Ben & Jerry’s Non-Dairy Chocolate Fudge Brownie

Chocolate with chocolate brownie pieces – the first of the three Non-Dairy flavours we’ve tried from Ben & Jerry’s is a reworking of their classic Chocolate Fudge Brownie flavour. We found the base, made with almonds, to be thick, soft and slightly chewier than ice cream. We thought the “ice cream” had a good chocolatey flavour but tasted strangely cake like.

We can’t say we noticed much difference with the brownies and we found them as squidgy, chewy and moist as standard Ben & Jerry’s brownies.

£5.50 Tesco

Ben & Jerry’s Berry Neighbourly

Vanilla ice cream with Cookie & Blueberry swirls, & White Chunks – what can we say about Ben & Jerry’s ice cream that we haven’t already? The standard of ice cream is exactly what you’d expect from the brand and the vanilla ice cream is the same as is used in several other flavours. It isn’t one of our favourites from Ben & Jerry’s but it’s fine.

The two swirls varied. We didn’t have much cookie swirl but what we did have is just the same as all the other cookie swirls from B&J, slightly gritty with a clear cookie/cookie dough flavour. On the other hand, the blueberry swirl was just about everywhere in our tubs! We thought it was good with a strong, vibrant blueberry flavour. 

We also had a fair few “White Chunks” and even though we thought they looked kind of boring for a Ben & Jerry’s mix in (they aren’t shaped like little polar bears or ice creams, just a rectangle of white chocolate), they tasted just as good to us!

£4.20 Tesco Exclusive

Lidl Mince Pie

Ice cream with brandy flavour sauce, fruit conserve with brandy and biscuit pieces. As with the other Lidl seasonal flavour, the Mince Pie tub is slightly smaller at 480ml and just as worryingly soft. The lack of a named flavour for the ice cream in the description (and our taste buds!) led us to believe this is intended to be a plain ice cream. Interestingly, we didn’t actually find this to be a bad thing. Creamy in texture and creamy in flavour, we thought it was a pretty good choice as a base for the additional ingredients.

 

We liked the big, chewy, juicy fruits in the conserve (currants, apple, sultanas, apricots, and orange and lemon peel) and tasted the brandy both here and in the sauce. It’s surprisingly strong for an ice cream and although we aren’t brandy drinkers at all we really enjoyed it. It isn’t harsh in the slightest and we think it gives the overall flavour more of a “grown up” adult feel.

 

One thing we weren’t keen on were the biscuit pieces. They were fine – small, crunchy  and pretty tasty – but they aren’t authentic at all. Whose ever had a mince pie with bits of biscuit in it? Pastry pieces would have been a much better choice!

 

Lidl Deluxe Gingerbread

 

Gingerbread flavour ice cream swirled with toffee sauce, gingerbread biscuit pieces and fudge pieces. We hadn’t tried Lidl ice cream previously and noted that although this does have a lower price point for a premium line product, it is slightly smaller than other “pint sized” ice creams at 480ml.

 

We were surprised (and a little alarmed!) at how soft the ice cream was immediately, if it hadn’t lived for a week in our freezer before we ate it we’d have thought our branch of Lidl hadn’t stored it correctly. Still, it meant it was wonderfully creamy and we soon forgot

about that once we tasted its deliciously sweet super strong ginger flavour.

 

The fudge pieces had certainly been frozen and we weren’t that keen on their texture, finding them a bit too hard and chewy for our liking – a softer, more crumbly fudge would have worked better.

The gingerbread biscuit pieces were so small they added nothing at all in terms of texture and we only noticed a slightly stronger burst of gingerbread flavour every now and then.

We did enjoy the toffee sauce though and thought it’s sweet rich flavour complemented the gingerbread ice cream well.

 

Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Caramel Brownie

Vanilla ice cream with brownie pieces and sweet caramel swirls –  We think the quality of Haagen Dazs ice cream certainly one of the best mass produced that can be bought in supermarkets here in the U.K, and we always enjoy it’s luxurious and consistent thick creamy feel.

The ice cream itself is vanilla, not one of our preferred usually as too often vanilla = plain, but we didn’t find this to be the case here at all. The vanilla is strong and authentic – you can see the flecks of vanilla bean for yourself!

The brownies aren’t quite as large as their competitors but are still of a very acceptable size and are perfectly moist, chewy and chocolatey.

Although the caramel swirl isn’t as visible as comparable flavours from other brands, we certainly tasted it. It has a very strong rich caramel flavour and we think it’s the perfect swirl for the sweet vanilla base flavour.

Co-Op exclusive.

Cadbury Dairy Milk Presents Marvellous Ice Creams Rocky Mallow Road

Strawberry & cream and chocolate flavoured ice creams, swirled with Cadbury Dairy Milk, mini marshmallows, milk chocolate covered shortcake and strawberry zingers. We found the quality of the ice cream and the flavour of the ice creams to be fine. We thought the chocolate side was a pretty generic chocolate ice cream and the strawberry side (once the shock had worn off – it looks like a plain vanilla!) to be slightly stronger.

