The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

Hooray for the Upper Midwest! Sanders Fine Chocolatiers is a Michigan-based company. Their ice cream is available in scoop shops - located mostly near Detroit with one shop on Mackinac Island - and several retail locations. On a recent trip to Tim and Tom's Speedy Market I picked up a container of Lemon Twis-Tea, refreshing lemon and green tea flavored ice cream with candy lemon bits. I laughed a little when I saw the word 'refreshing' in the description. I don't usually think of ice cream as refreshing. It always makes me too thirsty. If I want something refreshing I go for a fruity sorbet. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised. This ice cream was surprisingly refreshing. I would go so far as to call it the perfect summer ice cream. I love the vintage-y packaging design! The base was lightly flavored, but this actually worked to the ice cream's advantage. Many lemon ice creams either go for a sweet or strong lemon flavor to mimic a lemon bar, but San...

Out of the three new dairy TRIO flavors (yes, there are non-dairy TRIOS this year!) I was most excited about the Lemon Raspberry White Chocolate flavor. The other flavors sound good, but less adventurous. Lemon Raspberry White Chocolate is white chocolate and raspberry sauce, lemon and raspberry ice cream.  Grammatically, the description makes it sounds like this flavor has white chocolate sauce, but in reality it has crunchy white chocolate layers. Tsk tsk. This reminded me so much of a lemon layer cake with raspberry filling. The lemon ice cream had a very light and sweet flavor like ... well ... lemon cake, and the white chocolate gave a touch of richness reminiscent of a buttercream frosting. I was initially disappointed with this flavor because I was hoping for much bolder flavors, but it's growing on me as more time passes. Like a lemon layer cake with raspberry filling, this wouldn't be a dessert I'd purchase or try to make from scratch, but I'd definitely...

I'm frequently angry at lemon bars because they look like gooey butter cake, and I feel betrayed when they are not, in fact, gooey butter cake. I feel like this gives me an unnecessary prejudice against them because they're actually quite tasty. Sweet Me captured them very well in their Lemon Bar flavor, lemon ice cream with lemon bar pieces and a graham cracker swirl. The mix-ins are good, but this flavor really stands on its base. There aren't too many lemon ice creams on the market, and Sweet Me proves why there should be more. Sweet Me is premium ice cream, but this felt more like a super premium base to me. It was incredibly rich, dense, thick, and creamy, and the natural sweetness of the dairy beamed through the lemon. This is not to say that the lemon flavor was weak. The lemon flavor was bright, strong, and sweet. I ate most of this pint without reading the description, and I kept noticing what I thought were patches of the ice cream with gooey texture....

This past weekend Madeline ran a lickety split fast half marathon and I was lucky enough to run it with her. To be precise, her time was 1:40:37! My sister is cooler than your sister. (Madeline's note: my sister is cooler and faster than your sister, her half PR is 1:23:52!) We ran the half marathon in Indianapolis, which is a city neither of us had really visited before. The day before the race we obviously checked out some of the best ice cream in the city. Lick was started in 2010 by two sisters, and they call themselves the "anti-Ben & Jerry's." Lick was in the middle of a weird industrial complex/studio space building down a long windy hallway. They sell mostly at farmers markets and make funky, unique, local, and dare I say, artisanal flavors? They also have a small brick and mortar store front attached to where they produce the ice cream, which is where we tried their flavors on Friday. Lick had nifty-neato carpet for super hip picture taking....

Guys, we really like EXTRAVAGANZAS! This past weekend, your two friends over here at the Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog had our most exciting adventure yet as bloggers! We've had ice cream extravaganzas before, eaten ice cream from all over the country, but nothing compares to our adventure this past weekend.  We went on an ice cream run! Yes, you read that right, we ran from ice cream shop to ice cream shop, nausea be damned! Our ice cream run was totally the brain child of Madeline and it involved four ice cream shops and three segments of running. We started at Sebastian Joe's, ran .95 miles to Milkjam, ran 3.86 miles to Pumphouse Creamery, and then ran .87 miles to Grand Ole Creamery! Thanks Alex, Rebecca, Laurel, Somyi, Theo and Humberto for coming on this crazy adventure! Lizzy: The only one of these I had been to before was Sebastian Joe's, so I was super pumped to try all of these shops. But I will definitely need to go back to them, because I didn't get as m...

Sometimes you buy ice cream because it is so WTF on so many levels.   Jack Nicklaus Ice Cream Strawberry Lemonade certainly fits into this category.  I have so many questions! 1) Why is Jack Nicklaus making ice cream? 2) Is he trying to be the next Paul Newman? 3) Why did Paul Newman decide to start making salad dressings? 4) Do people eat ice cream on a golf course? It seems like it wouldn't be the best golf snack. 5) Is lemonade ice cream any good? 6) Wait. I just read the description and this is sherbet and sorbet not ice cream, so why is it called ice cream? 7) OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING? Clearly I picked up a pint of this inexplicable ice cream.  Strawberry Lemonade is described as Strawberry sherbet and lemon sorbet. I also want to include the longer description from the website, because it just adds another level of WTF to the whole situation: Jack Nicklaus developed this refreshing treat which was inspired by his wildly popular strawberry le...

Our next New Orleans Ice Cream Co. review is Lemon Doberge Cake.  Now, we are not from New Orleans so had to do a bit of research into what a Doberge cake actually is.   Turns out it is a layer cake whose thin cake layers alternate with layers of pudding.  Ummmm, get at me Doberge! New Orleans Ice Cream Co.'s take on this cake is This twist on a New Orleans dessert classic has tangy lemon sauce and real lemon cake in our citrus lemon ice cream. Madeline's take: I always underestimate how well lemon and dairy go together, so a delicious lemon ice cream will always take me by surprise and New Orleans Ice Cream Co.'s Lemon Doberge is no exception.  The citrus lemon ice cream had a soft and sweet rather than sharp and tart lemon flavor.  The lemon sauce had a nice zing to it that worked really well to complement the lemon of the base.  Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of the sauce.  I could have done with about 5 times as much sauce in...

