The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

Not long ago, after connecting via Twitter, Madeline and Lizzy were sent the whole line up of SnoSpice products. You have probably never heard of SnoSpice and are quite confused and not exactly sure what this blog post is going to be about. That is because SnoSpice is an incredibly new company; new as of December 2015! According to their website, "SnoSpice is a collection of herb and spice blends that transform ordinary vanilla ice cream into an amazing array of flavors." The idea for the Atlanta company occurred after "a late night yearning for chocolate ice cream in a house with only vanilla." While this may be the ultimate first world problem, I've been there and it's rough. Now with SnoSpice, when you find your self in such a predicament you can turn vanilla ice cream into any of six flavors: Cocoa Cayenne, Cinnamon for Optimists, Pumpkin Carriage, Tumeric'd, Lemon + Basil, or Deep Chocolate Sea Salt. Pretty rad. Last night, with the purc...

I have a review of the last and best Ciao Bella Whole Foods exclusive seasonal flavor, Mulled Apple Cider Sorbetto!  When I first heard about these flavors, I was a little apprehensive of this one, as I tend to think of sorbets and sorbettos as fruitier summer desserts.  I didn't have anything to worry about, this sorbetto was awesome.  Ciao Bella describes this flavor as Our Mulled Apple Cider sorbetto is inspired by a flavorful fall favorite - spiced apple cider.  We pair tart apple sorbetto pressed from ripe autumn fruit with our signature blend of mulling spices including cinnamon, orange peel and clove. This was sheer, wintry perfection.  The apple cider flavor was strong and pure.  (Looking at the ingredients, it seems this sorbetto is basically frozen apple cider.)  The spices were strong enough to make themselves known, but light enough so they weren't overpowering.  Also, I applaud their use of clove; it is a seriously underrepre...

I'm going to start this post off with some bad news. Sam's Choice is going to discontinue this flavor, in addition to their Chocolate and Chocolate Hazelnut Truffle. However, this change isn't happening until March, and while taking these three flavors away, Sam's Choice will be adding 5 new, yet to be disclosed, flavors to their line up! So you still have plenty of time to give this one a try and get pumped for the new flavors! Yes these is actual coffee in this flavor, unlike the Great Value flavor! This flavor is described as Coffee Ice Cream with Swirls of Icing and Donut Pieces . So this flavor is the only ice cream I've seen with an icing swirl. And what an icing swirl it is. Look at the picture of the swirl. Wow. The swirl, however, did not stay this thick through the entire container. The swirl is also incredibly sweet and intense. It tastes exactly like the glaze on a donut and was super goopy. It also had little sugar granules in the sw...

In addition to the Blackberry Crumble ice cream my mom picked up, she also got Coffee ice cream from the plain old Wal-Mart brand, Great Value. Sam's Choice must be Wal-Mart's gourmet/luxury/something brand, and in fact, the Blackberry Crumble was good! So my expectations for this ice cream were not as high. Lo and behold, my expectations were right were they should have been, low. This coffee ice cream barely tasted like coffee. I looked at the ingredients and did not seen anything resembling coffee in the list. I did see some "natural flavors" and ingredients like carob bean gum and corn syrup. I also saw some stabilizers I hadn't heard of, like triacetin. Ewww. I felt like I could taste all the gums and stabilizers. The texture, surprisingly was not too bad. It was not great, but it was only a little gummy. It was also airy and soft. Well, I don't have much more to say. Bad reviews are often short reviews. If you're at Wal-Mart looking...

I arrived back at my parents' house two days ago and Madeline will arrive home in a few days. My parents have this whole ice cream deal figured out now, and there were two different kinds of ice cream in the freezer for my arrival. The first I tried was Sam's Choice Blackberry Crumble. This is the first flavor of Sam's Choice ice cream I've tried. Madeline has enjoyed this flavor and the Coffee and Donuts, so I was excited to try it. The container size is a quart. Because sometimes you have to share your ice cream. This flavor is described as Blackberry Ice Cream with Pie Crust Pieces and Blackberry Ripple . So when I think about a fruit crumble, I think about an oat, brown sugar topping. This ice cream obviously does not have such a topping, but I'm keeping an open mind. Ooooo pretty ripple After rereading Madeline's review of this flavor, I agree with most of what she had to say. The base was sweet and fruity, not tart. It also didn't tas...

After trying the  Ciao Bella White Chocolate Peppermint , I knew I had to go back to Whole Foods to try the other two seasonal flavors: Honey Almond Nougat Gelato and Mulled Apple Cider Sorbetto.  These are only available at Whole Foods and only available through December.  This means I have a bit of a challenge on my hands to review them before the end of December. (Who am I kidding, this is no challenge at all!)  Today I have a review of Honey Almond Nougat Gelato.  This flavor is described as Our Honey Almond Nougat gelato is inspired by an Italian holiday favorite - almond torrone! We fold broken honey almond torrone pieces into our classic gelato base and add roasted almonds and wildflower honey to make the ultimate almond gelato. The primary flavor of this gelato is an almond extract, almost amaretto flavor.  If you follow the blog, you know I'm not a huge fan of extract over actual product, but I'm actually okay with almond extract.  It...

