There are some ice cream flavors that are just a little too bizarre for everyday eating. I understand bacon-flavored ice cream might be your guilty pleasure, but the majority of people don’t want to pair pork with their sundaes. The tamer palate might prefer a more traditional combination, such as mint and chocolate.

Mint and chocolate have been working together for years with nothing but great results. Their union has brought us such joys as Andes Candies, York Peppermint Patties, and Junior Mints. I think we can all agree that when it comes to flavors, mint and chocolate are as attached as Batman & Robin. Or maybe even Hall & Oates. Or better yet, Ben & Jerry.

Yes, that’s right. To bring these two complementary flavors together once again, Ben & Jerry’s has given us their new Chocolate Peppermint Crunch, a rich chocolate ice cream featuring swirls of peppermint and fudge mixed with crunchy mint chocolate cookie balls.

Upon opening the pint of Chocolate Peppermint Crunch, we find a traditional chocolate ice cream base mixed with visible swirls of peppermint and chocolate fudge. Scattered throughout the ice cream are the mint chocolate cookie balls, perfectly sized and distributed among the ice cream for maximum flavor. There was no lack of cookie balls here. (Do cookies even have balls?)

My first taste of Chocolate Peppermint Crunch was not what I expected. I was under the impression that the peppermint and fudge swirls would give the chocolate ice cream a light, minty flavor, but the swirls weren’t strong enough to shine through the chocolate flavor of the ice cream. Nearly all of the mint flavor comes from the cookie balls, which provide a satisfying crunch and a mint-chocolate flavor reminiscent of those Girl Scout Thin Mints we all know and love. The cookie balls provide the perfect amount of mint flavor to complement the chocolate ice cream; the fresh, minty feeling doesn’t become overwhelming.

I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed, though. Chocolate Peppermint Crunch tastes almost like a normal generic brand mint-chocolate ice cream flavor, and not like a top-of-the-line Ben & Jerry’s product. I expect a bit more variety and a wider range of tastes from such a famous ice cream conglomerate.

All things considered, Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Peppermint Crunch is still a delicious flavor, and though it doesn’t have much of a wow-factor and most of the mint flavor is isolated in the cookie balls, it will undoubtedly provide mint-chocolate lovers with a sweet treat.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 300 calories, 140 calories from fat, 16 grams of total fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 45 milligrams of cholesterol, 60 milligrams of sodium, 34 grams of total carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 30 grams of sugars, and 4 grams of protein.)

Other Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Peppermint Crunch reviews:
The Ice Cream Informant
On Second Scoop
Recap Hub
One Step at a Time

Item: Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Peppermint Crunch Ice Cream
Purchased Price: $3.79
Size: One pint
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Mint chocolate cookie balls taste like Thin Mints. Perfect amount of cookie balls. Generally yummy.
Cons: Fudge and mint swirls fail to add mint flavor to chocolate ice cream. Expected more from Ben & Jerry’s. Still don’t know if cookies even have balls.

Let’s play the word association game.

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “Magnum”? One of my friends said “guns”, but he’s from Texas, so that doesn’t count. Magnum P.I. would also be an acceptable answer, if you’re over the age of 30 or just have an appreciation of fine mustaches.

My first thought, because I am a perv, was, of course, “condoms for guys with giant penises”. Can you really blame me? Their whole marketing campaign is all about pleasure and indulgence. Magnum is easily the sexiest ice cream bar company around, if anyone was giving out awards for “Sexiest Ice Cream Bar”, which might be an awards show I’d actually watch.

I’m not talking about Magnums in general, though – I’m talking about Magnum Gold?!

As you’ve probably gathered by now, I didn’t just have an attack of surprise and disbelief, there – that interrobang was all Magnum’s doing. I checked their website. Time and time again, that ?! was present but unaddressed. It was like Magnum thought this was a perfectly normal punctuation to throw on a product name. Did nobody explain to Magnum what an interrobang indicates?!

Magnum describes their Gold?! Ice Cream Bar as “Silky vanilla bean ice cream swirled with sea salt caramel and covered in a golden coating made with Belgian Milk Chocolate.”

There is, of course, no actual gold in Magnum Gold?! ice cream bars. However, I was disappointed by the lack of shiny allure in the gold coating. It barely glimmered at all?! I’ve seen enough cake decorating shows to know that there’s edible gold out there that is shiny enough to attract raccoons from a half mile away. This was not that gold. This was more of a dull sheen.

The gold-covered milk chocolate shell tasted pretty high-quality – I’d put it at about Dove chocolate status. I’m glad the chocolate was so tasty, because there sure was a lot of it – too much, in fact. The shell was so thick it took a bit of effort to break through it, and the thickness seemed to cause excessive breakage. I guess I’d rather get a gold stain on my shirt than a chocolate stain?!

