The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

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...

Along with a trio of new TRIO flavors, Haagen-Dazs introduced the Decadent Collection consisting of Honey Salted Caramel Almond, Banana Peanut Butter Chip, and Midnight Cookies and Cream. Haagen-Dazs says this about Honey Salted Caramel Almond: This decadent blend of honey ice cream, swirls of salted caramel, and crunchy toasted almonds was lovingly crafted to raise awareness for the honeybees and other pollinators who bring us so many of our favorite ingredients. This ice cream spea ks to the deepest levels of my soul. I tend to enjoy slightly weird or unique flavors, but I like them to be done well. Well-balanced, rich, flavorful. Also, some of my favorite flavors - not flavors of anything in particular - include ginger, honey, lemon, and cinnamon. All are criminally underused as ice cream base flavors, so I was ecstatic to see Haagen-Dazs tackling a honey base. The honey flavor is so rich. The strong, sweet dairy base is the perfect canvas for a honey flavor 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...

All hail the vegan ice cream goddesses who have brought beauty to this earth! So yes, I kind of spoiled the punch line of this blog post (aka this ice cream is good), but seriously, we are not worthy of this ice cream!! Madeline already reviewed the new non-dairy Coconut Seven Layer Bar and noted that it was much improved over the Ben & Jerry's non-dairy flavors from last year. This new flavor is described as Almond non dairy frozen dessert with salted caramel swirls & pieces of almond brittle . First, the texture of this ice cream was much improved over B&J's initial non-dairy releases. There was a teeny tiny hint of dryness in this base, but much improved over last year. It also melted down really well, and was very creamy and smooth. Now the flavor of the base was on point. If you don't like almonds and almond extract specifically, you will not  like this flavor. The bast had a very strong almond flavor. Almond milk plus more almond flavoring will...

Yeah, so, okay, sometimes you need an ice cream bar with 'chocolate' in the name twice.  Luckily Haagen-Dazs is there to deliver with their Chocolate Dark Chocolate Almond bars, described as Milk chocolate ice cream swirled with ribbons of fudge, coated in fine dark chocolate and perfectly roasted almonds. Why did I need double-chocolate ice cream bars? Because, for the first time in my life, I was an utterly terrible student. I was taking a class to fulfill a requirement, and I JUST DID NOT CARE about the subject material. About half-way through the semester I stopped paying attention in class and only turned in about half the homework.  Additionally, I totally half-assed the final project. I did okay on the midterm and the final, but was still really worried about my grade. I was wallowing in self-pity about this completely self-imposed problem and decided I needed super-duper chocolate ice cream treats. SELF-PITY! The Chocolate Dark Chocolate Almond bars were incr...

Now that finals week is over, it's time to review the ice cream I stress ate while writing all of my papers. Talenti always makes me feel better, so I picked up this pint of gelato I hadn't tried yet, Coconut Almond Chocolate. Usually the writer of the Talenti flavor descriptions makes me laugh out loud, but the description of this flavor is pretty normal. This new flavor is like if Caribbean Coconut Talenti took its best friends on vacation. Coconut shreds, semi-sweet chocolatey flakes, and salted roasted almonds make quite a party.  Now, the Talenti flavor descriptions are not printed on the packaging, so I usually do not read them before scooping the pint. And the first thing I have to say about this flavor is texture! Lots of texture! There were tons of chocolate flakes. They were thin and tad crunchy and a bit dark in flavor. About every other bite there was a large chunk of roasted almond. Some were even whole almonds. They had just a bit of salt, which helpe...

After spending a couple of days in Omaha, Madeline and I and the rest of the Handschy gang loaded up and drove to Arvada, CO to spend a few days with our grandparents. Arvada is a suburb of Denver, and one of the best of ice cream shops in the Denver area, Scrumptious, has a location in Arvada. Madeline and I have both been there before and have had nothing but amazing ice cream, so we were excited for the opportunity to stop by again. So the MO on Scrumptious is they do simple flavors, some unique, some more traditional, with a high quality base. Yeah, they don't do a ton of crazy mix-ins, but they make damn good ice cream. Like 10% overrun good. And clearly a high butter fat percentage. Also they give you HUGE portions for the price. The day Madeline and I went there were mostly traditional flavors, or a couple I'd already tried. However, as you probably know, I'm a sucker for Amaretto, and that was one of the flavors they had, so my choice wasn't too difficult t...

So you may remember that a looong time ago I received two coupons for free Coconut Bliss products. I used one of them to buy a pint of the cappuccino ice cream and used the other to buy these bars. They've been sitting in my freezer quite along time, but I'm slowly and surely making my way through my ice cream stock and got to these guys this past week. I definitely don't eat as many ice cream bars and other treats as I should, but I feel like summer is the perfect time for the. So I was excited to try this vegan version of a classic summer treat. Now I just need to go play in a sprinkler and I'll be set. The description of these bars is Creamy coconut with an almond crunch, dipped in organic fair trade chocolate . Man, this is what coconut milk ice cream was made for. This is basically like an almond joy in vegan ice cream form. The chocolate was amazing, it was dark, but still smooth. However, it could have been a little thicker. There was a touch of vanil...

