Dairy Queen Harvest Berry Pie Blizzard

[New for 2019] While Pumpkin Pie is the official blizzard of September 2019 (and probably October 2019 and November 2019), a new friend snuck on to the blizzard board as well. Sure, it feels like it should have been the July or August blizzard, and at first it feels like a riff on the now departed summer berry cake cupfection, but I love me a new blizzard so...

Dairy Queen Harvest Berry Pie Blizzard

raspberry, blackberries, blueberries and pie pieces
 blended in vanilla softserve (photo courtesy of DQ)

Cado Avocado Frozen Dessert

Hey, can I post a review that's not really a review? Really, I can? Awesome, 'cause I keep trying to string some thoughts together on Cado but I just can't seem to do it. I'm too lazy to find the picture right now, but I think I first spied Cado at Wegman's two or three years ago. At the end of 2017, they unveiled their current packaging. For 2019, they added four new flavors: salted caramel, java chip, cherry amaretto, and vanilla bean.

Cado Avacado Frozen Dessert

Deep Dark Chocolate and Vanilla Bean

Big Dipper Cookie Dough Company

Did I just spend 20 minutes taking pictures of free cookie dough samples? Why yes, yes I did. Sure, Bigger Dipper Cookie Dough Company's edible cookie dough may look like ice cream, and the flavors sound the ice cream, but it's actually spoonable egg free cookie dough and I didn't have to worry about it melting all over the place. Let's take a look at what arrived this week.

Big Dipper Cookie Dough Company - Edible Cookie Dough

Galatic Fusion - Rocket Chip - Super Cluster

High Road Sugar Cookies with Red Berries Ice Cream Sandwiches

[New for 2019] I was pretty shocked when I rolled down the aisle at Shaw's and not only saw a bunch of High Road stuff, but it was new and on sale! We've never had High Road this close to the house before and here it is taunting me at 33% off. I bought four things including....

High Road Sugar Cookies with Red Berries Ice Cream Sandwiches

(mixed berry ice cream between two buttery sugar cookies)

Dolcezza Roasted Strawberry Gelato

I haven't been to Roche Bros very much this year but I was there last week for a non-ice cream item. While I was there, I ran through the freezer aisle ofcourse and noticed several new additions (my last trip there had been pretty boring). They had the new Alden pints, they had Peekaboo organic ice cream, and they had a half dozen flavors of Dolcezza. I do love my clear gelato containers, so I knew I had to come back and try one of these tasty looking flavors.

Dolcezza Roasted Strawberry Gelato #002

roasted strawberry ice cream

Cumberland Farms Birthday Bash Ice Cream

[New for 2019] According to my instagram account, the thought of this flavor is very enticing to people. Let's dig in and see if it's as fun as it looks.

Cumberland Farms Sensational Birthday Bash Ice Cream

cake batter flavored ice cream, with frosting swirls,
rainbow sprinkles and chunks of yellow cake

Breakfast Sundaes lives on....

It felt pretty great to build this breakfast sundae yesterday. On the one hand it was amazing to look at, and then all the other hand, it was totally delicious.

One of the funnest parts of the Breakfast Sundae project was never knowing for sure how tasty something will come out. Pretty much all of them were decent, but some really click like this one did. The secret was that the ice cream in this one was Turkey Hill's all natural Blackberry Swirl and that fruity flavor blended well with the cotton candy crunch (which is good by the way).

What might surprise you is that the cotton candy element plus the fruity element wind up negating a lot of the eggy and cinnamon flavors coming from the french toast. The french toast is more about adding this great fluffy texture to the whole thing. I totally wanted to make another one today. You might look at it and go "that will never work" but it totally did.

So, my advice is to stay hungry and stay creative. Don't be afraid to try anything.

High Protein, Low Sugar... Lowering Demand?

Look, I've never been a fan of the high protein, low sugar game. A lot of it comes from disdain for sugar substitutes. It's fine if you are cool with them, whether they are fake or all natural like stevia, but I've been against them since I was a kid (you think I joke, but I do not, I've always been distrustful of non-sugar sugary things). Anyway, I saw this at Stop & Shop:

"s w e l l" (formerly known as ProYo) has closed up shop. 

I'll be honest (aka a jerk) and admin that part of me gets annoyed when people would call Halo Top or one of the others "ice cream" when it clearly is not. I was even more annoyed when Halo Top cherry picked some marketing data to say they were the best selling pint in the country (this 2017 stat is still quoted in articles today).

Well, you know what happened? Everybody rushed in to the party (just see my proof here). Thing is, not everybody brought their A game. Well, some did, but everybody brought something so it was just a matter of time before companies started to fail.

First to go? The poorly named "s w e l l". I think Proyo would have been better off staying as Proyo. The uninspired pint design that doesn't catch your eye and the name that feels dumb to say were signs of future doom to me. I'm not saying that I'm happy they are gone, it's never cool when a business fails or somebody loses a job. I'm just saying that the healthy ice cream segments turns over every few years and this is a sign of that.

Who do you think will be the next to go? Breyers hasn't exactly put much in to Delights recently (2019 note: stop & shop also clearancing Breyers delights)

Foot note: I want to say that I saw these guys online before, but talk about being late to the party. "Be Light" light ice cream just hit the market a month ago. There's 6 flavors and 30g of protein per pint, which if you do the math, is 7.5g per half cup serving. They rely on Erythritol for much of their sweetness like many other brands. They also use Stevia.

Foot note #2: I should have mentioned that Yuengling's also jumped on this bandwagon this year. Ugggg. They should have spent time coming up with new flavors instead. (FYI Aureus bought Yuengling's this past summer)

Foot Note #3: ....and Trader Joe's just jumped on the bandwagon too... do these companies not watch the freezer aisle?

Foot Note #4: Just realized that "Sweet Habit" both debuted and disappeared in 2018. Guess their big gimmick of being in a quart instead of a pint didn't help. 4 flavors came and went.

Big Gay Ice Cream - Dorothy

[New for 2017]  You may find this shocking, but I've actually be trying to avoid chocolate lately. The problem is, what do I buy then? Oh, this will work..

Big Gay Ice Cream - Dorothy

vanilla ice cream with vanilla wafer cookies
& thick swirls of dulce de leche

DQ Snickers Peanut Butter Pie Blizzard

[New for August 2019] I feel like I haven't been to DQ very much recently, and I was ok with that, but then Marvo tweeted the August blizzard of the month last night and I instantly knew where I was going at lunch today.

Dairy Queen Snickers Peanut Butter Pie Blizzard

Snickers pieces, peanut butter, and graham blended in vanilla soft serve