The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

Wheeee, November is nearly half-way over and I've barely posted any reviews! Grad school ate my liiiiffffeeee! I recently discovered New Barn AlmondCreme, an almond milk-based frozen dessert.  I tried  Cereal and Almond Milk  and wasn't too impressed, but absolutely loved  Sunflower Butter .  I decided I would try Ginger Snap Cookie next because ginger is the best and ginger snaps are especially the best.  New Barn describes Ginger Snap Cookie as Our friends at the amazing Rubicon Bakery in Richmond, CA bake us the most delicious gingersnap cookies which are then crumbled and swirled into each carton. If you're a fan of cookies, we've got you covered. Ginger Snap Cookie was basically a plain almond base with gingersnap cookies mixed in. Individually, each element was great, but that didn't quite translate into a great combination. I really like the flavor of New Barn's almond milk base. It has the natural sweetness of almonds, but isn't overly sw...

So this past spring a bunch of ice cream companies released a bunch of new flavors, including the Destination Series from Haagen-Dazs. At the time I was working through a bunch of free ice cream I'd gotten and just became too overwhelmed to really try to tackle many of those new flavors. Now I'm still feeling a bit overwhelmed about all the flavors I haven't tried, but better late than never! This flavor is described as In this Asian-inspired recipe, we collaborated with the small batch artisans at Morning Glory Confections and blended toasted sesame ice cream with the delightful crunch of honey cardamom sesame brittle pieces. The result is a uniquely delicate indulgence with a sweet, clean, and perfectly balanced flavor.  Thank goodness somebody finally made a sesame ice cream flavor. Sesame brittle is one of my favorite kinds of brittle. Maybe. I actually really like brittle of all kinds. But for real, Haagen-Dazs is really adding something interesting to the ...

This past weekend Madeline ran a lickety split fast half marathon and I was lucky enough to run it with her. To be precise, her time was 1:40:37! My sister is cooler than your sister. (Madeline's note: my sister is cooler and faster than your sister, her half PR is 1:23:52!) We ran the half marathon in Indianapolis, which is a city neither of us had really visited before. The day before the race we obviously checked out some of the best ice cream in the city. Lick was started in 2010 by two sisters, and they call themselves the "anti-Ben & Jerry's." Lick was in the middle of a weird industrial complex/studio space building down a long windy hallway. They sell mostly at farmers markets and make funky, unique, local, and dare I say, artisanal flavors? They also have a small brick and mortar store front attached to where they produce the ice cream, which is where we tried their flavors on Friday. Lick had nifty-neato carpet for super hip picture taking....

If Lizzy and I ever opened an ice cream shop, we would be well-covered in terms of flavor variety.  Lizzy is a fan of the 'kid' flavors packed with mix-ins and chocolate ridiculousness, and I am a fan of the weirdest possible flavor combinations you can put into ice creams. We would definitely categorize Jeni's Goat Cheese with Red Cherries as a 'Madeline flavor.' While goat cheese and cherries isn't necessarily a weird flavor combination, it's certainly not often seen in ice cream form.  The pint has Mackenzie Creamery goat cheese and roasted, sweet-tart, bright-red cherries. Mouthwatering and rich, it's like a scoopable cherry cheesecake. Confession. Jeni's became popular just before the current ice cream boom (I think we're in an ice cream boom right now, come at me) and I didn't get it. There were only two flavors available at my grocery store, and I thought the one I tried, Darkest Chocolate, was dry and weird and way too expe...

Guys. I liked speculoos cookies before they were cool, okay. I liked speculoos cookies before I even really knew what they were, and just knew them as the cookies you got on Delta flights.  Then Trader Joe's came along and made Speculoos Cookie Butter (which, btw, you can get Biscoff spread for way cheaper and it's the same thing).  Then Ben and Jerry's came along and made Spectacular Speculoos, their speculoos cookie core ice cream.  Now everybody and their uncle is on the speculoos train! And, you know what, I'm not even mad. MORE SPECULOOS FOR EVERYONE! If you don't know what speculoos (sometimes English-ized as speculaas) is, you've probably been living under a rock and it's now time to emerge. Speculoos are a thin, buttery, crunchy, delicate shortbread cookie spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg. Sam's Choice Cookie Butter ice cream is based on speculoos cookies though they don't state that explicitly.  The ice cream is Vanilla ice cream with ...