The vanilla ice cream was indeed smooth, and you could see the vanilla bean flecks in it. It played well with the chocolate shell, which is pretty much stating the obvious. Since when haven’t vanilla and chocolate gone well together?!

Unfortunately, the main feature of Magnum Gold?! (besides the Gold?! coating, of course), the sea salt caramel, was not strong enough to stand up to the richness of the chocolate shell. I could definitely see the caramel swirls, but I only got one or two bites where I could distinctly taste its flavor. Even then, the caramel flavor was pedestrian. There was nothing to distinguish it as sea salt caramel as opposed to just regular ol’ caramel?!

Magnum Gold?! has a little brother known as Magnum Mini Gold?! I was hoping maybe the smaller version would have a thinner shell, but Mini Gold?! shared all the characteristics, good and bad, of its bigger version. The main difference was that Mini Gold?! didn’t come in a fancy gold foil wrapper, which, by the way, is about the most annoying thing in the universe to try to photograph.

Fun fact, I got a Magnum Mini Gold?! that had the “M” on the hand-side of the stick instead of “Magnum”. I thought this was just part of being a Mini, but the rest of them had “Magnum” with the heart symbol on it showing, just like the larger version. Ice cream bar blooper reel!

I’ve tried other Magnum Ice Cream Bar flavors before, and have found them to be almost too rich and decadent. While they have their shortcomings, Magnum Gold?! Ice Cream Bars, on the other hand, have a nice balance of sweet and rich, which is funny because it’s called Gold?! Get it?!

Disclosure: The author received free Magnum Gold?! and Magnum Mini Gold?! Ice Cream Bars samples from Unilever. She also received a treasure chest with a bottle of Moet & Chandon Imperial Champagne.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 bar – Magnum Gold?! Ice Cream Bar – 290 calories, 20 grams of total fat, 14 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 75 milligrams of sodium, 25 grams of total carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 24 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein, 8% vitamin A, 10% calcium, and 4% iron. Magnum Mini Gold?! Ice Cream Bar – 170 calories, 12 grams of total fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 15 milligrams of cholesterol, 40 milligrams of sodium, 15 grams of total carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 14 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, 4% vitamin A, 6% calcium, and 2% iron.)

Other Magnum Gold?! and Magnum Mini Gold?! reviews:
On Second Scoop
Ice Cream Informant
Crazy Food Dude
Brand Eating

Item: Magnum Gold?! and Magnum Mini Gold?! Ice Cream Bars
Purchased Price: FREE
Size: 3 bars (Magnum Gold?!)
Size: 6 bars (Magnum Mini Gold?!)
Purchased at: Received from Magnum
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Quality chocolate shell. Smooth vanilla bean ice cream. Being able to eat gold. Random, unexplained interrobangs. Not overwhelmingly rich like other Magnum bars. Ice cream bar blooper reels.
Cons: Chocolate shell was too thick. Caramel was too faint and not sea-salty. Random, unexplained interrobangs. Chocolate was overwhelming other flavors. I can’t stop thinking about penises when I see the word “Magnum”.

There are so many things I don’t know. Like where Atlantis went. Or why they cancelled Legends of the Hidden Temple. Or why so many words starting with “x” sound like they should start with “z.”

It is in the fog of such mental eclipses that I become aware that I need some brain food to clear my mind. Fortunately, the folks at Ben and Jerry’s have taken heed to the call for quality brain food by expanding their line of Greek Frozen yogurt. Thus, with four bucks and a clean spoon, I set out on my Odyssey to the fluorescent depths of the freezer section, where I stared with big, lugubrious eyes at the array of compassionate new pints. Luckily, unlike Homer’s version, this Odyssey did not end in the violent murders of dozens of male courters. On the contrary: it ended in caramel. Caramel and vanilla.

Ah, yes, sitting there like freshly fallen snow.

And that’s the money shot, people: vanilla Greek frozen yogurt with a honey caramel swirl.

I go for the base first and it holds a vanilla yogurt tang, with the vanilla coming in as the forerunner in flavor. I’m happy to discover that any metallic artificial vanilla flavorings have been sent to the dry cleaners and then destroyed by said metaphorical dry cleaning machine. At the same time, the vanilla here comes from extract and, well, it’s just ho-hum. It’s still pretty good, but, if my old friend vanilla bean were to show up, he would be welcome.

Probiotics have always made me nervous. They sound like mutant slugs that emerged from the dank sewers and are now dragging their limp bodies through the city streets, leaving a trail of sludge behind. Where did these little bacteria come from? Where are they on the evolution scale? What do they want with my dairy products??

