Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Ice Cream Trials

I've already written about salads, the healthful summer staple, so I thought it was only fitting to write about the not-so-nutritionally-dense summer staple that is ice cream. This summer, I've tried three new (to me, at least) ice creams and this is what I thought.



First up is Blueberry Cheesecake soy ice cream by So Delicious Purely Decadent (photo borrowed from Purely Decadent's website). It's still a mystery as to why I chose to try this flavor since a) even though fresh blueberries are my favorite food, I don't generally care for blueberry-flavored things and b) I don't care for cheesecake. Maybe I've tried all of the other Purely Decadent flavors and thought I'd give the odd-man-out a shot. This ice cream tasted like blueberry yogurt rather than an indulgent treat. The "heaps of whole blueberries" touted on the website were more like tiny dried blueberries instead of big, plump ones. That was a bit disappointing. I did, however, enjoy the crunchy pieces of pie crust scattered throughout and wished there had been more of those.



Next on the list was Coffee Biscotti hemp milk ice cream by Living Harvest's Tempt line (photo borrowed from the Living Harvest website). I had never tried hemp milk ice cream and was very pleased with the light, just-a-little-more-dense-than-mousse ice cream. The texture was really lovely, as was the coffee flavor. My only complaint was that the biscotti pieces, while abundant, were very soft. Since biscotti is very crunchy by nature, I figured these pieces would be just as crunchy as the pie crust pieces in the Blueberry Cheesecake ice cream, but alas, they had no bite whatsoever.

I've saved the best for last and urge you to immediately click on this link (after you finish reading this post, of course) for the spectacular Brown Bread Ice Cream posted and created by Alix of Cute and Delicious. Never before have I tasted ice cream so richly caramel-flavored, so velvety, and just plain amazing. I happened to be lucky enough to try a batch that Alix had made herself and brought along to a fabulous Quarrygirl-hosted pizza party I recently attended. Fortunately, Alix very generously posted her recipe, so you can try it, too! It's one of the best ice creams I've ever eaten.

Now that my sweet tooth has been satisfied, it's back to my big, beautiful salads...

8 comments:

Liz Ranger (Bubble Tea for Dinner) said...

thank you thank you for that link to the brown bread ice cream, that's unbelievable with the grape nuts and everything - I'm making it right away! (ice cream maker or not, I'm going to try!)

(too bad about the blueberries, though - as a blueberry fanatic I guess I'll avoid the little dried things in there :P)

Ricki said...

Too bad about the blueberry disappointment! But of course homemade trumps store-bought--that brown bread ice cream does sound amazing! :)

Justine said...

Hmmm, surprised to hear you didn't like the blueberry cheesecake flavor. I actually think it's pretty good. Perhaps you got a bad batch? Although I do prefer all of the Purely Decadent coconut milk flavors to the soy overall. They are very rich and creamy, and the mocha almond fudge flavor is especially divine!

I haven't tried the hemp ice cream yet, but I think I'll steer clear of the coffee biscotti flavor when I do. And thank you so much for the link to the brown bread ice cream recipe. I can't wait to try it!

miss alix said...

yay! i'm so glad you liked the brown bread ice cream. thanks for the review!

i really liked the tempt ice cream, but i didn't mind the biscotti chunks being soft. i tried their mint chip flavor as well and it wasn't as creamy but still good.

aTxVegn said...

Wow, the brown bread ice cream sounds amazing!

Anonymous said...

Sorry about the blueberry badness...a drag indeed, but I think the brown bread ice cream will make up for it. J'espère que tout va bien pour toi! Bisous!

Hannah said...

I can't believe I haven't yet tried either of these ice creams you reviewed! Still haven't yet found Tempt though... I've heard such good things about it, so I'm dying to see it for myself.

Jenn Shagrin said...

Haha I know right?! She's beyond classy.

Dude that coffee ice cream looks soo damn tasty.

I don't know why this is amuses me, but the captcha word verification reads "truckfu" below. Excellent.