The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

So far, I've been relatively impressed with the HyVee line Til the Cows Come Home. I've tried two of their flavors, a chocolate peanut butter one that was okay, and a cookies and cream one which I really enjoyed. I was excited to try their s'mores flavor, even though the long names of the ice cream flavors kind of bother me. Like yes, it's a cute pun, but it doesn't roll off the tongue nicely. This flavor is described as  Artificially flavored graham cracker ice cream with marshmallow swirls, graham crunch, and chocolate flavored chunks.  I love that Iowans love graham cracker ice cream. Whitey's does some great flavors with a graham cracker base, and the graham cracker base is what drew me to this flavor. There's also some graham crunch? Yum! The base of this flavor was worth the excitement. It was a pretty light and sweet graham cracker flavor, which served as a nice backdrop for the other elements. The graham crunch was basically sugary, grainy,

After I tried the divine  Kemps Yo2 Cold Brewed Coffee , I picked up Mudslide from the same line. I figured that if their coffee and fudge flavor was mind-blowing, the addition of chocolate and cookies could only make things better.  I was mostly correct. Mudslide is Chocolate and coffee frozen yogurt swirled with cookies, fudge, and chocolatey chunks. I was a bit confused when I read the description as I've never heard the term 'mudslide' used to describe anything other than the Kahlua+vodka+Bailey's drink that we all drank and then vomited in high school.  What? We didn't all do that? Well, I did that in high school.  Sorry mom and dad, at least I was still valedictorian. This frozen yogurt is more similar to a Mississippi Mud Pie than a Mudslide, but with the addition of cookies. I'll forgive the strange nomenclature decision though. Each element of this flavor was predictably amazing, but the combination wasn't, as Goldilocks would say,

When you measure time by ice cream pints, time seems to go a lot faster in my mind. When I picked up this pint at the store I was thinking, "I wonder if this will taste like the Talenti Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip, which I had just the other day!" After eating the pint (which did remind me of the Black Raspberry flavor, but we'll get to that in a bit), I searched on our blog to find my review of the Black Raspberry flavor. Turns out, I wrote that review over three months ago. But I swear it feels like just yesterday. Anyway, this flavor is described as A smooth, creamy blackberry gelato with swirls of crushed blackberries throughout? If only this grew on bushes, too.  Welp, I'm pretty okay with that this pint doesn't grow on bushes. I thought this flavor was decidedly meh. In my opinion, the base hardly tasted like blackberries. It tasted much more like a mild blackberry yogurt. Madeline described the base as tasting like blackberries and cream, b

Very rarely I try an ice cream that makes me react like this: Even more rarely I find a frozen yogurt that makes me wiggle my arms with excitement, but I found one in Kemps Yo2 Cold Brewed Coffee Frozen Yogurt.  The Yo2 (really 'Yo Squared,' but I'm too lazy to figure out how to superscript, halp plz) line was new last year and intended to be a schmancy, decadent fro-yo line.  I'm finally getting around to trying some of the flavors.  Ewps. Cold Brewed Coffee is Coffee frozen yogurt swirled with fudge. Such a boring description for such an amazing frozen yogurt!  The cold brew base is exactly what cold brew coffee is supposed to be: coffee with all of the richness and flavor of coffee but much less acidity, which allows the deep coffee flavor to shine through.  Some might say, "If it was so amazing, why not make it an ice cream?" I think the frozen yogurt base actually works better than ice cream.  As I've mentioned before, Kemps frozen yogu

Without really trying, I've been on a bit of a brownie kick as of late. Maybe brownies will be the it  dessert of 2017? Like move over cupcakes and donuts, here come lots of brownies and blondies in all sorts of fun flavors? I'd be into it, but my dessert and ice cream trend predictions (wishes) don't often come true. This flavor is described as Chocolate & Vanilla Ice Cream with F udge Brownies & a Brownie Batter Core. First off, I don't have a ton to say about the bases. Nothing too exciting here, though it was nice to see simple base flavors in the core series. Other Ben & Jerry's cores have been made too busy by fancy base flavors. The brownies were good, standard delicious moist and dense Ben & Jerry's brownies. However, they seemed smaller than in other B&J's flavors that feature brownies. There also could have been just a few more of them. Last but not least, the core was interesting. My first few bites, I didn&

I'm currently in this weird in-between place with ice cream. I never caught up with all the new ice cream that came out in 2016 because I was working my way through the NOLA ice cream, but the new ice cream for 2017 haven't hit the shelves yet, or even been announced as far as I know. Not that I'm going to have time to go back and review everything I missed from 2016, but while there is a lull in the ice cream world, I'm at least going to try. The brownies á la mode flavor was probably the least "exotic" of the destination series. It is inspired by Chicago and the description is Savor a special collection of new flavors inspired by some of the world's most popular travel destinations. Like Chicago (the birthplace of the brownie) our Brownies á la Mode is rich with flavor. We combine our signature vanilla ice cream with rich fudge and decadent brownie pieces, to bring this American original to life.  A quick history lesson about the brownie. The

