The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

Where did I get Gelato Fiasco in Minnesota? AT TIM AND TOM'S SPEEDY MARKET OF COURSE! Gelato Fiasco is based in Maine, and is very hard to get in Minneapolis, so I jumped at the chance to try it when I found it at Tim and Tom's. To all you smaller frozen dessert companies, the Middle Coast would totally eat your products if only we could get them! Gelato Fiasco has this to say about their Caramel Sea Salt: We are of the opinion that rich Maine milk and pure sea salt make this classic blend of flavors perfect. See if you agree. Oh, Gelato Fiasco, I agree . Gelato typically has a lower fat content than ice cream (think a milk-heavy base rather than a cream-heavy base) which allows flavors to stand out more strongly against the base and gives gelato a silkier, smoother texture. Much of the time I don't think a gelato necessarily benefits from the milk base and would work just as well as an ice cream, but Caramel Sea Salt is the exception that proves the rule. The cara...

With the current end-of-summer lack of new and exciting ice creams, I decided to stop in at trusty Tim and Tom's Speedy Market to see if they had any interesting ice creams stocked, and they did not disappoint. I picked up a half-pint of new-to-me, Minnesota-made Contented Cow Creamery Mocha Chip. Contented Cow Creamery was started by two Carleton College students. They source their dairy, maple syrup, and honey from Minnesota, and use Peace Coffee for their Mocha Chip flavor. You can read more about the business  here  and on their  facebook page. I really, really wanted to like this ice cream. It's such a great story. College students! Local dairy farmers! Unfortunately, I didn't think the ice cream was quite up to par. Some of the issue may be with Tim and Tom's and not with the ice cream itself, and I'll try to point out the causes of the issues as I bring them up. The coffee base is made with Peace Coffee, a local organization that sources and roasts...

If you're into ice cream and follow other bloggers, then you've definitely heard about Coolhaus ice cream sandwiches with their architecture-inspired names. They're not sold in too many places in the Mid-West, but I recently found some at Tim and Tom's, a local corner market. Seriously, I want to give the person in charge of dairy purchasing the biggest hug; they almost always have a new brand or rare flavor to try. The Mintimalism (inspired, of course, by minimalism ) is Dirty Mint Chip ice cream with Double Chocolate cookies.  Mint is one of my favorite flavors, and I'm super picky about it. Alone, I would rate both the cookies and the ice cream, particularly the ice cream, 🍦🍦🍦🍦/4, but I didn't quite love the way the two elements came together. It's hard to mess up double chocolate cookies, and Coolhaus definitely went a few steps above 'not messing up.' The cookie were soft and had a deep chocolate flavor, and the chocolate chips ...

Haagen-Dazs flavor descriptions are always so .... precious. Take that for Rum Raisin: For our rum raisin ice cream, we soak plump raisins in rum and add pure, sweet cream for a rich, flavorful experience with just the right hint of warmth. I think of Rum Raisin as a somewhat old-fashioned ice cream flavor, but it approximately five seconds of googling, I couldn't find any evidence to back up that perception. Give me a shout if you know anything about the history of Rum Raisin ice cream! The sweet cream base was phenomenal. I honestly might rate the base alone 🍦🍦🍦🍦/4. It had the perfect balance of sweetness and dairy richness. Alas, this was not just a sweet cream ice cream. As a Rum Raisin ice cream it just didn't have enough going on. The general idea of rum raisin is that the rum from the rum-soaked raisins soaks into the base, giving every bite a smack of rum. How many times can you say rum in one sentence? The raisins themselves were as plump and juicy as...

I've reviewed a few Culinary Circle ice creams in the past and thought pretty positively about them all, but the brand itself is an enigma.  Culinary Circle fills the niche between store-brand ice creams and higher-end ice creams; it's pretty decent and not too expensive. Last time I wrote a review, their website didn't even include a list of products and in fact I don't think it even included any links. It was just a page with no information. The website has since been improved, and has a list of ice creams and gelatos that interestingly does not include Caramel Cookie Crunch Gelato. This is a cookies and cream gelato with large cookie (OREO) chunks and a thick salted caramel swirl. The flavors were NOT subtle, which is okay. Not everything has to be subtle or refined. The caramel was in-your-face salty and the cookie chunks were large and in charge. The base was a standard cookies and cream, which I think actually worked a bit better as a gelato than as an i...

Although it's still listed on Walmart's website, Sam's Choice Ice Cream seems to be no more, at least at my Walmart, but there are some interesting new released under the Great Value Brand including some new ice cream flavors as well as some new treats, including the O'Chunka Chocolate Ice Cream Cones, rich and chunky chocolate chip cookie dough mixed with super velvety chocolate brownie dough, nestled in vanilla ice cream side-by-side with chocolate ice cream and coated in chocolate flavored coating in a sugar cone. What is up with that name? Is it trying to be Irish? I don't exactly associate ice cream with Ireland. Some of the other new flavors and treats also had pretty weird names, but not ~fun~ weird or ~whimsical~ weird. Just weird. These cones would have been great had they been manufactured by Ben and Jerry's, and cost more per box, but as they were, it felt like Great Value was kind of skimping on the mix-ins. The cones are slightly smalle...

Rhubarb and strawberry rhubarb are two of my favorite summer flavors. Rhubarb is getting more popular, particularly in the ice cream world, but I wish it would catch on with basic white girls like pumpkin spice has so there would be just as many rhubarb treats in the summer as there are pumpkin spice products in the fall. Also, HOW IS IT ALREADY MORE THAN A WEEK INTO AUGUST!? Sweet Me Creamery Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler is vanilla bean ice cream with a strawberry rhubarb swirl and big chunks of cobbler topping.  I'll talk separately about the idea and the execution of this flavor. I love Sweet Me's look The idea. There aren't too many rhubarb ice creams out there, but I can't think of any others that use a vanilla or vanilla bean base. This is an attempt to capture the flavor of strawberry-rhubarb pie or cobbler a la mode, which I think is a great idea. I mean, the invention of pie a la mode (in Duluth, MN no less!) is basically the pinnacle of American cultur...

After enjoying the two new Haagen-Dazs  chocolate non-dairy  flavors, I got pretty amped to try the last two flavors in the new line-up. Target was out of Peanut Butter Chocolate Fudge (drat!!!), so I only picked up Coconut Caramel. Haagen-Dazs says For an authentic coconut flavor, we start with a creamy base of coconut cream before complementing it with ribbons of luscious caramel. What odd grammatical construction and uninventive word choice! "Creamy base of coconut cream." Really?! Per Wikipedia, coconut cream is made by simmering 1 part coconut shredded coconut with 1 part water, straining through a cheesecloth and squeezing out as much liquid as possible. (Haagen-Dazs lists coconut extract and water as the ingredients for their coconut cream.)  I imagine this would freeze pretty hard, but Haagen-Dazs adds some corn syrup and other stabilizers to combat this. The coconut in the base was very warm and the flavor reminded me of coconut oil - slightly mor...