The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

FUN. That's my one word review of Coolhaus Birthday Cake Ice Cream Sammie, rainbow sprinkle cake cookie and cupcake frosting ice cream. Coolhaus started as an ice cream sandwich company and later expanded to produce pints. Their pint flavors are hit or miss for me, but I've never had an ice cream sandwich I didn't thoroughly enjoy. The Birthday Cake Sammie may not be for everyone - it's very sweet - but I loved it. The cookies are a basic sugar cookie, but with a perfect texture and plenty of sprinkles baked in. The cookies are thick, soft, and chewy, but don't get soggy. This means you don't have a mess on your hands (literally!) if the ice cream starts to melt. The sprinkles really took this to the next level. These were no weak-ass sprinkles! These were huge, sugary sprinkles, and the cookies were chock full of 'em! Honestly, I would eat these cookies alone. If you didn't get your sugar fix from the cookies, the cupcake frosting ice...

S'mores is the flavor of summer! At the beginning of May I raced (and won! - it was a very small race) a 10K in White Bear Lake, a northern suburb/exurb of Minneapolis. As I was on my way home, I spotted Fresh Thyme Farmer's Market. A new location just opened up very close to the University of Minnesota, and I'd been meaning to go, especially after I heard from David at  David's Ice Cream Reviews  that they carry Coolhaus! He was not kidding! They had so many flavors! I limited myself to a few pints and a few ice cream sandwiches, but made sure to pick up the summery-sounding Campfire S'mores - S alted Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream, graham cracker cookie butter marshmallow swirl, dark chocolate squares. Since I haven't reviewed much Coolhaus in the past, I want to get something out right up front: I didn't like this flavor that much, but that doesn't reflect my opinions on Coolhaus as a brand. Their ice cream sandwiches are great and they have...

Haagen-Dazs Dark Chocolate Coconut Cookies and Cream is the last of the new dairy-free TRIO flavors I tried as well as the last new TRIO flavor of 2018. It has a chocolate and coconut base with dark chocolate layers and chocolate cookie pieces. The coconut flavor is definitely prominent at first. It's a warmer, tropical coconut flavor bordering on, but not crossing over into sunscreen territory. Eventually you start to taste the chocolate base, and once it hits, it dials down the intensity of the coconut. After a few bites, the two feel pretty well balanced with the coconut perhaps a bit stronger. Interestingly, the chocolate base was visually dominant. With other TRIO flavors, I felt the large quantity of the crunchy layer overwhelmed the other elements, but here, having so much dark chocolate crunch helped achieve a good chocolate-coconut balance. I didn't feel there were enough chocolate cookies. I always enjoy the buttery, floury taste and texture of a good cookie...

Are you experiencing deja vu? That's because Haagen-Dazs Midnight Cookies and Cream is a limited edition flavor that comes back over and over and over again. Really, at this point, Haagen-Dazs just needs to make this part of their permanent line-up. I  went back and checked  the last time  I reviewed this flavor, and Haagen-Dazs has changed the description, but I don't believe they changed the actual flavor. This time they say Dedicated to the serious chocolate lover, our Midnight Cookies and Cream combines chocolate fudge swirls, decadent dark chocolate cookie pieces, and creamy dark chocolate ice cream. Three chocolate elements means Midnight Cookies and Cream meets my criteria for an ice cream to eat while your are sobbing over a tragic life event. Eating the entire pint in one go is required. Haagen-Dazs has a pretty decent chocolate base, and the dark chocolate base takes that to the next level. It's darker than a typical milk chocolate base, but not so ...

Life is basically just screaming into the void, so I'm going to go ahead and scream this review of Talenti Almond Butter & Honey Special Batch gelato into the void of it's old news and this point and maybe not even available anymore. Talenti says: We blend almond butter with fresh milk and cream to create a creamy almond butter gelato before topping it off with a dash of salt and a swirl of wildflower honey. It's very hard to categorize what makes a Talenti success. They're generally terrible at mix-ins, but their chocolate flakes are divine. This makes you think their mix-in free flavors would generally be better than the non-mix in flavors, but they have some terrible mix-in free flavors. Their nut flavors are generally pretty good, but some, like Pistachio, are just meh. Whatever the recipe for Talenti success, Almond Butter & Honey achieves it. The almond butter base had a light, delicate sweetness with almost a floral hint to it. This was compleme...