Well, at this moment, I don’t care as 1) I see no traces of mutant slugs in this pint and 2) I’m about 87 percent positive that those little microscopic organisms are responsible for this ever-so-slight tang that comes at the end of all the layers of sweetness in this yogurt, giving it a taste that is not unlike cannoli filling. In fact, if you put this in an ice cream cone, it’s arguable that you’ve got a pretty good 2-second cannoli-like treat in your ravenous paws.

As with most frozen yogurts, this pint gets soft quicker than the time it takes for a jackrabbit to chase down an armadillo in a canoe rowing down the Mississippi River, which, for those who may not have seen this sight [yet], would be really, really fast. I dig this consistency. Just a slight 5-10 minute defrost allows the yogurt to become as fluffy as those 125-dollar pillows. Only this is in a tub. And not made of cotton. And it tastes good, so nevermind. It’s nothing like pillows.

Desserts with caramel tend to hold the risk of being overpowered by caramel’s strong sweetness, but this holds a pleasant light caramel flavor without becoming toffee-like or burnt. The caramel itself has a good pull and cuts like butta’, a texture which I came to appreciate as it made it a cinch to scoop lots on one’s spoon. At various points, you may found yourself hitting glorious globs of this honey caramel swirl. If you get a big enough caramel blob, you may receive the unique experience of honey oozing from the caramel’s core. This honey is of the nonaggressive variety, bringing a sugary sweetness without smacking one in the face like a field of pollen.

Looks like something worthy of MoMA.

Ben and Jerry’s is known for taking ice cream alchemy and transfusing it with imagination; pushing the boundaries of what we believe ice cream can be and flipping it on its dairy-filled backside; and for stuffing 473 milliliters of chocolate fish and marshmallow crème into a cardboard cylinder.

This isn’t one of those ice creams.

It is, however, a vessel of agency. This time, they’re letting we [the consumers] stuff our bowls with mix-ins to our own discretion, and, boy howdy, is this hankerin’ for some mix-ins. Perhaps some Oreo cone pieces? Or chocolate covered pretzels? Or Sriracha Potato Chips? I dunno. Go crazy. Watch the walls of this Ice Cream Coliseum crumple at your feet.

In a world of unknowns, this pint’s pretty straightforward. It’s not cutting edge or froo-froo Magoo. It’s just vanilla and honey caramel and doesn’t try to be anything greater. I like it that way. While it doesn’t wow me enough to slide out my chocolate favorites, it’s a pretty good contender if I’m looking for a honey frozen yogurt.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup [99 g] – 190 calories, 45 calories from fat, 5 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 35 milligrams of cholesterol, 85 milligrams of sodium, 0 milligrams of potassium, 30 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 22 grams of sugars, and 6 grams of protein.)

Other Ben and Jerry’s Vanilla Honey Caramel Greek Frozen Yogurt reviews:
On Second Scoop
One Step at a Time

Item: Ben and Jerry’s Vanilla Honey Caramel Greek Frozen Yogurt
Purchased Price: $3.99 (on sale)
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Food Emporium
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Simple. Fluffy texture. Caramel everywhere. Nonaggressive honey. Nice balance of tang and sweetness. Good vessel for mix-ins. 2-second cannoli. Doesn’t try to be anything greater than it is. Finding a reason to use the word “lugubrious.” Jackrabbits chasing armadillos.
Cons: Melts dangerously fast. Ho-hum vanilla. No exciting mix-ins. Might be kinda boring to some. Sludge monsters. The canceling of Legends of the Hidden Temple.

As time goes on, I become more comfortable with coffee. By that I mean I don’t walk into the office every morning sipping Coke Zero like a 12-year-old anymore; but I’m still not a huge fan of coffee’s bitterness. My wife doesn’t understand how that’s possible when I love IPAs, one of the bitterest kinds of beer in existence, but what can I say? The tongue wants what it wants.

Nonetheless, I’ve managed to combat this bitterness by indulging in mochas. Yes, they’re still not quite a big boy drink, but it’s a step in the right direction; and I find coffee and I get along better when it’s mixed with equal parts sweet, luxuriant chocolate. Which is good news, because today we’re looking at Ben & Jerry’s latest offering: Coffee, Coffee BuzzBuzzBuzz!

Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Actually, I’ll confess that the concept of coffee ice cream has always struck me as a little odd. The time you’re most likely to be eating ice cream is after dinner, in the evening or at night But that’s exactly the wrong time to be indulging in caffeine, at least for those of you who have difficulty falling asleep while wired. True, coffee ice cream doesn’t necessarily have to contain caffeine, but this particular flavor also includes espresso bean fudge chunks, and the description on the carton touts that “the caffeinated blast you lovelovelove is now a kick to ask for in more places! Enjoy!”

In B&J’s defense, it’s not like they’re making any secret of it. If you eat this ice cream and then have trouble sleeping, well, what’d you think was going to happen, stupid? Also, the cow on the lid has been given googly eyes pointing in different direction to indicate that it’s either extremely alert or tripping balls, and either way it’s pretty hilarious.

