The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

Leave it to my trusty Tim and Tom's Speedy Market to be the first place in town I found the new Ben and Jerry's truffle flavors! I picked up all three new truffle flavors (Chillin' the Roast, Caramel Chocolate Cheesecake, and Chocolate Shake It) and let Kyle choose which one to crack open first. He chose Caramel Chocolate Cheesecake, caramel cheesecake ice cream with graham cracker-covered cheesecake truffles & chocolate cookie swirls. Even though Ben and Jerry's has a history of sub-par cheesecake ice creams, I was HYPED for this flavor, because the chocolate cookie butter in Ben and Jerry's Boom Chocolatta! is perhaps my favorite ice cream mix-in of all time. ALL TIME! And I've eaten a lot of ice cream mix-ins. I was hoping that would get re-used here. I was pleasantly surprised by my first bite. I got a big shock of cheesecake flavor, so it seems Ben and Jerry's took some steps to remedy their frankly pitiful previous attempts at chees...

Sweet Me was the first brand to have their new flavors hit the shelves in the Minneapolis market, which makes sense since they are based in St. Paul! AND they have SEVEN new flavors that all sound amazing. I picked up Red Velvet Cake as well as Lemon Bar and Apple Pie, so look for those reviews soon. Sweet Me Creamery's Red Velvet Cake is Red velvet cake flavored ice cream with white chocolatey flakes and a cream cheese frosting swirl. There are two elements that make up any Red Velvet flavor. A chocolate base (cake, cookie, ice cream, etc....) dyed red and a cream cheese frosting. Since the base is really just chocolate, when people say they like Red Velvet, they really mean they like the cream cheese frosting (or the chocolate/cream cheese combo). They may not know  that's what they mean, but it is. Weirdly, I have never seen a 'chocolate and cream cheese icing' flavor. Somehow the red dye makes the combination socially acceptable. Sweet Me's red velvet...

I'm calling it right now; Ben and Jerry's Truffle Kerfuffle wins for best-named ice cream of the year.  I love the word 'kerfuffle'! Truffle Kerfuffle is Vanilla ice cream with roasted pecans, fudge flakes, and a salted chocolate ganache swirl.  If you're a regular reader of the blog, you probably know how I feel about Ben and Jerry's vanilla base. If you're not a regular reader, just know that it tastes weakly of fake vanilla.  Luckily, this pint is all about the mix-ins, and not at all about the base (sorry, Meghan Trainor). There were, indeed, a kerfuffle of mix-ins. The pecans were whole or nearly whole. I got one what seemed like every bite, and I definitely got fudge flakes in every spoonful. The fudge flakes were smaller than in some other Ben and Jerry's flavors like Cherry Garcia, but this served Truffle Kerfuffle well because it allowed the pecans to stand out. Is there anything better than perfectly roasted pecans? Roasting ...

I've got another new Talenti flavor to review! Hooray! Key Lime Pie Talenti is a tangy, creamy key lime gelato with graham cracker swirls and pieces throughout.  A dessert within a dessert is a beautiful thing, but a dessert inside a Talenti? Now that's next level. In preparation for this post I was on Talenti's website looking for the description of their new Key Lime Pie flavor.  While there I noticed the interesting phenomenon that this flavor had lots of 5 star ratings and lots of 1 & 2 star ratings, so I delved in to the reviews to see why.  To summarize, the 5 star reviews said, "This was a great flavor!" And I agree.  The 1 and 2 star reviews said, "This was NOT a key lime flavor!" And I also agree. I'll address the negative reviews first.  This flavor was not very limey.  In fact, limes were not listed as an ingredient.  They do list 'natural flavors,' but do not explicitly list limes.  I can understand why die-hard ...