No you are not experiencing deja vu! But yes I did post about FoMu quite recently. I stopped at the Cambridge FoMu pop up shop a few weeks ago when passing through Boston to my second research location of the summer. Luckily, I passed through Boston again on my way home! The pop up shop is also located next door to a super tasty vegetarian fast/casual restaurant with a couple locations in Boston. I obviously was stopping their for dinner, and decided to grab some FoMu for the walk back! The first flavor that caught my eye was called Magic Bar. It is described as Coconut ice cream, shaved coconut, dark chocolate pieces, pecans, crumbled oats. I was pretty excited by the prospect of basically a coconut squared flavor, so decided to try the Magic Bar. I decided to mix it up a bit with my second flavor and get something fruity, since I hadn't tried a fruity offering from FoMu yet. I went with Almond Raspberry Crumble described as Raspberry ice cream, crunch almond granola . ...

Wowzers. Madeline and I have been traveling all over the place having such fantastic ice cream adventures! Right now I am currently in my second field site, a location in New England. I have been wanting to try Gelato Fiasco FOREVER after On Second Scoop reviewed a bunch of their flavors, including Sriracha Peanut. When I heard an ice cream company was making a Sriracha Peanut flavor, I KNEW I needed to try this brand. However, I have never lived in an area that sells Gelato Fiasco, or so I thought. While writing this post, I looked at Gelato Fiasco's distribution map, and while they aren't sold anywhere in St. Louis or anywhere in the entire state of Minnesota, they actually do sell in a store in Cedar Rapids! I will definitely be going there soon when I get back to Iowa! But in the mean time, I picked up a pint of Almond Butter Chocolate Chunk (too bad the grocery store by where I am staying didn't have the Sriracha Peanut). This flavor is described as Roasted...

Do you guys watch the TV show Bob's Burgers?  Do you know that sound Tina Belcher makes best translated to text as "uuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh." That sound is the aural equivalent of how this ice cream made me feel.  Until now I have absolutely loved every Sam's Choice ice cream I have tried, so I thought this one would be no different.  Also, I absolutely love a good coconut, almond, and fudge combo (get at me Mounds Bars!) so I was doubly excited for this ice cream.  This flavor is Coconut ice cream with roasted almond pieces, coconut, and chocolate flavored flakes. This ice cream wasn't bad or gross, it was just bland.  Things started out well as I caught the aroma of warm coconut wafting from the pint.  Unfortunately that taste did not translate to the base.  I really had to concentrate to be able to say that, yes, this was indeed coconut ice cream. The roasted almonds and chocolate flakes were similarly tasteless.  There were tons of both ...

Wow Madeline and I are literally turning into the same person. We are both PhD students, runners, ice cream bloggers (duh), for a while we had the same hair cut, we look alike, talk alike, and now we are reviewing the same ice cream at the same time. Freaky. I promise we're not twins, but at this rate we might as well be. Lizzy's take: When I bought my first of the new Ben & Jerry's Dairy Free flavors, I got a coupon from HyVee for $.75 off two more pints. I've been waiting to make a bit more of a dent in the New Orleans flavors to make room in the freezer for my roommates to actually utilize the space that is rightfully theirs. Having done so, I went out recently and bought the Coffee Caramel Fudge and Chunky Monkey Dairy Free! The description of this flavor reads Coffee non-dairy frozen dessert with fudge chunks & caramel swirl . This is the non-dairy flavor I was most excited about. It is the only one that is just a dairy-free version of ...

Hooray hooray! Another review of our loot from our recent excursion to Straub's! The McConnell's flavor that Madeline chose was Olive Oil & Salted Almonds. We look at the flavors we picked and realized they all sounded quite sweet, so we figured we should get the one available flavor at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. But before the review, some facts about McConnell's! McConnell's was founded way back in 1949! That's pretty old for an ice cream company! They are located in Santa Barbara, California and supposedly their ice cream machine is a "direct descendant" of the one they've used since 1949. I'm not entirely sure what "direct descendant" means for ice cream machines (like what kinship system do ice cream machine's use???), but McConnell's uses some types of french pot process. Last interesting fact, they purchase the milk they use raw, and then pasteurize it themselves! Fascinating! Now, McConnell...

After trying the  Ciao Bella White Chocolate Peppermint , I knew I had to go back to Whole Foods to try the other two seasonal flavors: Honey Almond Nougat Gelato and Mulled Apple Cider Sorbetto.  These are only available at Whole Foods and only available through December.  This means I have a bit of a challenge on my hands to review them before the end of December. (Who am I kidding, this is no challenge at all!)  Today I have a review of Honey Almond Nougat Gelato.  This flavor is described as Our Honey Almond Nougat gelato is inspired by an Italian holiday favorite - almond torrone! We fold broken honey almond torrone pieces into our classic gelato base and add roasted almonds and wildflower honey to make the ultimate almond gelato. The primary flavor of this gelato is an almond extract, almost amaretto flavor.  If you follow the blog, you know I'm not a huge fan of extract over actual product, but I'm actually okay with almond extract.  It...

The best part about traveling is ice cream. Seeing family and friends is cool or whatever, but nothing gets me quite as jazzed up as trying out another city's local scoop shops. The other weekend I visited Brett in his new home in Cambridge, MA. The week leading up to the visit I would text him and say, "What are our plans for the weekend? Where are we going to get ice cream?" Of course, most people don't put as much time and emotional labor into pursuing ice cream, so I ended up doing an investigation of local scoop shops all on my own. I was incredibly pleased to discover Brett lives close to a scoop shop considered by many to be the best ice cream in Boston! After drooling, and of course, agonizing, over their flavor list for a week, we made the trek with my friend Lizzie, who also lives in the Boston area, over to Toscanini's on Saturday afternoon. The line for ice cream was almost out the door, but luckily, there were many employees and the line moved quickly...