The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

Man, what a crazy week this has been. I've done a lot of going out with friends, because that's the life of a graduate student in the summer! Take advantage of the free time while you've got it. And by free time I simply mean a schedule even more flexible than normal, but just let me pretend that the Netflixing and going out I've been doing is warranted. However, not a lot of my going out has involved ice cream eating, so I feel like my reviews have been coming a little slowly as of late. Luckily, one night this past week included going to Yotopia after getting dinner with some friends! The main purpose of this trip was to convince one of my friends that Yotopia is way better than Aspen Leaf. I got quite a few eye rolls as I expounded upon the wonders of the local dairy and no powdered mixes used to make Yotopia's froyo, but then again, the taste of Yotopia's froyo speaks quite nicely for itself. It's a little heart breaking that they misspelled "l...

Alright, folks, you've got a short and sweet review coming your way. I went to Yotopia with a friend this past Friday evening, and not surprisingly, it was very crowded. Right after we walked in, like three very large groups walked just after us. Normally I take my sweeeet time deciding on what froyo flavors and toppings I want, but when feeling pressured by other impatient customers, I get panicked. I definitely felt my friend and I were being glared at so I rushed through my process and totally forgot what Yotopia flavors I'd already tried. I ended up getting two flavors I've already reviewed, Chocolate and Strawberries and Cream. But there was a seasonal flavor, Georgia Peach, that caught my eye and I ended up getting some, which was a fabulous decision. The peach is down at the bottom of this picture. I very much enjoyed this flavor. I was surprised by how strong the flavor was. But I really shouldn't have been because Yotopia knows what they are doing. It w...

So while I was conducting research in California I ate a lot of delicious local ice cream and had a blast. However, when I'm potentially publishing my research I'm probably not disclosing my research site. So, I decided, to protect the people I worked with, not to write reviews of those ice cream shops in case some random creeper decided to hard core stalk me to try to figure out where I did research. And while it was very disappointing to eat all that delicious ice cream and not be able to review it, I did get so froyo at a California-wide chain, Yogurtland, so I can totally tell all of you all about it! I'm sure many of you may think my 8-step froyo shop review process is a bit excessive, but I'm just trying to keep you, Dearest Readers, as informed about frozen dessert issues as possible! Here are my 8 steps I go through when reviewing a froyo shop! 1) The variety of flavors: is there a good selection? 2) The flavor of my choices. 3) The quality of the com...

So much yogurt excitement. This past week was all of the round 2 match ups for Yotopia's March Madness. Since this isn't actually my day job (and oh how at times I wish it was), I really did not have time to go to Yotopia everyday these past few weeks to try all 12 of the March Madness flavors. But luckily, two of the flavors I thought sounded the most exciting, Chai Tea Spice and Taro Root, won their first round match ups, so I had another chance to try them during the second round. Taro on the left, Chai on the right! Wednesday afternoon, Charlie and I walked over to Yotopia to try the March Madness flavors. Again, I filled up on the March Madness flavors and limited my toppings so I could make a good decision about which was better. Reviewing froyo flavors is one thing, having to definitively decide one flavor is better than other is super tough. I'll start with the Taro Root. Charlie was super excited about the Taro Root and liked it because he said it was...

For many people, March is one of the best months of the year because of March Madness. Now that I live in Iowa, I would count myself among this group. And no, this is not because of the basketball tournament, seeing as Iowa was trounced by Villanova in the second round. The reason I, as an Iowa resident, now love March is because Yotopia has their own March Madness. I topped my froyo kiwi, strawberries, and butterscotch chips, which went great with the Bourbon Caramel. But I mostly ate the toppings separately from the froyo so I could truly appreciate and evaluate the flavors! Every two days, Yotopia is having two battles between two flavors. They started with a total of twelve flavors, Irish Mint vs. Irish Cream Cupcake, White Chocolate Raspberry vs. Cherry Vanilla, Taro Root vs. Honey Lavender, Chai Tea Spice vs. Ginger Lemongrass, Hibiscus Guava vs. Peach Tea, and Nutella vs. Bourbon Caramel. The first two match ups passed and I didn't get a chance to try them and Yotopi...

This post is sort of a reader request, minus the reader part. Maybe. It would be super exciting if ther person were now a reader of this blog! Not too long ago, I was getting my hair cut and I noticed my hair dresser had a tattoo of a cupcake on her arm, so I asked her about it. She talked my ear off about cupcakes for the next 10 minutes and apologized. She was like, wow I could talk about cupcakes and desserts all day, but most people stop caring after the first 2 minutes. I was like, girl, I understand your struggle. I write an ice cream blog, talking about ice cream way longer than my listener would like me to is the story of my life. By the end of the hair cut, she recommended I check out Ghurtie's Frozen Yoghurt in Coralville. Ghurtie's a bit of a drive from my house, so it would need to be quite good for me to make it a regular event. So how does it stack up? I'll use my 8-step froyo shop evaluation process to find out. 1) The variety of the flavors: is there a g...

