The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

It has been wayyyy toooo long since I've had a Dairy Queen Blizzard. Madeline was doing a great job trying the new Blizzards and Blizzards of the month, so I've kind of slacked on DQ. The other day, however, while driving to a friend's house and passing a Dairy Queen, I, all of a sudden, NEEEEDED a Blizzard. Like I was going to die if I didn't get one. I was super starving and the bright lights of the Dairy Queen sign were calling to me through the darkness of the Iowa winter. Dairy Queen brought back the S'mores Blizzard back in spring of last year when they also introduced the Oreo S'mores Blizzard. I didn't either were being served anymore, but at the teeny tiny DQ in Coralville, IA you can still get them. I went for the regular S'mores Blizzard. This is a regular size. Sometimes (aka when I'm hungry) I do truly love the American fast food sizing systems! This treat had chunks of graham cracker, chocolate flakes, and a marshmallow swirl ...

On our last Sunday in Utah, a group of us did another hike/ice cream combo.  I mean .... best combo ever or best combo ever?  Let me set the scene for you.  5:45pm. A group of five hungry and tired mathematicians determined to get ice cream.  Many things in Utah, particularly small town Utah, are closed on Sundays.  Everything in Midway is closed.  Granny's Drive In in neighboring Heber City is open until 6pm.  Hit the gas.  We made it with a few minutes to spare and weren't even the last in line! As far as ice cream goes, Granny's does exclusively shakes and malts, and they have SO many delicious-sounding options.  I couldn't decide, so I asked the employee taking orders about her favorite flavor.  With absolutely zero hesitation, she enthusiastically exclaimed, "Raspberry!" I couldn't not get a raspberry shake after that. I got a size small because I had ice cream I had to eat later that night (I bought way too much ice cream way ...

On my second trip to Timpfreeze, I decided to try a dip cone.  They have vanilla and pineapple soft serve and tons of different dip options.  The ones I remember are chocolate, cherry, butterscotch, and toasted coconut.  There were definitely more options, and they have more listed on their website , but I don't think the website menu is 100% accurate. If someone offers me butterscotch I'm literally incapable of refusing, so I originally ordered a vanilla with butterscotch dip cone.  Unfortunately the butterscotch dip had come out slightly burnt, so I instead went with pineapple and toasted coconut. So summery! They put a little plastic figure in each soft serve cone. So cute! I got a mermaid but I also saw someone with a brontosaur. Individually, the toasted coconut shell and the pineapple soft serve were great, but it didn't turn out to be a great combo.  The toasted coconut shell was amazing and would get 🍦🍦🍦🍦/4 cones on its own.  I love ...

There are a few ice cream offerings in Midway, UT and the first I tried was Timp Freeze .  Timp Freeze is your typical small town summer burger and shake/ice cream place with a window for ordering and outdoor seating. I didn't know if I would have a chance to try Timp Freeze for a second time (I really hope I do!) so I asked a couple of the workers for their opinion about the single best dessert offering.  They suggested I either try a peach shake or a grasshopper shake, and I wasn't really feeling anything minty, so I went with the peach shake. I was expecting a typical peach shake, with either real peach or peach syrup blended into ice cream.  This was something totally and completely different.  I would actually liken this more to the soft-serve version of a concrete than a milkshake. The shake was simple: vanilla soft serve with pieces of real (fresh not frozen) peach mixed in, and it was amazingly good.  Normally when people list of the qualities ...

Dairy Queen's Cotton Candy Blizzard has a substantial fan base, and DQ brings the flavor back every once in a while.  I missed last year the last time it was a Blizzard of the Month.  I think DQ has had this on the menu more recently for some sort of promotion, but I missed it then too so this is actually my FIRST time trying the fan-favorite Cotton Candy Blizzard!  This Blizzard is Cotton candy and sprinkles blended with creamy vanilla soft serve. In the past I've bemoaned Dairy Queen using only Vanilla soft-serve as a Blizzard base, but it works really well here.  The point of cotton candy ice cream is to be tooth-achingly sweet, and the vanilla ice cream definitely helps the Cotton Candy Blizzard reach that objective. I thought the use of both cotton candy and sprinkles was really interesting.  There were enough of both to really infuse the Blizzard with cotton candy flavor the whole way through.  The cotton candy pieces had the delightful grai...

