The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

While Lizzy was visiting me for the ice cream run, we stopped at a grocery store after a different run to pick up some lunch.  Obviously we stopped by the ice cream section, and found something amazing! Thelma's, a wonderful Iowa-based cookie and ice cream sandwich company has expanded distribution to Minnesota!  Now Lizzy is not the only one with access to these wonderful ice cream sandwiches. Also, hopefully they will keep expanding around the country! Lizzy and I decided to get the Cayenne Chocolate Chip with Vanilla Ice Cream, a flavor NEW to the Thelma's line up, to split on Sunday before Lizzy left for Iowa. Madeline's take: Thelma's really nails both the cookie and ice cream texture necessary for a successful ice cream sandwich.  The cayenne chocolate chip cookies were hard enough not to completely soak up the melting ice cream and turn into mush but also soft enough that they didn't crumble or crack and make a mess. The amount of the cayenne in ...

Ice cream is best served in EXTRAVAGANZA form. And when you put me and Madeline in the same city for more than one day (which doesn't happen nearly enough and not just for ice cream reasons), there is bound to be an ice cream EXTRAVAGANZA!! This past weekend, Madeline came to visit me in Iowa City. I haven't lived here long, and I basically never go out, but I was at least more than capable of showcasing the best ice cream in Iowa City (and Iowa, in general).  Madeline was here for Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday through mid afternoon, so there are obviously three parts to this mega-post. Part 1: Yotopia Okay, yes, we should have called this a frozen dairy dessert EXTRAVAGANZA, but that doesn't roll off the tongue quite like Iowa Ice Cream EXTRAVAGANZA! (Lets play a game. How many times can I write EXTRAVAGANZA IN ALL CAPS before I alienate all of our Dearest Readers??) (Madeline's note: at leas 10,000 times.) But Yotopia is such a central fixture to Iowa Ci...

Today is national ice cream sandwich day!  I'm definitely eating a standard, American, no-frills, from-the-ice-cream-van ice cream sandwich today, but in the meantime, I have a review of Kemp's Kempswiches, which I had last week.  These are described as Creamy vanilla ice cream between two chewy chocolate chip cookies and rolled in chocolate chips. I have been craving a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich for literally months.  MONTHS.  This is ridiculous, because all I had to do to satiate this craving was drive 5 minutes to the grocery store and pick some up.  I even knew that the grocery store had these exact treats! But I didn't until recently.  These sold for somewhere between $4 and $5, and with 4 sandwiches in the pack, they rang in at a little over a dollar a sandwich. Bottom line first.  These were good, but all of the flavors could have had a bit more punch.  The first cookie I had tasted a little like freezer, but I ...