Oh boy this weekend was full of fun adventures and stressful adventures. Which means I am totally swamped with work for grad school. Which means I should spend my reviewing ice cream. Yep. Logic. I has it. This weekend I flew to Bellingham, Washington to visit the Ducks (my aunt, uncle, and cousin) and run a trail race. (Yes this also means a review of everybody's favorite, quirky, West Coast ice cream shop, Mallard is coming soon!) I flew United, which was probably mistake number one, and both legs of my flight got majorly delayed. Long story short, I spent a long time in the Denver airport. Most of my Denver airport time has been spent in the terminal with the Ben & Jerry's, which I was not in this time. This terminal had a TCBY, a USwirl (a froyo placed owned by Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, the Iowa City version of this shop is called Aspen Leaf), and Haagen-Dazs. I haven't had TCBY before, and the race I was running the next day was sponsored by TCBY so I...

I've got to say, I am proud of myself. I'm smoking through the Iowa City frozen dessert offerings. This past Friday, I visted Yotopia with a local fan (can I use that word?) of the blog. Thus, I participated in #FroYoFriday. By which I mean I ate froyo on a Friday, but I did not partake in any social media. It would have required me to take my attention away from my froyo for like 30 seconds and that's way too much time. I have been reviewing a lot of froyo shops as of late, so if you aren't familiar with my 8 step review process for froyo shops, you need to get it together. Please spend more of your life reading my blog and less time doing important, productive activities. 1) The variety of flavors: is there a good selection. 2) The flavor of my choices. 3) The quality of the combination of my choices. 4) The texture of the froyo 5) The variety of the toppings. 6) Quality of the toppings. 7) How well my toppings coordinated with my froyo flavors. 8) Overall ...

I've officially survived my first week of graduate school! However, since it was only the first week of classes, the professor for the course I'm TAing decided to cancel subsections and all of my three hour seminar classes did not go the full three hours. I had a lot more free time this week than I probably will ever have again in my academic life. So with all my free time, Sunday evening I decided to go get frozen yogurt from Cate's, a shop in North Iowa City. If you haven't figured it out by now, I have a whole system of 8 questions with which I review frozen yogurt shops. Here they are if you have forgotten. 1) The variety of flavors: is there a good selection? 2) The flavor of my choices. 3) The quality of the combination of my choices. 4) The texture of froyo. 5) The variety of the toppings. 6) Quality of the toppings. 7) How well my toppings coordinated with my froyo flavors 8) Overall experience 1) A resounding nope on this question. There wer...

Today, I took Brett back to the airport after a week long visit from him. Visits from Brett mean two things. Lots of ice cream eating and not a lot of blog post writing. Our first ice cream adventure was actually a froyo adventure. It was his first day in Iowa, we had both worked out earlier in the day and we were hungry. After grabbing dinner, we decided to explore the downtown Iowa City pedestrian mall area which actually means we got froyo. I wanted to go to Yotopia, because it is Iowa City's "original" frozen yogurt or something. But Brett thought he might also want to get some chocolate for later so we chose Aspen Leaf instead, because it is attached to a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. It has been a while since I've reviewed a frozen yogurt shop, so I will refresh your memory on my eight step evaluation process. 1) The variety of the flavors: is there a good selection? 2) The flavor of my choices 3) The quality of the combination of my choices 4) Th...

A few weekends ago my friend Bronwyn and I were going to go to the Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shop on the Delmar Loop. I was really excited because I wanted to try the Tonight Dough flavor. However, it was super snowy that day and Ben & Jerry's wasn't open. However, FroYo across the street was. So we decided to hit that up, instead. If you've read my reviews of previous frozen yogurt shops, you know I have a whole check list of questions that I try to address in each post. They are as follows: 1) The variety of flavors: is there a good selection? 2) The flavor of my choices. 3) The quality of the combination of my choices. 4) The texture of the froyo (or sorbet, etc.) 5) The variety of the toppings. 6) Quality of the toppings. 7) How well my toppings coordinate with my froyo flavors. 8) Overall experience. Lets get right to it! 1) Variety of flavors. This was definitely good. Plenty of chocolatey flavors, plenty of fruity flavors, some sorbets, an...

The frozen yogurt bar, Tutti Frutti opened a University City location back in the summer of 2012. After not being super impressed my first visit that summer, I was convinced to go back when I was told they had amazing vegan flavors made with soy. Their soy peanut butter, taro root, and banana milk have been favorites of mine ever since. Look at the adorable designs on the Tutti Frutti cups!! But the University City location, on North & South and Delmar, isn't actually close to where I used to live in University City, so I didn't go a ton, and I hadn't had a chance to go since moving out of St. Louis. Even though frozen yogurt bars aren't the most exciting, I had really been craving some vegan peanut butter froyo, so after my birthday dinner (at the all vegan brick and mortar location of Lulu's Local Eatery) last weekend we all headed to Tutti Frutti for some froyo. A list of things to help you convince yourself that froyo is good for you. A while...