The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

Thank goodness for hippie California. I'm traveling right now, and needed some groceries, so stopped by the grocery store closest to where I'm staying. The ice cream selection wasn't necessarily that exciting in this store, except for the Coconut Bliss selection!  They had a whole, long row of Coconut Bliss flavors, and a bunch I had never seen before. Only in California can you find great beaches, a bunch of unvaccinated children, and lots of vegan ice cream options. What a fabulous combination. and by fabulous I mean beaches and ice cream are great and unvaccinated children terrify me. After agonizing over the decision for a while, I picked the Ginger Cookie Caramel flavor, because I had heard good things about it and I love ginger cookies. This flavor is described as Spicy Cookies and Creamy Caramel in Rich Vanilla . The first look upon opening the pint was pretty WOW. I saw SEVEN different cookies chunks and a light, this caramel swirl. My first bite tasted ...

I know I am way behind on the Haagen Dazs Artisan Collection flavors. But I only recently moved out of rural Missouri and my Haagen Dazs flavor selection was not great there. This past weekend I moved to Iowa City and high on my to-do list was going to the nearest HyVee to check out the ice cream section. And buy food because I guess it is kind of necessary for sustainment of life. The HyVee closest to me isn't as big as one a bit further away, but their ice cream selection was decent. I do know I will be going to the other HyVee every once in a while because I am convinced their ice cream section is what heaven looks like. But lo and behold, in my little HyVee there was the Haagen Dazs Artisan Collection Ginger Molasses Cookie which I had not been able to find in Eldon! There was also the Applewood Smoked Caramel Almond which has been pretty elusive for a lot of people. So look forward to my take on that flavor. This flavor is a collaboration with The Good Batch, a bak...

Oh man, another slam dunk from the new-ish Haagen-Dazs Artisan collection.  Ginger Molasses Cookie is a collaboration with  The Good Batch  bakery in Brooklyn, NY.  (Who, by the way, has a cookie of the month subscription if anyone wants to, like, buy that for me or something.)  Haagen-Dazs describes this flavor as Ginger molasses cookie pieces are mixed into gourmet vanilla cinnamon ice cream to create an artisan recipe inspired by the renowned bakery treats of The Good Batch in Brooklyn. First I'll talk about the base.  I think this is the first time, or at least the first time in recent memory that I have had a vanilla cinnamon base, and I don't understand why it isn't used more often.  Often, a plain cinnamon base has a very harsh base.  Here, the addition of vanilla balanced the cinnamon very well.  The vanilla gave the base flavor some warmth and depth to balance out the spiciness of the cinnamon and the cookies.  Also, y...