The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

My favorite thing about the So Delicious line of non-dairy frozen desserts is that they make flavors with all of the different non-dairy bases. There is a lot of debate in the ice cream world about what non-dairy milk makes the best ice cream base. But with So Delicious, everyone can just have their fav, with no debates. They have some stellar cashew milk bases (which is under utilized as a non-dairy ice cream base imo), so I thought I'd check out a coconut milk base. This flavor is described as Vanilla coconut milk based, dairy-free frozen dessert packed with scrumptious cookie dough chunks and crispy chocolate flakes.  Often coconut milk is a popular base because the coconut flavor can be concealed. In this case, the coconut flavor was very prominent. It was like a coconut base with a hint of vanilla flavor. Now, I don't think this is a terrible thing, but if you don't think cookie dough and coconut will vibe well together, you will be disappointed. Other tha...

A caramel ice cream that's not salted caramel! Hallelujah! BLVD Tasty Ice Cream Caramel Dulce Slam is Dulce de leche ice cream with a ribbon of homemade caramel. The top of the pint looked phenomenal. Dark caramel ice cream with a prominent thick, gooey swirl. This was a bit misleading as the swirl was most prominent on the top and bottom of the pint and fairly sparse throughout the middle of the pint. At least you start and end on a good note. The caramel base really stood out from other ice creams. It was much darker and had much more of that browned, complex, bordering-on-burnt 'Maillard reaction taste' than most other caramel ice creams. Unfortunately, because the base was so strong it overwhelmed the lighter sweeter swirl. That seems to be a theme with BLVD; amazing bases which the mix-ins don't quite live up to. I give Caramel Dulce Slam 🍦🍦.5/4. I think it's worth trying for the base alone and would be great in a sundae, but because the ba...

2018 is off to a pretty good start here in the ice cream world. Ben & Jerry's announced their new flavors the other day (and they are lit), Blue Bunny 2018 limited edition flavors are out (including this Cookie Butter flavor), and most importantly, I , Lizzy Handschy, am back to blogging. Just kidding about that being the most important. Right now the most important to us is this new Blue Bunny flavor. It is described as Speculoos cookie flavored ice cream, cinnamon graham and speculoos caramel swirls, and speculoos cookie dough chunks . This flavor is basically one step away from spooning cookie butter straight from the jar into your mouth. It is pretty one note, with a touch of nuance. The base was strong and speculoos was really the main flavor of the ice cream. The speculoos cookie dough chunks tasted pretty similar to the base, but with a bit of eggy-ness of cookie dough. I also don't think I know of another flavor that has speculoos cookie dough , so that...

BLVD Tasty Ice Cream has been around since at least March 2015, but this is the first time I've tried it. They are sold exclusively at Whole Foods. While waiting for new 2018 flavors to hit the shelves I picked up Classic Tortoni and Caramel Dulce Slam. Classic Tortoni is 'Jammy cherries, amaretti cookie and candied almonds in almond ice cream.'  I'm apparently a terrible ice cream enthusiast because I had to look up what Tortoni is - an eggy Italian ice cream topped with cherries, chopped almonds, and macaroons. Scrolling through BLVD's Twitter Feed, it seems like they have previously had issues with the amount of mix-ins. Since this is my first time trying it, I have nothing to compare to and don't know if they've improved, but I could have done with more vibrant mix-ins in this pint. The almonds were crushed into fairly small bits. They were consequently well-distributed through the ice cream, but blended into the almond base. The cookie chunks d...

Sometime while I was on my ice cream blogging sabbatical, my local HyVee started carrying a lot more Kemps brand products. I knew Madeline really enjoyed a lot of the Yo2 frozen yogurt line, so I decided to give a couple flavors a try. Side note: what does "Yo2" mean??? I picked up Mudslide, because it sounded intriguing and I was craving coffee at the moment. Just kidding, I'm always craving coffee. This flavor is described as Chocolate and Coffee Frozen Yogurt Swirled with Cookies, Fudge & Chocolatey Chunks . I have a lot of feelings about this flavor, almost all of them positive. They can be summed up by: how is a froyo from a regional brand this good?! I seriously apologize to all non-Midwestern readers. The chocolate and coffee bases balanced perfectly; one was not more prominent than the other. On their own, both froyo flavors were strong and rich, but still sweet. The fudge is the best part of this pint. It is a solid swirl and seriously sosososo ri...

While you've probably recovered from your New Year's Eve debauchery at this point, you may still be looking for something to get you through the rest of 2018 since it's already shaping up to be as weird (politically) as 2017 which is ... not great. Sweet Science boozy ice creams may be just the thing. At their December free ice cream tasting, Sweet Science had two boozy flavors on hand: Old Fashioned and White Russian. About their Old Fashioned they say, We started with the basic elements: orange, whiskey, cherries, and bitters, and thought how best to bring them to life in a pint. Using 45th Parallel Distillery's Richmond Rye as a base, we layered in lots of rich flavor, a few brandied cherries, and rounded it out with a healthy dose of Easy & Oskey Cherry Vanilla bitters. Confession. I don't love boozy ice cream, especially when it takes inspiration from a cocktail that isn't creamy in the first place, so Old Fashioned wasn't totally my thin...

Dearest Readers, I am coming back from sabbatical with a BANG. Yes, I am calling my break from blogging a sabbatical because it makes me feel ~fancy~ and YES I already got my hands on one of the newly-released-in-the-US Magnum pints! These have been out in Europe for a while now and they are finally here in the US! I haven't had a good hazelnut ice cream in a while, so that is the flavor I chose first. This flavor is described as Chocolate hazelnut ice cream, hazelnuts, and milk chocolate shards in a cracking milk chocolate shell with more hazelnuts. The whole deal with these pints is they are supposed to be like a Magnum bar in pint form. And by pint form I mean slightly-less-than-15-ounces form. There is a layer of hard chocolate on the top and a layer of chocolate surrounding the inside of the pint. You are supposed to wait a few minutes then squeeze the sides of the container to crack the shell. The chocolate on top is definitely hard to break with your spoon with...