The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

Every time I try a new Sweet Me Creamery flavor I'm more impressed. Sweet Cream Espresso Mocha is Vanilla ice cream kissed with espresso and swirled with caramel and fudgy brownies. It's a bit funny that this flavor is called Sweet Cream  Espresso Mocha, and yet it has a vanilla base. I tend to think of a base as being either a pure sweet cream or flavored. No middle ground. Yet the base of Sweet Cream Espresso Mocha manages to straddle the line between a sweet cream and a vanilla base without creating something that's just a sad, weakly vanilla-flavored base. The base was buttery with a hint of vanilla flavor to warm things up even more.  The espresso flavor is part of the base rather than a separate element. It was incredibly dark and rich which served to bring out the sweetness of the base. The brownies were large and incredibly dense and chewy. Greyston Bakery brownies are the gold standard for ice cream mix-ins. These came very, very close in texture, and ...

Coffee and chocolate is such an obvious combination, but I don't think it's often done well in ice cream form. It's hard to strike the perfect balance between the darkness or lightness of the coffee and the darkness or lightness and texture of the chocolate. Haagen-Dazs takes a new approach to this combo, and I think I like it.  Haagen Dazs describes Espresso Chocolate Cookie as The smooth sophistication of coffee ice cream swirled with cookie crumbles and sprinkled with chocolate espresso flakes; let its bold flavors invigorate your senses. Somewhat serendipitously, I recently reviewed Haagen-Dazs Coffee , so I can compare that to Espresso Cookie Crumble. While Coffee was a lighter roast with plenty of cream and sugar, Espresso Chocolate Chip was a fuller-bodied, darker roast with just a hint of cream and sugar. The chocolate cookie crumbles reminded me of the chocolate cookie butter in Ben and Jerry's Boom Chocolatta. They had a similar thick and grainy ...

I love shoppes. After 24 years of life, I'm still not entirely sure what the difference is between a shop and shoppe, but I do know that pronouncing the extra "p" and "e" makes you way more annoying. Which is always my goal. Anyway, Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream is a rather popular ice cream brand out of Madison, Wisconsin. There are Chocolate Shoppes in Madison and other scoop shops around the Midwest sell the brand. My new roommate just moved to Iowa City from Madison, and knowing I wrote and ice cream blog, brought me some Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream all the way from Madison! (Best roommate ever or best roommate ever?) The flavor he brought is called Exhausted Parent and is described as Bourbon-spiked espresso ice cream swirled with bittersweet chocolate chunks . While this ice cream sounds delicious, if having children induces one to drink bourbon with a shot of espresso out of necessity not enjoyment, then I'll pass. Also, would that even ...

A long while ago, I got some Capanna Gelato from New Pioneer Co-op in Iowa City. After eating some and being a bit disappointed, I found out Capanna is actually a local gelato and  coffee shop with locations in North Liberty and Coralville. I was actually Facebook messaged by who I'm assuming is the owner of Capanna after I posted my review. He suggested I give Capanna gelato another shot and have some fresh in the shop. One of my major complaints about Capanna was the icy texture of the gelato. But as ice cream nerds will tell you, gelato is actually made to be served at a slightly warmer temperature than ice cream. So buying good gelato from a grocery store, as opposed to getting it in a shop, can be dicey. So I was definitely planning on giving Capanna another shot! When Brett was in town this past weekend, we decided to stop on over to the Coralville location for some gelato and coffee! The Coralville location of Capanna is a funny little spot. It definitely did not have ...

I'm back in Boston, visiting Brett, which means more New England brands and Boston scoop shops! First up is a gelato from Gelato Giuliana, based in New Haven, Connecticut. The name of the company comes from the name of the owner, Giuliana Maravalle, who started making gelato when she couldn't find any she liked in America. The flavor I chose, La Giuliana, is obviously named for the owner, herself! The flavor is described simply as Espresso, Mascarpone, Chocolate . I was playing, and winning, an intense game of Catan (as you can see) while eating this gelato, so I forgot to take lots of pictures! As you can tell, this is a tiramisu-type flavor. Compared to other tiramisu products I've tried, this one seems quite simple, which is exciting. There is also no lady finger element, so we will see how this holds up. To give you a slightly more in-depth description, this gelato had an espresso and mascarpone base with chocolate flakes. Here is how I feel about chocol...

