The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

Haagen-Dazs is currently at the top of the grocery-store-ice-cream-brand-starts-making-non-dairy-ice-cream game. That is a very specific game with basically only two participants: Ben and Jerry's and Haagen-Dazs. All kidding aside, Haagen-Dazs' non-dairy ice creams, which they introduced last year, are actually quite tasty, and not just tasty-for-non-dairy-tasty. Boy, I'm really into hyphens today. This year, Haagen-Dazs introduced two non-dairy TRIO flavors. About Crunchy Peanut Butter, Haagen-Dazs says Layers of smooth peanut butter brimming with chocolate-covered peanuts are stacked between rich, velvety chocolate and sheets of crispy dark chocolate for a delightfully textured non-dairy experience. The peanut butter 'ice cream' has a nice, round, full texture.  (Cornstarch will do that!) It has a pretty strong peanut butter flavor with a nice balance between salty and sweet. The peanut butter flavor was strong enough that I could taste it against the c...

I'm a little salty (heh) that Minneapolis is just now starting to get this year's new flavors.  It's March people, the third month of the year! On the other hand, I'm kind of ok with it, because how the hell is it already March?! Haagen-Dazs Peanut Butter Salted Fudge is the first is Peanut butter ice cream with salted fudge swirls and chocolate covered peanuts. When I opened this pint, the smell of peanut butter walloped me in the face.  Whoa! I thought this was a quite auspicious beginning for this flavor.  Haagen-Dazs has a 50/50 record on peanut butter ice creams; their Chocolate Peanut Butter is amazing, but their Limited Edition Peanut Butter Pie was only so-so.  With Peanut Butter Salted Fudge, they're now batting over .500.  The peanut butter flavor was intense, but with enough dairy element that it almost tasted like the peanut butter/cream cheese combination of a peanut butter pie. The salted fudge swirls would have been amazing in a less...

Golly gee, Madeline has been doing way better going through all of the revamped Blue Bunny flavors than I have. I've been wanting to try some of these flavors for a while, but wasn't feeling very inspired by any of the flavors I'd seen in stores. But when I read the description for Bunny Tracks, I got pretty excited and decided it was time to give you all, Dearest Readers, Lizzy's first Blue Bunny review. Also sorry I fail as an Iowan and haven't reviewed any Blue Bunny yet. This flavor is described as Vanilla flavored ice cream with caramel and fudge swirls, chocolatey covered peanuts, and peanut butter filled chocolatey bunnies. First, a couple of color related questions: Why is the bunny blue? Why is this ice cream so white? But actually this ice cream was so white I felt like I was eating printer paper. Color aside, this wasn't a fabulous vanilla base. It tasted like the vanilla ice cream in the drumstick you get from the ice cream truc...

My friend, Charlie, is moving out of Iowa City! So sad, but we obviously had to go to Heyn's one last time before he left. Back in the fall, I saw an Apple Pie flavor at Heyn's but for some reason didn't get it. Then, I was worried it was a seasonal flavor, and I wouldn't have a chance to try it again. Luckily, this is not the case, and you can get Heyn's Apple Pie year round. So I decided to get the Apple Pie and Snickers Swirl! Snickers Swirl So I think the Snickers Swirl flavor was vanilla ice cream, with caramel and pieces of Snickers. There was lots of caramel, and I think that was my favorite part of this flavor. There were a decent amount of Snickers pieces of varying sizes. Some were quite small, but others were sizable enough so that you could really taste each element of the Snickers bar. This flavor was good, but maybe add some peanuts and it would be out of this world! 🍦🍦🍦/4 cones! Look at all the caramel! The Apple Pie was also awesom...

Sometimes, you just need to impulse purchase some middle-of-the-day ice cream even though you're really excited about all 5 pints of ice cream in your freezer.  Today was that day, and I tried the last of the new Royal Blizzards, the Royal Rocky Road Brownie Blizzard.  This is Brownies, peanuts, and Cocoa Fudge blended with creamy vanilla soft serve then filled with a perfectly paired marshmallow center. After eating this, I realized I haven't had Rocky Road ice cream in the LONGEST time. My first observation about this Blizzard is really an observation about DQ: I wish DQ carried chocolate soft serve in addition to vanilla soft serve instead of mixing chocolate into a vanilla base, as was the case here.  It ends up tasting like a weird chocolate/vanilla bastardization. There were tons of peanut pieces, 2-3 per bite.  They blended into the base a little bit, and I think salted peanuts would have helped with that. The brownies added some much-needed cho...

I'm not going to play around with this blog post. This pint of gelato might be the biggest let down of 2015. There was so much ice cream blogger hype around this flavor. In fact, after eating this flavor, Dubba of On Second Scoop said it was his new favorite Talenti flavor and possibly his favorite peanut flavor. I remember reading his review and getting so excited to find a pint and chow down. Unfortunately, as you will read, I think I got a bit jipped. My HyVee has this flavor, and I finally got around to buying a pint. The description of this flavor on the Talenti website reads We started with our salted peanut gelato and added in large, halved, roasted peanuts and a swirl of salted caramel, because someone else needed to be invited to this peanut party . So basically this flavor should be a PayDay candy bar embodied in gelato form. (Side note: Dear Talenti flavor description writer, please marry me?) Hullo peanuts! Mmmmk. So I didn't read the descri...

