The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

I feel like it's been a loooooong while since I've reviewed a normal, non-core, non-limited edition, non-store exclusive Ben and Jerry's flavor, so to remedy that I have a review of Milk and Cookies. This flavor is Vanilla ice cream with a chocolate cookie swirl, chocolate chip & chocolate chocolate chip cookies. This ice cream is basically your standard cookies and cream, but on steroids.  Of course Ben & Jerry's couldn't just stop at cookies and cream, but added in a ton of mix-ins. The chocolate swirl doesn't really stay together as one piece.  Rather, small pieces of the swirl break off and are scattered throughout the pint.  This, together with the vanilla base gives off a high-quality cookie and cream vibe.  Also, I think the chocolate cookie swirl in this flavor is the grandfather of the AH-MAZING chocolate cookie butter int the new Boom Chocolatta Cookie Core flavor.  If you've had that, this swirl is similar.  There's not ...

This is the last pint in my Haagen-Dazs coupon fiasco. Similar to the last time I purchased a salted caramel frozen dairy dessert, I was at a store with a limited selection of the brand I wanted, so I bought salted caramel even though salted caramel is sooooo 2012. Soooo over it. Except, I'm not over it. Now the ice cream world is starting to move on to other things, and the salted caramel trend is starting to fade a little bit. The flavors surviving the death of this fad are the good salted caramel flavors, and this Haagen-Dazs gelato is no exception. I devoured two thirds of this pint in one sitting after a run in some sweltering weather. I'll tell myself that was okay because the salt replaced the sodium I lost in my sweat, right? One aspect of this flavor I enjoy, that also sets it apart from its counter parts is it features no other flavor besides salted caramel. No dark chocolate, no nothing. It is only sea salt caramel gelato with with a sea salt caramel swir...

Surely, dearest reader, you've heard of happy tears. Or maybe you've been so angry that you cry.  Sometimes you have an emotion so strong that the only way to handle it is to sob. Uncontrollably.  I recently had an ice cream that took me to that place and then further. Over a week ago I tried Sweet Science Rhubarb Cinnamon Almond. It was so good. I couldn't handle it. I wanted to sob. I wanted to scream. Basically, it made me want to throw a temper tantrum.  Basically, this was me:  Further, after I was finished with this pint, even the mere thought of this ice cream stripped away every shred of coherent, rational thought and left me a quivering blob of raw emotion.  I'm finally to the point where I think I can write about this ice cream without having some sort of mental breakdown.  Seriously, this ice cream was so good it made me contemplate never eating ice cream ever again.  If you know me, you know how insane this is. Part of me does not...

This is the first of my Haagen Dazs review of the ice creams resulting from my coupon blunder. The Gerbe's in Eldon is small, as I have mentioned many times, and their Haagen Dazs selection is limited. I've about reviewed every Haagen Dazs they carry, at this point. Except, of course, their coffee ice cream. I've reviewed a lot of coffee ice creams recently, but more coffee never hurt anyone. Except, possibly, me last night. After eating coffee ice cream right before bed, I struggled falling asleep and had frightening dreams about a strange man following me. Whatever, this is the life that I have chosen, and it was totally worth it. To fly in the face of tradition, I am going to jump right in with the ingredients. Whatever your stance is on stabilizers and the like, we all know you can pay a pretty penny to get ice cream claiming, "none of this!" and "none of that!" However, those are usually speciality brands and it seems our main mark...

This past Saturday I was lucky enough to spend a lazy afternoon with my good friends Katy and Evan on a culinary adventure around St. Louis. After breakfast and coffee at Kaldi's, then a late lunch at Fork and Stix, we obviously decided it was time for ice cream.  I had not yet had a chance to go to the actual Clementine's store front since it opened, and both Katy and Evan were up for trying something new. The Lafayette square area of St. Louis is unfortunately an area I have not spent enough time exploring. There are lots of cool places like Park Avenue Coffee and Bailey's Chocolate Bar, and of course now Clementine's Creamery. Clementine's isn't on the main drag like Park Avenue and Bailey's, it is sort of down the way and around the corner, so you get to drive by all of the adorable houses in this area of the city as you go there. Clementine's was adorable, as well. The interior was decorated with a black and white and chalkboard theme, and it wa...

Not long ago I had a coupon for $1 off two containers of Haagen Dazs. I grabbed the coupon, traipsed to the store, pick out my ice cream this ice cream and the Chocolate Caramelized Oat, purchased it and traipsed home. Upon arriving home, I looked in my purse, and lo and behold, I saw my coupon. I was the kid that needed three tries to get a permission slip signed, for example. One try to actually remember to bring it home, another to actually remember to get it signed, and another to actually remember to bring it back to school. Although I am now 23 years old, I am still that kid. So yes, I had to go back to the store another day and buy two more containers of ice cream to remember to use the coupon. However, in this instance, I have not been met with a frustrated parent and teacher, but instead more ice cream! Therefore, you will be seeing even more Haagen Dazs reviews in the near future. For now, a review of this Haagen Dazs Artisan Collection ice cream described as Chocolatey...

Ben and Jerry's has a reputation as a socially and environmentally conscious company, and their recent partnership with  Avaaz  is no different.  They have partnered with Avaaz to work toward Climate Justice and clean energy.  You can find more info  here . (Also, go to this website to see B&J's amazing video/commercial comparing melting ice cream to climate change, it's worth your time!  If it's melted, it's ruined!) The new flavor SOS (Save our Swirled) was produced in conjunction with this new initiative.  It is Raspberry ice cream with marshmallow and raspberry swirls and dark & white fudge ice cream cones. I really really really like this ice cream.  It was a tasty flavor with just enough weirdness to make it great. The raspberry base was just faaaaaabulous! Ben and Jerry's should make more flavors with this base immediately.  It was very sweet with just enough tartness to keep it from being cloying.  There was a...

