The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

I have to credit my friend Alex with introducing me to a brand of Minneapolis ice cream I was not familiar with (ice cream blogger fail!), and also being my partner in crime/fellow ice cream adventurer last Tuesday.  Froz Broz is a craft ice cream maker who manufactures their ice cream at  City Food Studio  (aside: this place is such a cool idea, go read about it!). Froz Broz sells their ice cream on Tuesdays from 5-8pm and Saturday 9am-1pm at City Food Studio at 3722 Chicago Avenue S. Before heading over to City Food Studios to pick up a couple pints I did some snooping around the Froz Broz  flavor list.  Let me tell you, these are my kinds of flavors. The more out there it is, the more excited I am to try it.  Just look at their flavor list to see what I mean. Excitement building! Alex and I made it out to City Food Studio last Tuesday, and I picked up a pint of Toasted Grits with Maple Syrup and a pint of Black Sea Salt Malt.  I have a review ...

"The time has come", the Lizzy said, to eat of many things, "Of ice cream--and gelato--and frozen custard--of froyo--and things between. And Breyer's frozen dairy desserts--and their new gelato things" When I bought this Tiramisu Gelato Indulgences last week, with the coupon I discussed in my last post, I was thinking to myself, "the time has come".  Being raised as a Handschy, I cannot think that phrase without continuing on with "the walrus said" and so on and so on. If you now think I am an absolute lunatic, stop right where you are, go read Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There  and then pick up here where you left off. But really, the time has come. The Gelato Indulgences have been out for a while now and it is about time someone at Big Muddy reviewed one. I was putting it off as long as I could, because I think they sound gross and I have read they  are  gross. I chose the Tiramisu because it is one of m...

HOLD THE PHONE. SHUT THE FRONT DOOR. This is a new flavor from Ben and Jerry's that speaks to my soul.  It's like they reached into the very depths of my being and extracted this flavor.  Brewed to Matter is a Target Exclusive flavor described as Coffee ice cream with fudge chunks and a brownie batter swirl. Staaahhhhhhpppp! True story, I caught mono from my roommate because we were eating brownie batter out of a bowl. Worth it. I mean why even bake the damn things at all, just eat the batter. Ok. I will try to stop hyperventilating for long enough to actually review this flavor.  I haven't actually had Ben and Jerry's plain coffee flavor, so I can't compare the coffee base of Brewed to Matter to their 'standard' coffee base.  That aside, it was pretty dang tasty.  It had the flavor of strong, dark coffee mellowed out by the addition of heavy cream and sugar.  There was also a ..... slight nuttiness .... there. I looked at the ingredient list...

A while back I posted a review of some Haagen-Dazs gelato bars, posted the review on Facebook and tagged Haagen-Dazs. Someone over there saw it and sent coupons for free ice cream! Score! I brought one of these on my recent trip to Target. Unfortunately, the ice cream section was incredibly picked over, so I initially didn't see any Haagen-Dazs flavors I was excited to pick up.  Then a pint of Vanilla Swiss Almond caught my eye.  This is described as An almond lover's delight.  Our dry-roasted almonds are lightly coated with sweet chocolate and combined with our distinctive vanilla ice cream.  Simple yet perfect. This flavor is probably not something I would pick up on my own, but my friend Somyi recommended this ice cream.  She said it was one of her favorites because it wasn't too sweet.  Since I had a coupon, I figured that I had nothing to lose from picking up a pint. I've avoided this flavor in the past because I'm not partial to Haagen-Dazs...

Not long ago, I must have been super bored, and I sat down and looked through the junk mail. I was lucky to find a coupon for $3.00 off three Breyer's Gelato, Magnum, or Klondike products. I think there were some other products you could use the coupon on, but they were popsicle type products. Not exciting. I haven't reviewed a Magnum product in a while, so I was happy this coupon forced me to buy one. I wanted to try the Magnum White Ice Cream Bar, but HyVee didn't have any. So I picked up these guys instead. The last Magnum product I tried was a Magnum Infinity Bar. I expected these bars to be similar in size to those bars. I was a bit disappointed when I took it out of the wrapper and it was quite a bit smaller. They are at 240 calories, and if I were in my peak of training, I could definitely throw back two of these puppies with no issue. The description of these bars is Vanilla Bean Ice Cream Dipped in Dark Chocolate 60% Cacao. They are also made with Belgian...

Usually I wouldn't review ice cream or gelato I get at a restaurant. In fact, I wouldn't normally get ice cream or gelato at a restaurant; I would get a meal and then go somewhere else for lunch. Or I would use it as an opportunity to enjoy a dessert other  than ice cream, what a shock. However, this past weekend when I dined at Acero in Maplewood with my boyfriend's family and Acero's sister restaurant, The Crossing in Clayton with a friend's family, I learned they both make their own gelato and The Crossing recently started making their own ice cream as well. In addition, both of the dessert menus featured different desserts a la mode. A bit of back story, this past weekend was Washington University's graduation weekend, so there were many celebrations to be had, which was the cause of all this going out to eat. I am combining my reviews of these frozen desserts because of the coincidence that I dined at these sister restaurants in the same weekend, and be...