Wow the peppermint overload continues. Recently I've reviewed a lot of peppermint treats, from Yotopia, Thelma's Treats, Ben & Jerry's, and now from Heyn's. I might not have even called it an overload before, but now the peppermint train has left the station and I'm the conductor. This past weekend I ate at Heyn's with my roommate, Aileen, and her boyfriend. The next day I left Iowa and I will be gone for 4 whole weeks, which means 4 weeks with NO Heyn's. Sad day. I picked the Peppermint Candy because it is a seasonal flavor and S'mores because I noticed the mini marshmallows in the flavor and they looked delicious. I was also super excited about this peppermint flavor because it is more along the lines of old fashioned peppermint ice cream. The other peppermint treats I've tried have had a strong peppermint flavor like what you would find in a York Peppermint Patty. This peppermint flavor was more like, well, exactly what the name ...

I totally forgot to check whether or not any of Target's in-house brands had seasonal offerings this winter!  Better late than never, though!  I picked up 2 out of the 3 seasonal Market Pantry flavors I saw: Frosted Sugar Cookie and Peppermint Neapolitan.  The other was Triple Berry Cobbler, which does not exactly scream 'HOLIDAYS! WINTER!" to me, so I skipped it.  Sorry I'm not sorry. I have a review of Frosted Sugar Cookie today.  This is described as Artifically flavored vanilla ice cream with sugar cookie pieces and red sprinkles swirled with red frosting. There must be some rule requiring the description 'artificially flavored vanilla ice cream' if the ice cream is artificially flavored.  Otherwise it seems weird to me that they would start their description this way. The description was a rocky start for this ice cream, but it was better than it's first impressions.  It wasn't phenomenal but it was pretty decent, especially for the p...

Dearest readers, I'm here today to right a grievous wrong.  A heinous sin of omission. Chocolate Fudge Brownie is such a classic Ben and Jerry's flavor that I always assumed I've reviewed it on the blog.  Lizzy has a review  here , but I have never reviewed this flavor!  I'm sorry! This is the perfect example of a simple yet well-executed ice cream.  The simple description is Chocolate ice cream with fudge brownies. That's it.  That's all there is too it, folks.  I generally have some quibbles with Ben and Jerry's chocolate base, but the addition of the fudge brownies adds a richness to the base that is usually lacking. As usual, when Greyston Bakery brownies make their way into a flavor, they wind up the star of that flavor.  The fudge brownies were perfectly fudgy and chewy and dense.  You can't really go wrong with these brownies, and throwing them into chocolate ice cream just amplifies their flavor. This flavor was intr...

Other than my factory tour adventure, it has been way too long since I've reviewed a Ben & Jerry's flavor.  And although this isn't exactly a seasonal flavor, 'tis the season for peppermint! After seeing another ice cream blogger post to Instagram about their recent review of this flavor, I was feeling nostalgic and knew I needed some B&J's asap. I get nostalgic about this flavor because Ben & Jerry's released it right when I was coming into my ice cream consciousness. It came out right when I knew enough about the existing Ben & Jerry's flavors that I could spot a new flavor when I saw one in stores. Back in my junior year in college, after successfully hunting for the then recently released 7-11 exclusive flavor, Nutty Caramel Swirl, my friends and I stopped at a grocery store to pick up a couple more pints for our freezer. We stumbled upon Chocolate Peppermint Crunch, which we didn't even know was coming out. It was a grand day a...

Alright frozen custard fans, finally a review of Culver's is coming your way! Culver's is a frozen custard staple, because unfortunately we don't all live in St. Louis and eat Ted Drewes all the time. Like me. I don't live in St. Louis. :( I'd been craving some custard/a concrete for a few days now. After taking my friend, Charlie, furniture shopping, I was driving by Culver's and saw the flavor of the day was Double Marshmallow Oreo. Mmmm, sounded more than tasty enough for me to stop in. One of my favorite aspects of Culver's is the flavor of the day. I'm incredibly indecisive, and especially indecisive about food, especially ice cream. Like I have a weekly existential crisis in the ice cream section of the grocery store. So when a store can make a decision for me, with a flavor of the day, I feel secure; like I have direction and purpose. So I'm pretty sure sometimes flavors of the day feature flavors, mix-ins, swirls, or combinations you ca...

I am so close to reviewing all of the David's Famous flavors I can taste it! Well, not exactly, since there is still one flavor left for me to try. However, I did recently taste David's Famous Lemon custard! This year has also sort of been the year of the lemon! I tried Three Twins Lemon Cookie, Haagen-Dazs Lemon Sorbet, Haagen-Dazs Limoncello Gelato, and now David's Famous Lemon Custard! I live an exciting life, guys, I do. This flavor is described as Lemon? Who ever heard of lemon ice cream? Another long story, but suffice to say it tastes like lemon custard pie, and the people who like it are such fanatics that I dare not stop making it. It's refreshing, sweet, tart, rich and totally addictive! (What is up with David's Famous and all of these "long stories" of their flavor creations?!) Anywho, you, Dearest Readers, are probably bored of reading posts of me shamelessly swooning of David's Famous Custard. If you don't want ...

Man, this blog has done a poor job with the dairy free reviews. For whatever reason, I think I ate a lot more dairy free ice cream before I started blogging, so I continue to think we've reviewed more dairy free products than we have. So I will continue to work on correcting this egregious error with a review of a relatively new product! Cashew milk is the newest non-dairy milk craze. First it was soy, then almond, then coconut, and now cashew. As each milk has risen to popularity, an ice cream has followed. To be honest, I love cashew milk. If it were a better source of protein I would drink it all the time.  I think it is so creamy and tasty. Cashews also work great for vegan desserts and cheeses, which old school vegans have known for a while. I've had cashew "cheesecake" which was pretty good and I've made a "cookie dough" cashew nut butter which was to die for. So my hopes were high for this new line of cashew milk ice cream form So Delicious,...