The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

Typically, when Haagen-Dazs does a limited edition, they do it right. They're seasonal/limited edition Peppermint Bark is divine, and years later I still find myself lamenting the passing of Coconut Macaroon and Spiced Caramel Biscuit. I was excited to find their latest limited edition creation, Sea Salt Caramel Truffle. I was fully expecting this to be great, but a small part of my mind couldn't help but think that salted caramel truffle flavors are so tired by now. Thankfully Haagen-Dazs produced a well-executed classic instead of putting a mediocre flavor into a saturated market and hoping to make it sell by labeling it 'limited edition.' Sea Salt Caramel Truffle has  rich fudge truffles folded into sea salt caramel ice cream for a decadent indulgence. I get so down on salted caramel ice cream because so much of it is utter crap, but then something like Sea Salt Caramel Truffle comes along to remind me that it's not that I hate salted caramel, it's t...

A looooong time ago (in a galaxy far, far away) someone made a request that we review Great Value Salted Caramel Truffle ice cream.  I rarely go to Wal-Mart because Minneapolis is the land of Target and the closest Wal-Mart is still slightly far away, and when I did go specifically to pick up this flavor there was none on the shelf.  I took this as a good sign that the flavor was as great as our reader claimed.  Months later I finally returned to Wal-Mart and was able to snag Salted Caramel Truffle.  By this point, I was quite trepidatious after reading Lizzy's review panning  Great Value Coffee  ice cream.  How could a brand that produced something that bad also produce something even approaching edible?  Well, contradictions abound because this ice cream was pretty damn good. This is described as "Sea salt caramel ice cream with sea salt caramel swirl and truffle candy pieces." The base was a plain caramel, light and mild and sweet. ...

Wow you guys, Madeline has been killing the game when it comes to reviews. She's been churning them out faster than you can say slow-churned ice cream. While Madeline is totally out-doing me in quantity, I've got to think I'm earning some points from hype-factor with this post right now. Because, as you all know, David's Famous is DA BOMB and eating/reviewing the ice cream is a ton of fun. Also I'm slowly, but surely, making my way through every David's Famous flavor. Since I've now tried Sea Salt Caramel, the only flavors I have left to try are Rhubarb and Lemon!! (Yay plants!) The description of this flavor reads, Sea Salt Caramel was an accident! We were experimenting with different flavors when someone suggested caramel. It's a long story, but when I couldn't find a caramel I liked, I started making my own. It's a bit of sweet and salty heaven in a pint! So I'm quite confused by this description. I'm not exactly sure...

This is the last pint in my Haagen-Dazs coupon fiasco. Similar to the last time I purchased a salted caramel frozen dairy dessert, I was at a store with a limited selection of the brand I wanted, so I bought salted caramel even though salted caramel is sooooo 2012. Soooo over it. Except, I'm not over it. Now the ice cream world is starting to move on to other things, and the salted caramel trend is starting to fade a little bit. The flavors surviving the death of this fad are the good salted caramel flavors, and this Haagen-Dazs gelato is no exception. I devoured two thirds of this pint in one sitting after a run in some sweltering weather. I'll tell myself that was okay because the salt replaced the sodium I lost in my sweat, right? One aspect of this flavor I enjoy, that also sets it apart from its counter parts is it features no other flavor besides salted caramel. No dark chocolate, no nothing. It is only sea salt caramel gelato with with a sea salt caramel swir...

I don't know about you guys but I am so over salted caramel. Been there done that. But I still had not tried the mother of all salted caramels, the Talenti Sea Salt Caramel Gelato. I was at Target not long ago and relatively unimpressed with the Talenti selection, so I bought this pint, even though I wasn't totally excited about it. I'm going write this blog post a bit differently, and go ahead and review the ice cream before I give you the description. The description of this flavor Talenti has on their website too perfectly explains how I feel about this flavor. If I let you read it before I reviewed the flavor it would spoil everything. First the base. Yes this is salty. It is also still sweet and the flavor is definitely dark and complex. And it is sooo caramelly. Interestingly, the first ingredient in this pint is caramel! Because it manages to embody all of these elements at the same time, the saltiness isn't overwhelming as it sometimes is in salted c...

Long post alert! I ate an entire pint (minus a tiny bit) of ice cream seven nights in a row.  This sounds like some sort of religious thing; the oil lasting for eight days; it rained for forty days and forty nights.  I suppose if the particular ice cream I ate wasn't somewhat close to a religious experience I wouldn't have completed this arduous task. So, why, exactly, did I do this? You can read here  about how I was able to meet David, the founder of David's Famous Gourmet Frozen Custard and take home pints of all seven flavors currently offered by the company.  I wanted to have a pretty quick turnaround on flavor reviews, so I made the incredibly difficult decision to eat a pint of ice cream a day until I was done with all of the flavors. Let me tell you, it was so hard </sarcasm>. Before I talk about the flavors I will talk a bit about the texture because it was pretty consistent across all of the flavors.  David's has a pretty high overrun (how...