While I patiently (Ok, honestly, not so patiently) wait for new 2017 flavors to arrive I decided to make my way through some frozen yogurts that I missed last year.  When it comes to grocery store frozen yogurt, Kemps is the hands-down champion.  Their frozen yogurt is rich and creamy and more like ice cream than yogurt you would find at a shop. I'm obsessed with all things speculoos, so I grabbed Kemps Frozen Yogurt Shop Cinnamon Spice Cookie, described as Caramel frozen yogurt with a caramel swirl and spiced cookie pieces topped with cinnamon chips. Kemps tweeted about this flavor in May, billing it as a new flavor, but I don't currently see it listed on their website.  Hopefully they didn't take this product away after only 6 months! I love the Frozen Yogurt Shop line.  I think too many frozen yogurt lines try to appel to the 'health dessert' sector of the market so not enough of them are super chunky, and I'm glad Kemps pounced on the opportunit

It has been wayyyy toooo long since I've had a Dairy Queen Blizzard. Madeline was doing a great job trying the new Blizzards and Blizzards of the month, so I've kind of slacked on DQ. The other day, however, while driving to a friend's house and passing a Dairy Queen, I, all of a sudden, NEEEEDED a Blizzard. Like I was going to die if I didn't get one. I was super starving and the bright lights of the Dairy Queen sign were calling to me through the darkness of the Iowa winter. Dairy Queen brought back the S'mores Blizzard back in spring of last year when they also introduced the Oreo S'mores Blizzard. I didn't either were being served anymore, but at the teeny tiny DQ in Coralville, IA you can still get them. I went for the regular S'mores Blizzard. This is a regular size. Sometimes (aka when I'm hungry) I do truly love the American fast food sizing systems! This treat had chunks of graham cracker, chocolate flakes, and a marshmallow swirl

Every time I go to Target, I see these bars and think about getting them. I'm very drawn to them because they have incredibly attractive packaging. I usually don't purchase these types of things, frozen dairy desserts trying to be "healthy," but when I noticed the cookie dough flavor, I had to throw some in my cart because I am a lover of all things cookie dough. And a new year means time to try some different things! The description of these treats reads, Vanilla frozen greek yogurt bars with chocolate-flavored chips & pieces of cookie dough . The first thing I will say about these bars is man oh man is this company targeting a certain demographic, women between 25-40 I would guess. And oh gosh I'm almost in that demographic. Where the bar pictured below reads, "they say love is blind, but it must have taste buds" some of the bars in the package read, "no regrets, unlike that haircut in college." Ahhh! Second, these bars are

It's a party over here in freezing cold Iowa! I bought this flavor a few weeks ago, but didn't get around to eating it until returning from visiting St. Louis for the holidays. Madeline spent a day and a half with me in Iowa before returning to the tundra, aka Minneapolis. In addition to the Iowa wind and hills, Madeline and I got a taste of the other Blue Bunny winter seasonal flavor. After being rather impressed with their Cocoa Bunny we were excited to try Peppermint Party. This flavor is described as Peppermint Ice Cream, Fudge Swirls, Peppermint Red and Green Filled Bunnies . I go back and forth on this flavor. Overall I enjoyed it and there were some fun elements, but I can't decide if I wanted more peppermint flavor and more chocolate. The peppermint base is probably the mildest peppermint ice cream out there. A lot of other reviewers have considered this to be negative, but I'm leaning to think it was just different, not worse. You could also compla

I love the beginning of a new year because it means that it's time to look back at all of our posts from the previous year and pick our favorite ice creams.  While looking through old posts I inevitably stumble on one or two AMAZING flavors that I had completely forgotten! To choose the award categories, I look through my old posts and say, "Ooooh, that ice cream/sorbet/gelato was great, I should give it the 'Best ______ of the year' award!"  Then I make sure I didn't forget a super obvious award like 'Best ice cream of the year." The whole process is SUPER OFFICIAL. On to the awards! Best 'Away' Scoop Shop (best scoop shop not located in St. Louis, Iowa City, or Minneapolis) Madeline: Rockwell Ice Cream Co , Provo, UT Rockwell's signature Honey Comb I spent 3 weeks in the Park City, UT area this summer and an amazing ice cream scene was the last thing I was expecting to find.  I wanted to include at least one Utah ice cream