r/icecream

This ice cream is the best I’ve had in a while!! I bought one Wednesday and it was completely gone by the end of the night lol got another and it’s been taking everything in me to not absolutely crush this one too!! I’ve only found it at Walmart tho. If you try it, be careful when you have some of the gummy worms, they’re hidden and smaller than I thought they’d be I almost choked on them! I hope hudsonville keeps it forever

After 3 consecutive disappointing pints of Jeni’s I’ve determined they’ve recently been afflicted with the flecks for toppings disease ie, tiny hair-thin flakes of chocolate so small I can’t discern what is ‘cake’ and what is ‘chocolate chips’. If there is a river or even a quaint babbling brook, nay a summer-drought trickle of fudge bittersweet or otherwise, I have not yet encountered a drop after excavating half of the pint. I used to love Jeni’s for their unique flavors and decadent mix-ins, and thought for sure I was just getting ‘bad pints’ with the last 2. The Double Dough was the same, with tiny slivers of ‘dough’ not big enough for my brain to register a need to chew. As a die hard toppings girly, I simply cannot abide. The photos are from both sides getting scooped, searching for the promised ‘chocolate explosion’.

Salt & Straw has finally landed in grocery stores. OK, it's only Portland-area stores, but perhaps it’s a testing ground for a wider-scale launch? As of Wednesday, the brand is offering up six flavors in half pints — for 6 bucks each (compared with $12 full pints at my scoop shop) — at the New Seasons Market chain. If nothing else, I love the format. These 8-ounce containers, while still pricey, make it a lot easier to gamble on a flavor. To make it sweeter, all flavors are on sale for the launch, so I got in early to snag them all. (New Seasons also carries the Taco Bell collab novelty item, the Tacolate.)

Look for the full flavor descriptions below, but four appear to be the same recipes as the scoop shop (luckily I had never tried any of those), and another is very similar. Coffee & Love Nuts, which I have tried, features smaller nut pieces than the new version, but it’s basically their coffee base with chocolate-coated pecans. The sixth, Strawberry Pretzel Cheesecake, is described as a new flavor, though it nods to a pretzel salad flavor they’ve done in the past. I haven’t tried that one, but this did remind me of the disappointing berry cheesecake in their Valentine’s Day collection. This one is better, more pared down, still not great — too sour on the fruit base, not enough cream cheese tang.

That flavor so far is the miss for me, though I only tried a couple bites of each, so I’m not ready for a full critique. I will say the two that I really like off the bat are their cookie dough flavor (fudge sauce elevates it beyond a traditional one) and the salted caramel (one of my favorite flavors done right; you have to like the salt, as this one is salty indeed). I could see those pairing nicely together. I think the coffee one might be slightly better than their scoop shop version (certainly no worse) with bigger praline pieces. The freckled mint is nice and refreshing, but note the dairy-free coconut base is coming in strong. You better like coconut. The chocolate brownie is basic but good. Since I’m not a chocoholic, an all-chocolate flavor like this will never be my first choice, but I could see it being others’ favorite.

Are any of you other Portland-area folks planning to try these?

__________________

THE FLAVORS

Chocolate Gooey Brownie: A replica of the scoop-shop classic featuring rich chocolate ice cream and dense brownie chunks. Instead of separate white marshmallow ripples, the fluff is whipped directly into the chocolate base during churning to give it an ultra-fudgy, underbaked texture.

Strawberry Pretzel Cheesecake: A new flavor created specifically for this grocery lineup. It pairs a distinctly sour strawberry ice cream base with hand-rolled white chocolate cheesecake truffles, sweet fruit ribbons and salty pretzel pieces.

Coffee & Chocolate Pecan Praline: A new retail format that serves as a direct nod to their cult-favorite Coffee & Love Nuts flavor. It features the same deep espresso profile but upgrades the texture with much larger, crunchier praline pieces.

Freckled Mint Chocolate Chip (Vegan): A smooth, dairy-free option built on a coconut cream and pure Oregon mint oil base freckled with dark chocolate flakes. The coconut flavor here is front and center.

Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbons: One of the brand's definitive, top-selling core classics made with a Guatemalan fleur de sel ice cream base. It features thick, heavy ribbons of a dark, deeply toasted house-made salted caramel.

Salted, Malted, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough: A multi-layered take on cookie dough that uses amber ale malt to add a warm, toasted depth to the vanilla base. It comes packed with chunks of homemade cookie dough and thick ribbons of malted fudge.

