The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

I tried my first of the revamped Blue Bunny flavors not long ago. I was impressed and decided to try some more. It is also that time of the semester where I don't have a ton of time to commit to blogging, so I bought a big container of Blue Bunny I could work on for a while before getting around to a review. As a lover of red velvet cake who is frequently disappointed with red velvet ice cream, I knew I had to buy the Blue Bunny Red Velvet Cupcake. This flavor is described as Red velvet ice cream, cream cheese flavored ice cream, red velvet cake pieces . So first, why is this ice cream called Red Velvet Cupcake and not just Red Velvet Cake? I think if I had the answer to that question I would have a lot less anxiety in my life. Regardless of the name, this was good ice cream. The red velvet ice cream was definitely stronger than the cream cheese ice cream. It was a very rich cake flavor. My major complaint with other red velvet flavor is that the cream cheese takes th...

Whew, I've been reviewing a lot of Talenti flavors recently! I discovered that Kowalski's, a pretty hoity-toity grocery store, carries a bunch of Talenti flavors that my grocery store doesn't have.  Raspberries and Cream is the last of three pints I bought there. Talenti says: We did it! We made tart and creamy happen at the same time by blending our sweet cream gelato with fresh raspberries, vanilla, balsamic vinaigrette and a delicious raspberry swirl. I have a ~complicated~ history with milk.  Growing up, we always had skim milk, and my parents made my sister and I drink a glass of milk every night with dinner.  I hated it. I hated drinking that stupid glass of skim milk.  Looking back, this was probably 50% because I didn't like the taste of milk and 50% because I was stubborn about everything and didn't want to do something just because my parents wanted me to. Today I like milk a little better. I actually prefer whole milk, and will someti...

Dang, there is nobody else in the ice cream sandwich game right now doing what Thelma's is doing. They have so many interesting flavors I have yet to try, and I keep stumbling upon new ones. For those of you who don't remember, Thelma's is a Des Moines based cookie company that also makes ice cream sandwiches. They are expanding pretty rapidly around the Midwest, so if they aren't in stores near you yet, they may be soon. (Also pro-tip, if you live near a HyVee, check them out because they do a good job of stocking Iowa brands.) The last Thelma's flavor I tried was a Cayenne Chocolate Chip and it was bomb. Also, yeah banana keeps making its way into my freezer lately. Here we go again. These treats featured peanut butter cookies and banana ice cream. he aspect about these sandwiches that stood out the most was the saltiness of the cookies. They were very peanut-y and salty, which I thought was amazing. They were also incredibly moist and chewy, which is stan...

I have a love-hate relationship with mangoes.  When they are good they are amazing; sweet, juicy, rich, and smooth.  Unfortunately, I've had many more bad mangoes than good mangoes in my life (maybe I am bad at choosing mangoes, or maybe I should just move to India), and when a mango is bad it is really bad.  It is a sickening, cloying, pulpy mush. Blerck. Mango ice creams and sorbets are similar. They're either really good or really bad, and Talenti's Alphonso Mango is solidly in the 'really good' camp.  Talenti says We make this exotic sorbetto simply with ripe Indian mangos, pure sugar and fresh lemon. It's free of milk, though your mouth might have trouble believing it at first. Just keep eating it until your mouth admits it was wrong and apologizes. I have to give credit where credit is due to the amazing Talenti flavor description writer. Simply sublime. If you're making an ice cream/gelato/sorbet end-of-the-world bunker, let Talenti Alphon...

Dearest Readers, I apologize for being super MIA as of late. My life and computer exploded right at about the same time and I have not been able to write any posts. Luckily a friend of mine is lending me his old computer, so now I'll be doing some major catching up on the blog front. A while ago, this pint caught my eye in the store because of its beautiful color. I also think Talenti's strongest flavors are their simple ones, so I was excited to try this pint. This flavor is described as Just like a beloved heroine in your favorite novel, this gelato is tart and sweet. We combine farm-fresh black raspberries with bits of rich, dark chocolate, and fold it all into creamy gelato. I'm not entirely sure why, but this flavor reminded me of raspberry yogurt. It was more sweet than tart in my opinion and the flavor of the milk came through relatively strongly. I would have appreciated a fruitier more tart flavor, like a fruit and cream flavor as opposed to sweet yo...

Grand Ole Creamery is a creamery in St. Paul, famously visited by President Obama in 2014.  In addition to serving up delicious scoops at their shop, they also sell pints at grocery stores throughout the Twin Cities.  I don't typically buy scoops shop ice cream outside of scoop shops, but, frustrated with the lack of seasonal flavors, I decided to pick up a pint of Grand Ole Creamery Cookie Monster. Lizzy has had her go at an ice cream that improves upon the standard cookies and cream with  Til the Cows Come Home Who Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar?  and now it's my turn.  Cookie Monster from Grand Ole Creamery is  Butter pecan ice cream with crushed cookies and chocolate chip cookie dough. I was quite surprised when I opened the pint and the ice cream was BLUE! Nothing in the description hints at the coloring, but I suppose if you name a flavor 'Cookie Monster' you had better dye it blue.  This is quite possibly the most perfect cooki...