In the winter I tried Eldon Drive-In's banana split. In the ultimate quest to decide which drive in joint serves better ice cream, I had to try Cree Mee's banana split. The first and most important difference between Cree Mee's banana split and Eldon Drive-In's is at Cree Mee you customize your own banana split. They serve it with any three sauces you pick from their list. I decided on marshmallow, hot fudge, and raspberry. If you don't like an element of Eldon Drive-In's banana split, well too bad. I like pineapple topping, which is on the Eldon Drive-In banana split, but I don't love it, biasing me toward Cree Mee. On the other hand, at Cree Mee, as T.I. tells us, "you can have whatever you like." The second major difference is the size. Eldon Drive-Ins was much bigger. So much bigger, the last few bites weren't enjoyable. Cree Mee's was much more manageable. But I will admit, sometimes you need a massive banana split. In tha...

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine in Eldon had eaten some of Central Dairy's Candy Bar Whirl and wanted to know what I thought of it. Unfortunately, I had to tell him I had never tried it. I knew I had to fix this at the first opportunity. And similar to my feelings on Blue Bell, I have to eat as much Central Dairy as possible before I move to an area where it isn't sold! Awkward feet are awkward This flavor is described as Thick Caramel and SNICKERS Candy Bar Pieces Mixed into Our Old Fashioned Ice Cream. Okay. Central Dairy does this weird thing where they don't actually describe the flavor of the base of their ice cream. Remember golden ice cream from Tiger Tracks? Like what is that? Again, I have no idea what they mean by Old Fashioned Ice Cream. There wasn't vanilla in the ingredients list and I didn't really taste vanilla. Whatever. Also the Snickers pieces were not all actually Snickers. I got one chunk that I think was an actual Snicke...

Every once in a while you've just gotta have a classic. For me, and for many others, drumsticks are reminiscent of childhood summers and the ice cream truck coming by. I have memories of drumsticks being really, really tasty and exciting. But before I review them, lets have a little history lesson. And by history lesson, no I do not mean me talking about my childhood; I do not think I am yet old enough that I can call my childhood "history". (Although my students are often baffled that not only am I older than Facebook, I am also older than YouTube!!) What I do mean is a history lesson on waffle cones and drumsticks. As legend has it, at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, an ice cream maker ran out of bowls to serve ice cream in. Next to him was a waffle vendor. The ice cream guy asked the waffle guy for some waffles, and served his ice cream in rolled up waffles instead of bowls. And the waffle cone was born! Twenty four years later, the Parker bro...

This one has been on my Eldon bucket list for a while now. I have heard from many people in Eldon that I had to get a Eldon Drive-In banana split and review it. I had also been told that if I get one of these I should split it with some one. Haha split a banana split. Ha. Ha. However, I would never. Because I care about you guys, my Dearest Readers. I want to give you guys the most accurate picture of the full experience of the Eldon Drive-In banana split. And if that is me feeling like I am going to vom, or actually voming, than so be it. I would not be able to consider myself a respectable ice cream blogger if I didn't eat every last bite of this banana split. I wouldn't throughly be able to comment on the size if I didn't eat the whole thing. I was also pretty confident I could eat the whole thing no problemo. I ate a light dinner that night and I have years of ice cream eating experience to rely on. Trust in your training. Granted, I think my friend Claire would...

My friend Lucy, who is from the Seattle area requested that I review the Mallard Ice Cream Shop while I was visiting family in Bellingham. But this reader request started well before Lucy asked me to stop by. I have been hearing about this ice cream shop for a long, long time. I've been hearing about it from My Aunt Muriel (Ducky), my Uncle Kelly (Drake), and cousin Shea (Duckling? Though at 15 years old and 5 foot 11, he's not so ling-y any more). And, yes, the duck themed nicknames came way before their passion for this duck themed ice cream shop and the two are, in all seriousness, a lovely situation. But seeing as this is a blog mostly about ice cream, and only a little bit about my life (thought you probably hear about my life more than you would like), I won't have time for the explanation of the duck themed nicknames. And I have quite a lot of ice cream to write about in this post. First a little about Mallard's. Located in Belligham, Washington, which by my ob...

Nutty Caramel Swirl is a Ben and Jerry's flavor exclusive to 7-Eleven. There is a 7-Eleven not too far from my apartment, but it is in the opposite direction from any grocery store, or really any where I ever go.  So I rarely pick up this flavor.  Before I picked it up, I had actually only had it once, when they first released the flavor. But I'd really been craving it, so the other day when I already had a bunch of errands to run, I decided to just tack another one on! The pint was about $5.50. A little pricey, even for B&J's. Excitement level: High! I remember really liking it last time I had it. The Ice Cream: Nougat Ice Cream with Peanuts, Fudge Flakes and a Salty Caramel Swirl. Okay yes, so basically I think they are trying to do a Snicker's Bar ice cream. Ben and Jerry's are known for their chunks, but with this one they really out do themselves.  There are TONS of peanuts and fudge flakes. But normally with B&J's there are big chunks a...