Ciao Bella Gelato is one of those brands I've seen around in stores a bit, but I haven't heard much about it, good or bad. I've seen it at Whole Foods, and usually when I am at Whole Foods, I am on a specific mission, and I'm not buying ice cream with whimsy. And Madeline, in fact reviewed this exact flavor about a year ago, which I had completely forgotten about. However, right now I am visiting Brett for Thanksgiving break. When he shopped for food before my arrival, of course he bought some ice cream and decided to pick up this flavor. First, a bit about Ciao Bella Gelato. Ciao Bella started as a scoop shop in Little Italy in New York City in 1983. The main man of Ciao Bella is Danilo Zecchin, a chef who grew up in Torino, Italy. From browsing the Ciao Bella website, I think Danilo gets me. Some of their gelato flavors include Alba Hazelnut Caffe, Bourbon Caramel Chocolate, Brown Sugar Caramel, and Chocolate Mascarpone. They also have a much more extensive sor...

Growing up, arctic was one of those words I had a lot of trouble spelling when I was growing up. Mostly because nobody actually pronounces the first "c." Writing this blog post is going to be a spelling struggle. It was my last day in Syracuse and my grandmother and I realized we had only been to one ice cream shop my whole visit. Luckily, my flight wasn't until the afternoon, so there was time to visit one more. Arctic Island is not too far down the road from Gannon's. And in internet ice cream world (aka people commenting on a list of the best ice cream shops in the area) there is much debate about which is better, Gannon's or Arctic Island. My cousins Jack and Ben, used to like Arctic Island more than Gannon's, but as of late the tides have turned. Given the amount of ice cream my cousin, Jack, eats (he had three times the amount of ice cream I did when we were at Gannon's), I think their opinions are trustworthy. The big deal at Arctic Is...

You heard about before backpacking ice cream, you heard about during backpacking ice cream, and now it is time for after. Our last day of the trip we only had two hike 2 miles. We decided to get up on the early side so we could make it into town and have a nice brunch. There was an ice cream and candy shop right next door to where we got brunch. Although no one else got ice cream, Brett and I did. I must be converting him to my lifestyle. At Grand Lake Chocolates, there were quite a few flavor offerings; probably around twenty. However, none of them were too outrageous. I decided to get a small Espresso Chip. The base of this ice cream was a pretty standard coffee flavor. Not too strong, sweet, and creamy. As in any ice cream and candy shop combo, the chips in the flavor were quite tasty. They were small, but frequent. They were dark chocolate, but not overly bitter. They were softer and chewy, not brittle. Last, the texture of this ice cream was airy and light. I w...

"The time has come", the Lizzy said, to eat of many things, "Of ice cream--and gelato--and frozen custard--of froyo--and things between. And Breyer's frozen dairy desserts--and their new gelato things" When I bought this Tiramisu Gelato Indulgences last week, with the coupon I discussed in my last post, I was thinking to myself, "the time has come".  Being raised as a Handschy, I cannot think that phrase without continuing on with "the walrus said" and so on and so on. If you now think I am an absolute lunatic, stop right where you are, go read Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There  and then pick up here where you left off. But really, the time has come. The Gelato Indulgences have been out for a while now and it is about time someone at Big Muddy reviewed one. I was putting it off as long as I could, because I think they sound gross and I have read they  are  gross. I chose the Tiramisu because it is one of m...

For those of you that know me and Madeline well are probably pretty shocked that this flavor has not been reviewed. Coffee and ice cream are just about my two favorite things in the world and they are Madeline's, too. My life motto might as well be "You can never have too much ice cream or coffee." And the ice cream brand that has perfected the art of too much is definitely Ben & Jerry's. The bar is set high for this ice cream. Before I review the ice cream, lets talk about coffee ice cream. If you ever encounter some crazy individual who does not like coffee, the way you bring them to the dark side is by starting them out with coffee ice cream. Coffee ice cream is the best tool of manipulation used by us Coffee Lords  to convince people to work for the Coffee Empire. After getting them to like coffee ice cream you work them into sugary lattes and then before you know it they drink two cups of black, strong coffee each day and are totally using the force for...

Those of you from St. Louis reading this blog are probably going, "WTF?!?!?!" right about now. Jilly's cupcakes is the premier cupcake place in St. Louis...or Ladue... Their address says St. Louis, but they are close enough to Ladue and the prices of their cupcakes scream "We are catering to rich Ladue and Clayton residents that want to spend too much money on cupcakes!!!" We're talking ~$4.75 a pop. But then again, these babies might just be worth it (and for my Wash U readers, they take bear's bucks!). They are HUGE and the frosting is piled high. There is also some sort of filling, like creme, or jelly, or chocolate, or caramel, in the middle, too. Seriously, these things are great. In fact so great that Jilly's cupcakes won Food Network's Cupcake Wars TWICE! This is the Cuban Coffee cupcake. Description:  Cake: Coffee Chip -- Filling: Coffee Dulce de Leche -- Topping: Espresso Swirl Buttercream, Café con Leche Crunch, Sweet Cuban Coffee S...