Yes, you read that correctly. While in Canada, I got a Skor Blizzard. Pre-ice cream blog days, Madeline went to Morocco and got a Toblerone McFlurry and ever since I have always wanted to go to a fast food joint in another country to see what exciting ice cream treats they have on their menu. Also, whenever I teach about globalization, my international students love to tell the American students how different fast food restuarants are in the countries they are from. For example, in many other places, Pizza Hut is a much nicer restaurant than it is in the US. Who knew! So when I spotted a DQ in the student center at the University of Calgary, I knew I would have to check it out. On the last day of the conference, me and a couple of other graduate students decided we needed a break and decided to hang out and get some DQ! This is a small Blizzard, which I think is the absolute best size. Not toe big, not too little. There are one or two sizes smaller and large than this guy.  ...

This past week I visited Dane's again! Dan's has a couple of different flavors of soft serve besides vanilla and chocolate. Last time I was there I got a Topsoil Surprise, which used vanilla soft serve, so I thought this time I would try one of the other flavors. I chose the strawberry, and got it in a medium cone. It was dark, so sorry the lighting is weird. The medium cone was the perfect size if you're in the mood for a standard dessert sized cone. Anything smaller would just be like a little snack, and any bigger you'd have to go in hungry. The strawberry soft serve was definitely on the sweet side, and kind of far from tasting like actually strawberries. It more reminded me of those strawberry wafer cookies (you know, the ones that come in chocolate and vanilla, too). It was also on the melty side, so I'm assuming they make the flavors like Conny's Cream Cone (or maybe just all soft serve places that have a lot of flavors) does, adding flavoring int...

No, you did not go back in time! This past week I visited my former students and coworkers in Eldon. It was a ton of fun to see all my friends from last year and it was especially fun to stop by Cree Mee Drive In again! I always love a good malt, and I was in the mood for strawberry, so a strawberry malt it was! Look at the strawberry bits! This will be a quick little review, but of a great little treat! It was quite sweet and the malt flavor was light. And although it was definitely on the sweet side, the strawberry flavor was quite strong. There were definitely a lot of real strawberries, not just strawberry flavoring. Other than the strawberry bits, this malt was only medium thickness. The strawberry bits took this malt to the next level. They were a bit hard to suck through the straw, but that only added to the fun! Overall, I'll give this malt 🍦🍦🍦/4 cones because the real bits of strawberry were a wonderfully pleasant surprise!

Now that primary season is just about over, I've finally made my way over to the Hamburg Inn. For those of you that don't live in Iowa or don't follow the presidential primaries super closely, Hamburg Inn is an old diner in Iowa City mostly famous for being a frequent stop for presidential candidate visits. Often presidential candidates will order a famous pie shake from Hamburg. I went this past Monday to try this concoction! The pie shakes are made by blending an entire slice of pie (or cake, they have some cake flavors, like red velvet, which I want to try) with milk and soft serve ice cream. There are a lot of different flavors of pie to chose from and I was struggling to make my decision. I was intrigued by the bumbleberry, seeing as I had no idea what it actually was. The friend I was out with said she really liked it, so I went for it. After I ordered it, I asked our waitress what it bumbleberry actually was and she told me it is raspberry, rhubarb, and apple!!! Wh...

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...

