The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

So blogger.com is a bit silly and won't let both Madeline and I contribute to the same post from our two different accounts. Lame. So Lizzy will be writing in this font. And Madeline will be writing in this font.  Yesterday, Madeline and I attempted to make ice cream with her vintage ice cream maker she got as a birthday present from our parents. We decided to make Rocky Road (chocolate ice cream with marshmallows and pecans) and Ginger Peach ice creams. We had a recipe for the Rocky Road and a Peach ice cream recipe and we were just sort of winging it with the ginger part of things. We bought much dairy product at the grocery store and very peaches and even more ginger. Making the bases was super easy and they tasted delicious from our samplings. We took everything over to Madeline's friends' house, bought lots of ice and lots of salt and we were all set to get churning.  Such dairy. Wow. At first things seemed to be going great.  We had alternating layers of ice and...

As Madeline already mentioned, I am visiting her in Minneapolis. Obviously the first thing we did was go to an ice cream shop. Sebastian Joe's was just the perfect little neighborhood ice cream shop. It opens at 7am almost daily because it also serves coffee and coffee drinks, but this seems like the type of place that if you wanted a cone of ice cream with your morning coffee, you could do that. The people working were friendly, the atmosphere was relaxed, and on a slow day like the one we went I bet I could even park at one of their tables and read a book or do homework for a few hours. I got two flavors, an inventive one and a classic. After long discussions with my friend Lizzie, I have decided something about ice cream shops that sell crazy flavors. These shops are all well and good, fabulous actually, as long as they have perfected some basic flavors. If you can't give me a delicious chocolatey creation I don't want your lemon-chili-basil-vanilla-tea flavor. It'...

Yesterday was Memorial Day, and I went to a barbeque hosted by friend's who live near Sebastian Joe's.  The only logical conclusion to a night of beer and grilled meats was to walk the block to Sebastian Joe's to enjoy an ice cream cone.  Apparently everyone else in Minneapolis had the same idea, because the place was packed!  The line did move quickly, and we were not kept from our ice cream for long. I decided to try the Loco Coco flavor, described as "strawberry ice cream with coconut and cayenne pepper."  This ice cream was hands down amazing.  The ice cream base itself wasn't strongly strawberry-flavored, but in this case that was a good thing.  The plainer base served as a clean palette for the three flavors to mix together.  The chunks of strawberry were small, but flavorful.  Normally I like big chunks, but here the small chunks worked well because they were the same size as the coconut chunks.  The cayenne pepper provided just the...

Strawberry ice cream is one of my favorite ice cream flavors, but only if it is done well.  It is also one of what I think of as the 'Big 3' ice cream flavors: Vanilla, Chocolate, and Strawberry.  There are two main things I look for in a strawberry ice cream. 1) The flavor of the base strawberry ice cream.  Ideally this should taste like strawberries and cream.  I do not like fruit flavored ice creams that try to disguise the fact that they are a dairy-based dessert.  Dairy and fruit can pair well together if done right, and strawberry is one of the easiest fruits to do this with. On this front Haagen Dazs delivered.  The ice cream was perfectly creamy and smooth.  I could taste the strawberry and I could taste the cream and it was wonderful. 2) The fruit pieces.  Ideally these should be be big, juicy, chewy chunks.  Also, I should be able to readily identify them as actual pieces of strawberry. On this front Haagen Dazs failed mise...

I decided it is well past time I write a blog post about an ice cream bar. For my first post about an ice cream bar I decided to go with the cream of the crop, a Magnum. I stood in Target for a long while deciding which one of the many flavors of Magnum to try. I opted to go with the Infinity Chocolate for two reasons. First, the description sounded the most scrumptious. Second, as we know there is more than one infinity, right Madeline? And if I had to choose which kind of infinity I had to deal with for, well, forever, I would choose the chocolate kind. Chocolate infinity is real mathematics, fo sho. Also, with my great mathematical authority I would say the chocolate infinity is definitely uncountable. The Magnum Infinity Chocolate Bar is described as Dark Chocolate Ice Cream with a Chocolate Swirl, Dipped in Dark Chocolate and Cocoa Bean Nibs. My excitement level? Through the roof. Anything that describes itself as "Dark Chocolate Ice Cream" makes me salivate. How...

Sorry I didn't take any pictures.  I get really nervous when I eat ice cream in a cone, because I would be devastated if my ice cream fell over.  I didn't want my ice cream to start melting during a photo shoot in the summer sun. I mentioned way back in my intro post that I was underwhelmed by  Sebastian Joe's  ice cream the first time I tried it.  I like that they offered unique/weird flavors like Roasted Garlic Almond Chip (which I had a sample of.  It was weird.  Not bad, but I wouldn't want more than a bite of it).  My first time there, I got two scoops in a waffle cone: one scoop of Cinnamon and one scoop of Mandarin Orange.  I probably should have gone with something chocolate-y, but  oranges with cinnamon  is one of my favorite summertime desserts.  I was underwhelmed.  I felt the cinnamon ice cream was way too creamy (like, ok, I know it's ice cream and this is a stupid thing to say), and needed a much stronger ...

This post is for you archaeology fans. Not really, but kinda. I like to call my style of eating Ben & Jerry's the Archaeological Dig Style. And Peanut Butter Cup is one of the best Ben & Jerry's flavors for this style. To describe this style: instead of just eating the pint from top to bottom like a normal person, someone who employs the Archaeological Dig Style searches for the big chunks, and once they are located, they are excavated. I really think it's the best way to go about things. Sorry I don't have a banana for scale, a spoon will have to do. To really switch gears now, last time I reviewed a Ben & Jerry's flavor I made a promise that I would look more into what changed for the worse when Uniliver bought Ben & Jerry's. I found two things. First, Uniliver did some downsizing, eliminating jobs in a company committed to providing as many good, reasonably paying jobs as possible. Second, Uniliver got ride of some shops at which 40% o...