 

 

In fact, if we had to sum up the whole of this flavour with one word, it’d be: Fine. The soft and squidgy mini marshmallows? Fine. The small chocolatey crunchy shortcake balls? Fine. The (very!) strong, almost jelly like strawberry zingers? Fine. We found them all to be better than your bog standard cheap ice cream but not quite up there with the luxury higher end brands. Middle of the road and perfectly edible.

 

The chocolate it’s (supposedly) swirled with, wasn’t in quite as frozen a lump as we found in the other Cadbury Marvellous ice cream but it was nowhere near as evenly distributed as pretty much any other ice cream with mix ins. We were dissapointed actually, as it is unmistakably Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate that we think somehow tastes just like it used to and even better than it does in bar form.

£2.50 Co-Op.

Morrisons Mixed Berries Frozen Yogurt

“Cool and creamy, swirled with fruity berry sauce”  Unfortunately we don’t have any of the finer details as our recycling collection has been and gone and according to the internet, this doesn’t exist!

We were very impressed with the quality of the frozen yogurt, it was soft and scoopable immediately and had a much thicker, creamier mouth feel than other comparable products.

 

The base is plain (we think!) we really enjoyed the sweet creamy flavour edged with the unmistakable tang of yogurt. We thought the swirls complimented it perfectly as they’re strong and sharp with a real natural fruity flavour.

 

 

Morrisons (TBC)

 

Carte D’or Gelateria Chocolate Parfait

Chocolate ice cream with dark chocolate pieces and vanilla ice cream, swirled and topped with chocolate sauce with a sprinkle of dark chocolate pieces made with 70% Ecuadorean cocoa – this is one for the chocaholics as we found much more chocolate than vanilla in our tub. The Carte D’or Gelateria range is inspired by gelato and we did notice a difference in the texture of the ice cream. Maybe it was power of persuasion, but we thought it seemed thicker and denser but with a somehow softer and creamier mouth feel. 

We weren’t blown away by the vanilla ice cream, finding it pretty plain tasting but as mentioned, there was far more chocolate than vanilla anyway. We liked the chocolate ice cream and sauce, although maybe not comparable to the higher end stuff, we think they’re perfectly chocolatey and sweet enough for a middle of the road brand. The dark chocolate pieces, both the ones inside and the curls on top, impressed us though. We loved the richer, more intense chocolate flavour and the curls were thin enough to have a crisp crunch that shine through the smooth ice cream.

£3.50 – £4 Supermarkets – interestingly, this seems be being phased out in favour of a Triple Chocolate Parfait version.

Yeo Valley Salted Caramel

Salted caramel ice cream with a ripple of salted caramel sauce – although we’d not tried Yeo Valley ice cream before, they weren’t unknown to us as they’re a large dairy company – famous for their yoghurts. The addition of “better quality” ingredients, such as organic whole milk rather than powdered or skimmed, and organic double cream weren’t too unexpected.

We’d have noticed these ingredients even if they weren’t proudly displayed over the tub, through the quality of the ice cream. We though it was lovely and creamy, and softer (both to scoop and in mouth feel) than any ice cream we’ve eaten recently, somehow without tasting light. 

The salted caramel ice cream and ripple were mixed. We were shocked to find an actual salty salted caramel, even if it wasn’t constant, but we thought it was also extremely sweet.

£4 – £4.20 Supermarkets

Co-Op Irresistible Yellow Passion Fruit Sorbet

Zesty exotic Ecuadorian yellow passion fruit with an intense vibrant ripple –  the Irresistible range is Co-Op supermarkets higher end range. We certainly think this sorbet is worthy of the “Irresistible” name and it’s one we’ve rescooped a few times.

We were impressed and surprised with the quality of the sorbet itself and it was much softer and creamier than we expected. The flavour of the actual sorbet is sweet and strong and the ripple is sharper – we thought tasted like a more concentrated and intense, almost exaggeration of the base.

£3 Co-Op

Ben & Jerry’s Clever Cookies

Vanilla ice cream with a Chocolatey Cookie Swirl, Double Chocolate Cookies & Chocolate Chip Cookies – Ben & Jerry’s have used their vanilla ice cream as the base which we found to be a wise choice as we barely tasted it in any of the times we scooped this flavour thanks to the sheer amount of cookies!

The chocolatey cookie swirl runs all throughout the pints and we thought it had a good raw cookie dough like texture and is slightly crunchy, almost gritty and had a strong chocolatey cookie flavour.

The cookies are abundant and just enormous, in fact there seems to be more cookie than ice cream in a lot of the tubs and it isn’t uncommon to find whole cookies stuffed in there! We found it easy to separate the two cookie flavours and enjoyed the mix.

Discontinued.