Raspberry Cheesecake was the second of two new-in-2015 Talenti flavors I found (for the first time!) recently.  I really disliked Chocolate Cookie Dough, but thankfully, Raspberry Cheesecake was much better.  This flavor is Cheesecake: heavy.  Cheesecake gelato: not heavy.  There's some science in there somewhere, but all we know is, when we blend real pieces of raspberry cheesecake and sweet raspberry vinaigrette, we never want to eat our desserts on a plate again. First impression:  Wow, the base really tastes like cheese, but a mild cheese, so not offensively cheesy. Mmmm Cheese. We need more cheese in our desserts.  As this gelato began to melt, it even smelled cheesy.  This was a great cheesecake base, one of the best I've ever tasted.  The mix-ins weren't overly bold, so the base was the starring element of this flavor. The raspberry swirl was also quite good, but it was not thick enough or prevalent enough to thoroughly enjoy. ...

Not long ago, after connecting via Twitter, Madeline and Lizzy were sent the whole line up of SnoSpice products. You have probably never heard of SnoSpice and are quite confused and not exactly sure what this blog post is going to be about. That is because SnoSpice is an incredibly new company; new as of December 2015! According to their website, "SnoSpice is a collection of herb and spice blends that transform ordinary vanilla ice cream into an amazing array of flavors." The idea for the Atlanta company occurred after "a late night yearning for chocolate ice cream in a house with only vanilla." While this may be the ultimate first world problem, I've been there and it's rough. Now with SnoSpice, when you find your self in such a predicament you can turn vanilla ice cream into any of six flavors: Cocoa Cayenne, Cinnamon for Optimists, Pumpkin Carriage, Tumeric'd, Lemon + Basil, or Deep Chocolate Sea Salt. Pretty rad. Last night, with the purc...

I am so close to reviewing all of the David's Famous flavors I can taste it! Well, not exactly, since there is still one flavor left for me to try. However, I did recently taste David's Famous Lemon custard! This year has also sort of been the year of the lemon! I tried Three Twins Lemon Cookie, Haagen-Dazs Lemon Sorbet, Haagen-Dazs Limoncello Gelato, and now David's Famous Lemon Custard! I live an exciting life, guys, I do. This flavor is described as Lemon? Who ever heard of lemon ice cream? Another long story, but suffice to say it tastes like lemon custard pie, and the people who like it are such fanatics that I dare not stop making it. It's refreshing, sweet, tart, rich and totally addictive! (What is up with David's Famous and all of these "long stories" of their flavor creations?!) Anywho, you, Dearest Readers, are probably bored of reading posts of me shamelessly swooning of David's Famous Custard. If you don't want ...

It was 70 degrees Fahrenheit in Minneapolis on Novemebr 3, 2015.  Let me repeat that.  It was 70 degrees Fahrenheit in Minneapolis on November 3, 2015.  What!? I couldn't believe it.  Early in the day I decided I wasn't going to do any work and instead spend some time outside.  What better way to spend time outside then to walk to the ice cream parlor, eat ice cream outside, and then walk back to school.  I even tricked a few of my friends into Tuesday afternoon delinquency! When we got to Izzy's I saw they were offering Lemon Basil sorbet, a flavor I'd been eying on the website, but had yet to see in the scoop shop.  I tried a sample and immediately decided I would get some.  I love Izzy's ice cream so much that I didn't want to get a full scoop of sorbet and not get ice cream, so I decided to get the Lemon Basil as my Izzy scoop.  Now I just had to decide what to get for my main flavor.  Such struggle! Much tribulation! What will I ...

After the popularity of my last review of a Haagen-Dazs sorbet, I decided to review another. I also keep getting more and more Haagen-Dazs coupons from HyVee, so I keep buying more and more Haagen-Dazs. (Next time I go grocery shopping I'm going to a different store. I can no longer tolerate these coupons boxing in my ice cream choices). I'm bummed out my HyVee didn't carry the mango flavor, which was recommended to me by a friend. This sorbet is described as Juicy, sun-ripened lemons are selected to create this refreshingly tart yet sweet sorbet . As I opened the container, my first thought was "This looks like a lemon slushy." And I do think the color and appearance of the texture resemble lemon slushies or frozen lemonades. Flavor-wise, this sorbet tasted like a slightly more tart version of a lemon a frozen lemonade. Like I'm thinking of the Minute Maid frozen lemonades you can get at ballparks or fairs? In my opinion, those products don'...

I bet some of you were thinking, "I wonder when Madeline's going to get over to the great Minnesota get together?" I bet some of you were worrying that I wouldn't make it.  Fear not, I went to the fair today, ate ice cream, and lived to tell the tale. The first frozen dessert I tried was actually a sorbet, Sweet Science Honey Lemonade Sorbet.  Per Sweet Science's  Facebook page , We've teamed up with The Honey Booth to bring a Honey Lemonade Sorbet to "The Great Minnesota Get-Togehter." Fresh squeezed lemons sweetened with Alfalfa-Clover Honey from Dan's Honey Co. in Ottertail, MN combine to create a tart and refreshing sorbet that hits you with a wave of local honey flavor and finishes with the smoothness of a hint of vanilla. Perfect for those hot summer days at the fair! This was a delicious, refreshing punch in the face.  It was suuuuuuper tart, way tarter than any other lemon sorbet I've ever tried.  If lemon were the only com...