The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

I've reviewed a few Culinary Circle ice creams in the past and thought pretty positively about them all, but the brand itself is an enigma.  Culinary Circle fills the niche between store-brand ice creams and higher-end ice creams; it's pretty decent and not too expensive. Last time I wrote a review, their website didn't even include a list of products and in fact I don't think it even included any links. It was just a page with no information. The website has since been improved, and has a list of ice creams and gelatos that interestingly does not include Caramel Cookie Crunch Gelato. This is a cookies and cream gelato with large cookie (OREO) chunks and a thick salted caramel swirl. The flavors were NOT subtle, which is okay. Not everything has to be subtle or refined. The caramel was in-your-face salty and the cookie chunks were large and in charge. The base was a standard cookies and cream, which I think actually worked a bit better as a gelato than as an i...

The last few Culinary Circle flavors I tried were stellar, so I was excited to try their take on cookie dough ice cream.  This flavor is Vanilla ice cream with cookie dough pieces and chocolaty chunks. This flavor was ok, but not phenomenal.  I should have expected this because the flavor has a vanilla base.  There are very few vanilla bases out there that are truly amazing.  The first thing I experienced here was the distinct, brash and harsh flavor of vanilla extract.  Womp womp.  The ice cream also had an unnaturally bleached white color. The chocolate chunks were neither here nor there; passable, but standard.  They were small, crunchy and frequent enough to get some in each bite. The real standout was the cookie dough.  This was on par with some of the best cookie dough mix-ins I've ever had.  The chunks were monstrous: spherical with diameter about the diameter of a quarter.  They were quite soft and chewy and gooey, b...

The second Culinary Circle ice cream flavor I have for you this month is Caramel Cone Something or Other.  This is obviously not the real name. I don't remember the name and forgot to take pictures of the container.  Oops. This ice cream is an obvious rip off of Haagen-Dazs Caramel Cone.  I'll review it on its own merits first and then compare it to HDCC. Annoyingly, Culinary Circle does not provide a description of their ice cream flavors on either the pint or their website.  So, if I had to write a description myself it would be this: Caramel ice cream with a caramel swirl and pieces of chocolate-covered waffle cone. Before my review, I would like to say that Kyle really like this ice cream.  He said, "Have you ever had ice cream so good it made you want to slap your momma!?" First the base.  This was a clean, pure, simple, and very sweet caramel flavor.  Almost as if you mixed sweet cream base and caramel base.  It was nice to h...

A few months ago I tried Culinary Circle brand ice cream for the first time. I had the flavor Caramel Brownie Escape  flavor, which was surprisingly amazing for the price point.  On Saturday, Kyle and I went salsa dancing, and on the way home decided we needed to stop at the grocery store to pick up some mad snacks.  Snacks on snacks on snacks.  Of course, my go to snack is ice cream, so I headed straight for the freezer section. Culinary Circle was on sale 2 for $6, so that made the decision of which ice cream to buy easy peasy. Kyle and I each picked one flavor.  My pick was Chocolate Peanut Butter Dream, and that's the flavor we cracked open first. This didn't have a description, but it was a chocolate base with peanut butter cups and a peanut butter swirl. The chocolate base was not the greatest chocolate ice cream, but it wasn't terrible. It could have had a more intense chocolate flavor. I liked it more in the Caramel Brownie Escape flavor. Int...

When I went to the grocery store last week I was fully prepared to do my usual, "Ugh, they never have anything new!" grumble, but I was pleasantly surprised.  (Side note - this week I found THREE of the new Talenti flavors.  THREE!)  I've seen other Culinary Circle products, but this is the first time I saw Culinary Circle ice cream.  At first I was going to pick up a Cherry Amaretto.  That is, until I saw this baby.  Culinary Circle Caramel Brownie Escape is described as Chocolate ice cream with fudge and caramel swirls and chocolate brownie pieces. Awkwardly tall container. This ice cream has it going on.  Unf.  This was a quart of ice cream, but it was so good that, despite how much there was, I barely took any pictures because every time I served myself a bowl I inhaled it.  Oh well, I have a few pictures. The first taste to hit my tastebuds was chocolate-splosion.  Srsly. This was actually a really really decent mil...