The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

Hello friends! I, too, promise that I am not dead. I haven't been eating a ton of ice cream or writing reviews because I am off doing my summer research. I've been very busy with that, and a lot of my research takes place in the evening when I'm normally eating ice cream. While I've been satisfying my dessert stomach with plenty of donuts, instead, that means you, Dearest Reader, haven't been getting very many reviews. But have no fear, you obviously have one coming to you right now! My research is in a city a bit bigger than Iowa City that luckily has a Trader Joe's!! So while the Trader Joe's Speculoos Cookie Butter Ice Cream has been out forever, I haven't lived in a city with a Trader Joe's for a while. As a lover of all things cookie butter, I've been wanting to try this flavor forever  and yay I finally got an opportunity! This flavor is a vanilla base, speculoos cookie pieces, and a cookie butter swirl. Okay to start, the base of t...

I'm taking a quick break from my regularly scheduled peppermint programming to bring you a review of Trader Joe's Speculoos Cookie Butter Ice Cream, the second flavor I picked up during a recent trip to TJ's! I think the obvious question everyone is asking is how does this compare to Ben and Jerry's Spectacular Speculoos Cookie Core?  I'll do an independent review of this flavor and answer that question at the end. The description of this flavor reads: ..... Ok, there's no description on the container, but it's ice cream with speculoos cookie butter chunks. If you've never had speculoos cookies (first, what is wrong with you!?) they are a delicate, crunchy, spiced cookie from Belgium.  If you've ever seen Biscoff cookies in your local grocery store or a Delta flight, you've seen a speculoos cookie.  These are most commonly spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, but I've also seen recipes that additionally involve cloves and ...

Kyle and I made a trip to Trader Joe's last week specifically to pick up ice cream.  Being obsessed with peppermint ice cream, I obviously snagged a quart of the Peppermint Joe Joe's Ice Cream.  This is described as We believe that you can never have enough ice cream, so we blended two flavors together in our Peppermint Joe-Joe's Ice Cream. One portion consists of rich and creamy vanilla ice cream mixed with our signature Candy Cane Joe-Joe's cookie chunks.  The other portion consists of peppermint ice cream swirled with dark chocolate fudge.  Together thees two flavors make one memorable holiday ice cream. I was really excited about the concept of mixing two different but complementary peppermint ice creams together; it's a new twist on peppermint that I hadn't seen before. The peppermint half was a little disappointing.  The peppermint base was so-so, about what you would expect from a mid-range peppermint ice cream.  The dark chocolate fudge s...

Trader Joe's is a great place for speciality ice cream snacks. Fun ice cream sandwiches, vegan ice creams, even vegan ice cream sandwiches, mochi ice cream, the works! But this trip, I wanted bang for my buck so I picked up their Peanut Butter Tracks, which my roommate Katy loves. The quart was about $4 or $5, I don't totally remember.  Either way it's not a bad deal. Excitement level: moderate. You can't go wrong with peanut butter cups. You just can't. They are always good. The ice cream: I learned a lesson, never underestimate Trader Joe's. I didn't really look at the description of the flavor before I bought it. As I opened the quart I read the description, "Vanilla ice cream with mini peanut butter cups & a caramel swirl." What's that? A CARAMEL SWIRL? In a peanut butter cup ice cream? Bold move TJ's, bold move. I've seen fudge swirls and peanut butter swirls with peanut butter cup ice cream but never caramel. I was hon...