis company. According to their website , the comp...

I finally have the second flavor of the Cedar Crest pints I picked up ages ago! In the middle there I got sucked into a 3 for $10 Haagen-Dazs sale as well as incredible excitement at finding The Tonight Dough, so I put off eating this ice cream. Cedar Crest Raspberry Fudge Chunk is described as Raspberry ribbon and fudge pieces blended in vanilla ice cream. The first thing I noticed about this pint is that the base ice cream is white.  Like really really white.  Like can't clap on the beat white.  Snowflake, the pistachio flavor from Cedar Crest that I tried, was also this unnaturally bleached color.  Seems to be a theme. I kind of wonder why they are doing this. I mean, if you have ever looked at milk or cream it is not a stark white color. So white! Anyway, aside from the slightly off-putting color, this was a pretty decent ice cream. Cedar Crest is really starting to grow on me with their moderately priced ice cream and interesting flavors. Ha....

A few days before I raced the Go! St. Louis Marathon I raised quite the social media hubbub by asking for suggestions on what ice cream I should eat the day before. The suggestions were FroYo (kinda lame because that's not ice cream), Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams (not actually open in St. Louis yet), Clementine's Ice Cream (also not actually open yet), Fritz's Frozen Custard (also not ice cream but a more than acceptable suggestion), and Mr. Wizard's Frozen Custard. I also had two flavor suggestions, peanut butter dark chocolate and coffee. I ended up being a jerk (sorta sorry but not really) and not really taking any of those suggestions. A friend texted me her suggestion, instead of commenting on the post, which was Serendipity Homemade Ice Cream. I ended up staying at my parents' house that weekend, instead of my boyfriend's, because he got really sick. I had to go to the marathon expo to pick up my bib, and Serendipity was right on the way from my parent...

This reader request is a long time coming. A while ago a friend of mine from high school suggested I review Blue Bell's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. With all of the new flavors being released by companies since the start of 2015 has caused me to get behind on other flavors. But here it is. On Monday, I was still in major calorie debt from running the Go! St. Louis Marathon the day before, so I knew I needed to sit down and eat at least half a pint of high butterfat ice cream. What would be a better choice than Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough? After Madeline did her Blood Orange Throw Down I thought I would copy the idea! Double the ice cream reviewing means double the fun!! And double the exclamation points!!!!   Before we start: Ben & Jerry's introduced the flavor Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough to the world in 1984. Yes they were THE first to put cookie dough in ice cream. Thank goodness they did this because if they had not I would have significantly...