So my roommate, Rachel, has the best parents. They got me the coolest Christmas gift. Wooops. I mean they got her  the coolest Christmas gift. I just get to benefit from it. They got her the ice cream maker attachment for her Kitchenaid Mixer and the Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home cookbook. As she flipped through the cookbook looking for what she was going to make first, she pointed out to me that every ice cream recipe in the book included cream cheese. This was kind of surprising to me, but the more I think about it and the more Jeni's and Jeni's homemade ice cream I eat, the more it makes sense to me. Jeni's has a really unique texture, which I think might be explained by the inclusion of cream cheese. The ice cream in the mixer!! Yum Swirlyswirlyswirlyswirl Another cool thing about this recipe book is that includes little tidbits about how Jeni's actually makes their ice cream, tips to make ice cream at home, and just info about ice cream...

When I went to Casey's General Store not too long ago, the other 2nd Street Creamery flavor I picked up was Copper Kettle Caramel. I bought the Cannoli di Nonni because I was really excited about it, and I bought this flavor because I had read a really amazing review of it on the blog The Ice Cream Informant. Not that I wasn't excited about this flavor or anything, but so many people are doing salted caramel flavors these days that I am just skeptical about all of them. I have had some bad salted caramel ice creams. But cannoli isn't done much so I have instant respect for a brand that decides to tackle it. But I generally trust The Ice Cream Informant reviews so I was excited for this pint. As you know from Madeline and I, what makes this brand special is that amazing stories inspire their flavors. The description of this flavor is Caramel Flavored Ice Cream with Caramel Ribbon and Sea Salt Fudge Truffles The short version, found on the pint, of this flavor's s...

I have had mixed experiences with Haagen-Dazs gelato.  The Stracciatella frankly sucked, but the newer Pomegranate Swirl flavor was delightful.  When I saw that Target had pints of Haagen-Dazs on sale for $3 a pop, I decided to pick up some gelato and sorbet.  That way, if they sucked, I didn't pay very much money for them. The gelato I decided on was Sea Salt Caramel.  I've been interested to try this to compare it to Talenti's Sea Salt Caramel flavor which is heaven on earth.  Also, it's pretty hard to really screw up a salted caramel flavor. I feel that salted caramel has really come into vogue in the last few years.  In high school and undergrad I think I can safely say that I had never had anything claiming to be salted caramel flavored.  Not a cookie, not a latte, and certainly not ice cream.  Maybe I was not as flavor-aware then as I am now, but I really think it is because salted caramel flavor was not very common until recently. ...

Last week, Kyle and I went to Target to pick up a few things.  As we were heading toward the cash registers the conversation went something like this: Kyle: Do you want to swing by the freezers and check out the ice cream. Me: No it's ok, we already have some in the freezer at home, and I'll just wait to buy more.  Well, maybe, I am mean Target does have Ben and Jerry's for, like, way cheap.  Well, no it's ok, let's just go check out.  Ooh, but that Target gelato I picked up that one time had a really unique flavor, maybe I'll pick up another flavor ... Kyle: Oh my god, shut up, we're going to look at the ice cream. That exchange resulted in me going home with a 1.5 Qt container of Market Pantry Cinema Snack.  Market Pantry is a Target brand, but they do some pretty interesting and unique flavors in other areas (trail mix, salsa, etc...).  I saw this ice cream and am pretty certain that it's trying to be  Ben and Jerry's Late Night Snack . ...

Ahhh, Magnum, you have a special place in my heart.  I first tried Magnum ice cream bars during a summer I spent in Morocco after I graduated from college.  The bars were sold at little street vendors and typically went for around $2.50-3 USD a piece.  This was a little expensive, but sometimes you just needed some damn good ice cream! In the States, a box of 3 full-size Magnum bars goes for about $4 (I think).  The Magnum Minis come 6 to a box for about the same price.  At the grocery store, I opted to try the Magnum Mini Gold?! (also, can we all please start using the interrobang ‽) I was a little afraid to try a 'mini' size, as I obviously want to eat as much ice cream as possible at all times, but I took the plunge.  I was actually pleasantly surprised by the size.  These were maybe a half-inch longer than my palm and as wide as half of my palm.  Respectable! I realize this picture gives you no idea of scale. Magnum Gold?! is describ...

Last week in the buy 2 get 1 free sale I mentioned I picked up Talenti Sea Salt Caramel.  This was a great decision.  Imagine the only kind of chocolate you have ever eaten in Hersehy's milk chocolate and then someone hands you a bar of schmancy 60% cacao dark chocolate and your head just explodes.  This ice cream was the dark chocolate of the caramel world.  Dark and complex and (almost) smoky.  I think the (almost) smokiness came from the sea salt.  There were small chunks of caramel candy, which I at first thought were chocolate but were actually small caramel candies with a harder shell and soft gooey insides.  Caramel in caramel in caramel, i mean COME ON! (edit - I just read on the Talenti website that it is chocolate covered caramel bits, but still.) Don't judge me for eating straight out of the container.  It's finals time.  Anything goes. This ice cream was good, but really really rich and best enjoyed in small doses. ...