+
The Tacolate: Their upscale, permanent revival of the nostalgic Choco Taco, created in partnership with Taco Bell. It features a hand-pressed, crunchy waffle cone shell stuffed with a subtly spiced cinnamon-ancho chili ice cream, dunked in rich dark chocolate, and studded with toasted puffed quinoa. (It comes with separate Mango Jalapeño and Wildberry Cinnamon sauce drizzle packets to mimic Taco Bell hot sauce.)

* Strawberry Ice Cream
* Strawberry Sauce
* Blondie bits (with chocolate chippies)

First is a banana nut bread- made with caramelized bananas, brown butter bits, heavy cream, yolk, brown sugar, Koritije cinnamon, toasted pecan, and banana bread.

Second is a roasted strawberry & pomegranate icecream with double stuff Oreo, cheese cake bites, and more roasted strawberries.

Last is a simple homemade blueberry lime cobbler icecream. Not too many frills on this one.

It doesn’t actually taste like miso for those who were worried, it’s just a nice amount of that salty flavor imo. I enjoyed this so much, the toasted sugar flavor is really good and the fudge brownies throughout are amazing. This pint is the definition of balanced flavors. It also has a buttery flavor with the toasted sugar one in the base, with well distributed brownies. The distribution of the brownies reminds me of cookies and cream when I look at it but I honestly think this tastes better than cookies and cream. When the brownies clump together they’re nice and fudgy as well. Also, I think there’s a very slight coffee flavor but that may just be the toasted sugar or maybe it’s from the brownie

This is the third flavour of this ice cream i’ve tried and i love normal chapmans, but holy crap. For only $2.97 this is amazing. The consistency feels so high quality and slightly whipped, there is consistently a high volume of ingredient chunks. I always buy ben and jerry’s but this is my new go to.

This is easily in the top 5 best ice cream I ever had. I found it at Central Market (bougie H-E-B) in San
Antonio, Texas. Totally worth the splurge.

The flavor seems like it would be plain, but it is pure distilled cream flavor. This is the one for dairy lovers. There are small bits of condensed milk fudge but they are not overpowering. The quality of the cream really shines through.

Even my son who usually likes ice cream that’s chock full of flavors and chunks of cookies raved about it.

The sprinkles! The cake pieces! Yum.

such an interesting combination of sweet and salty ! it says waffle ice cream (I don’t taste maple? it’s just like vanilla ice cream), chocolate pretzel bone (not hard on your teeth to bite into so don’t worry), caramelized white chocolate, corn flakes.

very yummy

This checks boxes all the boxes, some I didn’t even know I had!

Definitely one of my new favorite ice creams. Massive amounts of caramel/brownie throughout the entire tub. 10/10.

Ralphs had a sale plus a coupon on the app for Haagen Dazs, so I got 5 different flavors. This was amazing. Compared to Jeni’s (which is pure decadence) I appreciate the simplicity of this flavor. It has tiny soft cookie bits and chocolate flecks with a brown butter base, and the ratio of mix-ins to ice cream is perfect for me, so no flavor drowns out the other. With the sale, each one was more than half off so I basically had to get as many as the coupon allowed, to see which flavors are my favorite, so that I don’t spend more money doing that when they aren’t on sale. So I basically save money in the long run.

It was great! The new seasons I got it from must have stocked it right as it tasted very good and had more sprinkles included as an add in than any Ben and Jerry’s I’ve had.

It was $10 though so not an always buy but here and there.

it was 10/10 definitely delicious!

Picked it up from Whole Foods because they have the most variety in my area. The options at my local store are limited to birthday cake, goey butter cake(?) and cookie dough.

For $9.99, I was hoping it would be worth the try. I'm a big fan of creamsicle/orange cream so I couldn't see a downside outside of the price. I am sad to say that I will become a $10 pint purchaser after this. They took the creamsicle concept to a level I never imagined. Flavor and texture beyond perfection. As if thr combination of orange cream and vanilla bean custard isn't enough, the addition of burnt orange caramel is beyond anything I could've hoped for. I don't know how long I'll be able to keep it in my freezer.

10/10

Please recommend any other flavors from the brand.

My first time trying birthday cake dipped and it was incredible! Was sad they could only do that dip over vanilla ice cream rather than chocolate bc i prefer chocolate, but it was still so yummy!