If you are a casual reader of this blog, you might have seen the title of this post and thought, Lizzy didn't you quite recently go to Randy's? The more dedicated reader has had their curiosity piqued as they have now realized there is a Randy's Frozen Custard and  an Andy's Frozen Custard down at the Lake. But don't worry, casual or dedicated, all of my readers are dear. It is quite curious that the names of the two frozen custard places at the Lake differ by only one letter.  They are also only a few blocks apart. However, there are other, much larger differences between them besides the name and the location. Andy's is a multi-state chain while Randy's is a mom and pop shop (quite literally) with a location in Osage Beach and Columbia. Randy's and Andy's also have almost the exact same ice cream statue. Although they didn't have anything like the jackhammer I had at Andy's (a concrete with any sauce of your choosing down the...

Although Madeline has already eaten a pint of every flavor of David's frozen custard, I am still back here plugging along on flavor two. However, there are only seven flavors total so I am extremely confident in my ability to try all of them. I love having this geezer in my freezer I decided to try the coffee flavor next because it was the flavor that started it all. I also had a great idea for a sundae and I needed a coffee flavor for it. More on that later. First the review. This was not the strongest coffee flavored ice cream I have ever had. It was relatively standard in terms of the strength of the coffee flavor. However, what was a little different about this flavor is you could taste the cream in it. This flavor also has vanilla in it, and you could definitely taste the vanilla as well. I would also say this pint had a complex and round flavor, as opposed to something sharp or bold, like an espresso flavored ice cream would be. Not too long ago, I...

I picked up another flavor of the relatively new Edy's Frozen Custard line, Mint Cookies 'n' Cream. This is described as Our mint frozen custard is blended with crumbles of chocolate cookies for a thick and creamy crunch you'll love. This line has been really hit or miss for me.  The Chocolate Malt was just terrible, but the Peanut Butter Pie was quite delicious. Since I haven't consistently enjoyed it and it only comes in the relatively large quart size, I probably wouldn't have picked any up if I didn't have a coupon for $1.50 off.  I'm glad I had this coupon because this was another decent offering in the line. I have two classifications for mint flavors: warm and cool.  Of course I can't think of a great example of a 'warm' mint flavor off the top of my head, but Thin Mint cookies exemplify the 'cool' mint category.  If you drink a glass of really cold water after eating something that falls into the 'cool' mint...

Finals week really cut into my ice cream eating.  This sounds counterintuitive; one should eat even MOAR ice cream to deal with the pain of studying for your own finals and grading your students' finals. I would have loved to do this, but I didn't even have time to stop by the grocery store to buy ice cream. When finals were finally finished I made a run to target and, to use a Lizzy-ism, went ham on their ice cream section.  I picked up three pints of ice cream and quart of frozen custard. I originally planned to buy a single pint because I had a coupon, but I saw a new Target exclusive Ben and Jerry's flavor (review coming soon) and new pints of Archer Farms ice cream (a Target in-house brand). There were a ton of really tasty looking flavors of the Archer Farms ice cream, but I finally settled on German Chocolate Cake, described as Chocolate cake-flavored ice cream with a coconut caramel swirl and chocolate flavored pieces. I can't say no to German choc...

So impromptu dance parties are a thing. Lame. (Ok not really, but wait for what is coming!) Know what's not lame? Impromptu ice cream parties. Yeah, I made that happen yesterday. I needed to go to the post office in the afternoon, but apparently the it is closed from 2-2:45pm for lunch. Which I guess makes sense so people on their normal lunch break at noon can stop by. But whatever.  I got to the post office at 2:10 so I needed to kill some time. I needed to buy a new notebook, so I headed to the Target about a block away. I'm not super familiar with the layout of this particular Target, and didn't know where the school supplies were, so I just wandered.  WHAT DO YOU KNOW I ENDED UP BY THE ICE CREAM HOW DID THAT EVEN HAPPEN I HAVE NO IDEA DON'T BLAME ME BLAME TARGET. Something amazing caught my eye. A Talenti Target exclusive flavor that sounded amazing and that I hadn't seen before.  I think of these flavors as 'ghost flavors.' They're not listed on...

Right before I ran the Go! St. Louis Marathon I asked the internet what ice cream I should eat the day before the race. Someone suggested Clementine's ice cream. I looked the place up and saw it didn't open until May, so just crossed that one off the list. However, in the days after the marathon, I found and followed Clementine's on Twitter. We started tweeting back and forth and they asked me if I had ever tried Bourbon Kentucky Pie or the Salted Crack Caramel. Obviously, I replied and was like, "No! How do I get it in my mouth?!" (Since Clementine's makes naughty ice cream I am in no way obligated to make this post PG.) The answer shone down from the ice cream heavens: Delivery!! Clementine's will deliver ice cream to your door. There is nothing more I could ask for in life than ice cream being delivered to my doorstep. When I called Tamara Keefe, the owner of Clementine's, to place my order, we ended up having a pretty long conversation about Cl...