I finally found the new Talenti flavor I was most excited for this year, Wild Blackberry.  This is A smooth, creamy blackberry gelato with swirls of crushed blackberries throughout? If only this grew on bushes, too. Talenti, I love you so much, but sometimes I also hate you.  Why do you ALWAYS fail so terribly at swirl? Arrrggghhhh. I bought Wild Blackberry and dug in before I read the flavor description.  I thought to myself, "Gee, this gelato is great, but it would be SO MUCH BETTER with a blackberry swirl to intensify the blackberry flavor of the base." Lo and behold, it is supposed to have a swirl, but it was completely absent in my pint.  This is not an isolated problem with Talenti, so I've learned to look at several pints and buy the swirliest looking one, but I looked at at least 8 pints at the grocery store and none had a hint of swirl. This is literally the swirliest bit I could find. I love Talenti first for it's consistently great texture...

Real talk.  It's more than a full week into October and my grocery store still has barely any fall ice creams.  I'm getting worried because winter ice cream season is right around the corner.  Did they just decide to skip fall flavors this year? This week Edy's Pumpkin Patch was literally  the only fall ice cream in the freezers so I decided to give it a try. This is in Edy's Slow Churned line which claims to have 1/2 the fat of other ice creams.  It clocks in at 90 calories and 1.5 grams of fat per serving.  I think the texture of Edy's slow churned ice creams is disgusting, and this was no different.  Corn syrup is listed as the third ingredient, and this definitely had the thick, goopy texture of corn syrup.  It was also somehow squishy, chewy, and slippery all at once.  Weird. In contrast to the off-putting texture, Pumpkin Patch had a great flavor.  Edy's blended pumpkin with clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger.  ...

Golly gee, Madeline has been doing way better going through all of the revamped Blue Bunny flavors than I have. I've been wanting to try some of these flavors for a while, but wasn't feeling very inspired by any of the flavors I'd seen in stores. But when I read the description for Bunny Tracks, I got pretty excited and decided it was time to give you all, Dearest Readers, Lizzy's first Blue Bunny review. Also sorry I fail as an Iowan and haven't reviewed any Blue Bunny yet. This flavor is described as Vanilla flavored ice cream with caramel and fudge swirls, chocolatey covered peanuts, and peanut butter filled chocolatey bunnies. First, a couple of color related questions: Why is the bunny blue? Why is this ice cream so white? But actually this ice cream was so white I felt like I was eating printer paper. Color aside, this wasn't a fabulous vanilla base. It tasted like the vanilla ice cream in the drumstick you get from the ice cream truc...

I recently discovered Almond Creme, The New Barn's line of almond milk ice creams, and I think the brand is a serious contender in the non-dairy scene. Today I have a review of Sunflower Butter, and holy crap, it was amazing.  The New Barn has this to say about the flavor: Our organic Sunflower Butter left our team speechless the first time we tried a bite. It's the right combination of crunchy and nutty flavor, and just the right amount of sweet. We can say with all sincerity that it is nothing short of magical. Enjoy! This is an example of an incredibly simple idea executed extremely well to make a fabulous ice cream. Basically all that's going on here is an almond milk ice cream mixed with sunflower butter with sunflower seeds mixed in. The only slight complaint I have with this flavor is a slight sliminess, but honestly, this is pretty common to almond milk ice creams, so I'm not too  bothered by it. The almond milk base and the sunflower butter go to...

Not long ago I tried a flavor from the new-ish HyVee line, Til the Cows Come Home, and wasn't super impressed. But I've heard such good things about the line in general, I decided to try another flavor. At my local HyVee the other day I was browsing the flavors and my jaw almost dropped to the floor when a saw the description for the flavor, Who Stole the Cookies From the Cookie Jar: Cookies & cream ice cream with fudge and whipped cream flavored revels . Shut the front door HyVee, who even knew you could make cookies and cream more exciting?  And without just making it a different flavor than cookies and cream (I'm thinking B&J Milk and Cookies as an example. Not that Milk and Cookies is bad, but it's just not a cookies and cream flavor). I guess Til The Cows Come Home figured out how to do just that. Side note: why is the name of this brand so long and why are all the names of their flavors so long? Side note 2: why are some ice cream companies usi...

During my last trip to Whole Foods I spotted New Barn Almond Creme ice cream, a new-to-me brand of almond-milk based non-dairy frozen dessert! While I was checking out the cashier gushed about how much she liked New Barn almond milk and was excited to try their new ice cream which in turn made me super excited to try it! Here's the flavor blurb for Cereal and Almond Milk, one of two flavors I purchased: As kids, we loved to slurp the milk at the bottom of the bowl of cereal. It was always the best part. Our Cereal and Almond Milk transports you back to that moment, only this time it's frozen and incredibly delicious. Sounds crazy, tastes amazing! Sooooooooo, I read the description of this and felt a little misled. When I was a kid I definitely liked to slurp the milk at the bottom of the cereal bowl, but really only with sweet 'kid' cereals, so I thought the 'cereal' part of cereal and milk would be something ridiculous like Froot Loops, but...