The second Culinary Circle ice cream flavor I have for you this month is Caramel Cone Something or Other.  This is obviously not the real name. I don't remember the name and forgot to take pictures of the container.  Oops. This ice cream is an obvious rip off of Haagen-Dazs Caramel Cone.  I'll review it on its own merits first and then compare it to HDCC. Annoyingly, Culinary Circle does not provide a description of their ice cream flavors on either the pint or their website.  So, if I had to write a description myself it would be this: Caramel ice cream with a caramel swirl and pieces of chocolate-covered waffle cone. Before my review, I would like to say that Kyle really like this ice cream.  He said, "Have you ever had ice cream so good it made you want to slap your momma!?" First the base.  This was a clean, pure, simple, and very sweet caramel flavor.  Almost as if you mixed sweet cream base and caramel base.  It was nice to h...

My Central Missouri ice cream bucket list is almost finished. On Tuesday, despite the forecast of storms all day, I managed to have the perfect day. I enjoyed a trail run and hike and the rain held off until the moment I got in my car. Then it rained for the 15 minutes it took me to drive to Grandpa's Ice Cream on the Bagnell Dam strip. As soon as I parked my car, it stopped raining again. The ice cream and trail running deities were smiling upon me. Grandpa's Ice Cream and Homemade Pies is the most quaint and adorable shop you could ever imagine. I'm currently kicking myself for not going more often. They had your standard flavor line up, like chocolate, cookies and cream, butter pecan, plus a bunch of "Alaskan" flavors, I think they are called, like Moose Tracks, Bear Claw, and so on. The fact they had what appeared to be the exact same line up of these Alaskan flavors as Central Dairy, down to the Muddy River flavor, makes me wonder if they make their own...

A couple weekends ago I visited my sister, who currently lives and works in Eldon, Missouri, a small town (population 4567 per 2010 census) smack dab in the middle of our lovely state. CHAPTER 1: Arthur goes to the library. I mean ... Madeline and Lizzy and Brett go to Central Dairy The culmination of my trip was a mini trip to Jefferson City, the state capitol, to try  Central Dairy  ice cream.  As far as I can remember, this is the first time I have visited the state capitol and of course the only thing I saw was the inside of an ice cream parlor. (I mean, this is really the only important sight to see in any city anywhere.) I did see the tippy top of the capitol dome up in the distance, though! I wanted to get two flavors because I am constantly paralyzed by indecision, and the fact that it was National Chocolate Ice Cream day definitely played into my decision.  I decided to go with Jamocha Almond Fudge and Muddy River.  Obviously I had to get Muddy R...

Guys. I experienced an earth shattering moment while typing up the title to this post. I assumed cookies n cream was "short" for cookies and cream. In most cases, I believe that to be true. However, if you wanted to shorten and with apostrophes, you would have to write " 'n' " because you are taking off the "a" 'n' the "d", right? But, I promise you, I typed the name of this flavor into the title exactly as it appears on the box. Cookies 'n Cream. When I typed it in I was thinking, "gosh Central Dairy is so dumb, they forgot the second apostrophe!" Then I realized, what if they didn't mean cookies and cream but they meant cookies in  cream?! This distinction will become important later in my review. The description of this ice cream is Chunks of Dark Chocolate Cookies in Our Old Fashioned Ice Cream . I adored this ice cream. It was so simple and delicious. The vanilla base was nothing out of t...

A few months ago I tried Culinary Circle brand ice cream for the first time. I had the flavor Caramel Brownie Escape  flavor, which was surprisingly amazing for the price point.  On Saturday, Kyle and I went salsa dancing, and on the way home decided we needed to stop at the grocery store to pick up some mad snacks.  Snacks on snacks on snacks.  Of course, my go to snack is ice cream, so I headed straight for the freezer section. Culinary Circle was on sale 2 for $6, so that made the decision of which ice cream to buy easy peasy. Kyle and I each picked one flavor.  My pick was Chocolate Peanut Butter Dream, and that's the flavor we cracked open first. This didn't have a description, but it was a chocolate base with peanut butter cups and a peanut butter swirl. The chocolate base was not the greatest chocolate ice cream, but it wasn't terrible. It could have had a more intense chocolate flavor. I liked it more in the Caramel Brownie Escape flavor. Int...

In the winter I tried Eldon Drive-In's banana split. In the ultimate quest to decide which drive in joint serves better ice cream, I had to try Cree Mee's banana split. The first and most important difference between Cree Mee's banana split and Eldon Drive-In's is at Cree Mee you customize your own banana split. They serve it with any three sauces you pick from their list. I decided on marshmallow, hot fudge, and raspberry. If you don't like an element of Eldon Drive-In's banana split, well too bad. I like pineapple topping, which is on the Eldon Drive-In banana split, but I don't love it, biasing me toward Cree Mee. On the other hand, at Cree Mee, as T.I. tells us, "you can have whatever you like." The second major difference is the size. Eldon Drive-Ins was much bigger. So much bigger, the last few bites weren't enjoyable. Cree Mee's was much more manageable. But I will admit, sometimes you need a massive banana split. In tha...