While Iowa and Missouri have their many differences, I've recently discovered that, like Missouri, Iowa isn't into this whole spring  business and has decided to skip straight to summer. And by summer I mean weather with highs over 75 degrees. And yes I know I'm lame, but I'm a runner, so is it too early to be complaining about the heat? I'm really only partly kidding. Either way, Dane's Dairy, a drive-through soft-serve ice cream spot in south Iowa City has opened for the season! I totally failed you, Dearest Readers, by not making it over to Dane's before it closed for the fall/winter, but don't you worry, I am going to more than make up for my mistake this summer. This past Saturday I went to Dane's Dairy with my friends, Emma and Charlie. Dane's is absolutely the most adorable soft serve ice cream shop you will ever go to. There are amazing little farm animal statues everywhere and the side of the building is painted with fun pict...

When Dairy Queen announced S'mores and Oreo S'mores as the Blizzards of the Month for April, I was excited and confused.  Excited because a S'mores Blizzard sounds awesome and an Oreo S'mores Blizzard sounds even more awesome, but confused because I definitely think of S'mores as a summer  camping treat.  I guess I can't really think of any 'typically April' flavors that would have been better fitted to this month. I tried the classic S'mores Blizzard first.  This is described as It's back! The S'mores Blizzard treat with mini marshmallow filled chocolate bars, graham cracker pieces, toasted graham and marshmallow topping, and creamy vanilla soft serve. After the disastrous March Blizzard of the month ( Grasshopper Mousse Pie ), Dairy Queen is back in top form with the S'mores Blizzard.  The toasted graham and marshmallow topping infused the vanilla soft serve base, giving it the flavor of the gooey innards of a perfectly toa...

It's officially summer!! Just kidding, that was my exasperation with the semester talking. But it is, as of today, officially spring! And that means seasonal ice cream shops are opening up, hooray! As you may know, Madeline and I spent half of spring break in Iowa City and the other half in Minneapolis. Luckily for us, Conny's Creamy Cone, over in St. Paul, opened up right when our spring break's started. At first glance, Conny's Creamy Cone, may seem like any other neighborhood soft serve shop. It's seasonal, with only outdoor seating, super cheap, and also serves lots of fried food. However, Conny's is a little bit more interesting than that. Why? Because Conny's has 24 flavors of soft serve! They also have malts and shakes, flurries (soft serve with mix-ins), and 4 different kinds of dip cones! I don't think I've ever been to a soft serve shop with more than just vanilla and chocolate. Obviously, Madeline and I had to check it out, despite ...

Alright, folks, I took Madeline up on her suggestion. I would definitely fancy myself a red velvet cake connoisseur and I am incredibly picky about red velvet cake frozen dairy treats. For example, Ben & Jerry's Red Velvet Cake ice cream, in my opinion, tastes like cream cheese frosting with a hint of cake. Which I guess is fine if they called it Cream Cheese Frosting ice cream, but they didn't. I love cream cheese frosting, but when you get a slice of red velvet cake, there is usually more cake than frosting. Knowing my feelings on this, Madeline, after recently trying Dairy Queen's Red Velvet Cake Blizzard, recommended I try it. While traveling last weekend to a conference, I stopped a Dairy Queen to give this Blizzard a try. This Blizzard is described as A mix of creamy soft serve, decadent red velvet cake pieces and cream cheese frosting. So delicious, it's sure to be love at first bite.  Cream cheese frosting can be an overpowering flavor, and I think i...

Today I am going to write about the ice cream I ate on my birthday (this past Tuesday)! I'm sure you, Dearest Readers, have been anxiously awaiting my post about my birthday ice cream consumption. Because, obviously, all you do all day is wait around for me to write about ice cream. Obviously. If you weren't aware, Dairy Queen has a Blizzard Fan Club, and if you are a member, you get a free Blizzard on your birthday. Of course, I signed up for the Fan Club on my birthday, fully realizing they probably wouldn't give me a free Blizzard. And in fact, the confirmation email saying you've joined doesn't come until 24 hours after you've joined. Probably for this exact reason. Knowing full well I would probably not get a free Blizzard, I stopped at Dairy Queen on my birthday with my friend, Charlie, regardless. And as I am the most behind-the-times ice cream blogger out there, I decided to get the Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Smash Blizzard, which was released back i...

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...