Beyond that it’s the standard B&J’s packaging, with a picture of a cup of joe with coffee beans being dropped into it (which, I’m given to understand, is NOT how you brew coffee), plus some fudge chunks hovering over to the side. The description notes that this flavor was previously available in scoop shops, and hints that it’s also a revived flavor from their ice cream graveyard, because even Ben & Jerry’s wants to hop on the zombie bandwagon.

When you crack it open and dig in a spoon, you’re confronted with that distinctive light brown color you may remember from every other coffee ice cream ever. But you’ll also see what looks like chocolate chunks peeking tantalizingly out; the fact that they’re actually espresso bean fudge chunks that will be helping you stay awake long enough to study for an exam or beat the next level or finally finish that review you’re late on is just a bonus. As you scoop a few, uh, scoops out, you’ll notice that they’re spread fairly liberally throughout the mixture… no mean beans, these.

As is the norm for Ben & Jerry’s, it’s very rich and sweet, with no pretension of being “light” this or “50% less sugar” that — love handles are for tomorrow, mister. The coffee flavor is prominent, which for me was merely tolerable but will probably really excite many of you. Like Glee. It really does taste like a cold cup of coffee, albeit one that has plenty of milk and sugar added to it.

But it’s the espresso bean fudge chunks that are the highlight of this flavor. Without them it’s just a decent but somewhat unmemorable coffee ice cream — Tintin without Captain Haddock, Mickey without Donald, The Office without Steve Carell. But the chunks are both plentiful and extremely tasty, and that’s from someone who doesn’t drink espressos. They’re firm enough without hurting your teeth, and the fudge flavor really comes through in a big way, the perfect way to offset the bitterness of the coffee taste. (That said, I would recommend not eating it while drinking an IPA. Little tip.)

So yeah — if it were economically and calorically feasible, I guess I could just eat half a cup of this before work every morning. Since it’s not, I’ll stick with the mocha, but don’t let that dissuade you from trying this flavor. I enjoyed it without even being a coffee fan; those who are definitely shouldn’t pass it up. Just make sure you’re physically and financially fit first, because as usual, this stuff ain’t healthy and it ain’t cheap.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 260 calories, 140 calories from fat, 16 grams of total fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 65 milligrams of cholesterol, 40 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of total carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 24 grams of sugars, and 4 grams of protein)

Other Ben & Jerry’s Coffee, Coffee BuzzBuzzBuzz! reviews:
The Ice Cream Informant
On Second Scoop

Item: Ben & Jerry’s Coffee, Coffee BuzzBuzzBuzz!
Purchased Price: $3.99
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Giant
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Actually can help keep you awake. The espresso chunks are plentiful and flavorful. Googly-eyed cows. Coffee flavor lingers on your taste buds. Donald Duck.
Cons: “BuzzBuzzBuzz!” sounds more like a honey than a coffee flavor. I sympathize with anyone who eats this and later wonders why the hell they can’t get to sleep. Coffee ice cream always looks so drab. Mickey without Donald.

Q: What do you call it when a Danish-sounding company sells an Italian dessert in America?

A: Delicious! Or so we hope.

Fine, so I won’t get a job crafting jokes for Conan anytime soon. (At this point, even Leno is probably out of the question.) Still, you must admit there’s a certain sense of satisfaction to be felt when America, supposedly the great melting pot, so heartily embraces other cultures like this. Throw on some Spanish peanuts, serve with Colombian coffee and you’re in business!

Or are you?

As I had no idea about before researching this review (yes, I occasionally put in a little effort), Häagen-Dazs can trace its origins all the way back to… the Bronx. The founder was a Polish immigrant who decided his high-end ice cream might sell better with an exotic-sounding name, which history would prove remarkably accurate. So for everyone who assumed Häagen-Dazs originated in Denmark or Sweden, sorry… you’ll still have to head to Ikea for your genuine Scandinavian fix. Or just read the rest of this review, since the blood of a hundred raging Norsemen pounds through my veins (plus a couple of crafty Irishmen who snuck in there).

Since I was already researching stuff, I decided to go all the way and find out what distinguishes gelato from regular ice cream. Not a lot, as it turns out, since “gelato” is just the Italian word for ice cream. Generally speaking in the U.S., it’s a soft ice cream with less air and usually a little richer than regular ice cream.

But since there aren’t any official standards governing it, technically anyone can call their ice cream “gelato” with no consequences. Still, I’m going to ignore the skepticism bred into me by years of corporate work and choose to believe Häagen-Dazs actually did make this dessert a little richer than usual, instead of just calling it gelato to capture that exotic mystique. And they do capitalize on it, with the words “Italy” or “Italian” used on the carton about a dozen times and a little outline of the Colosseum.

Of course, when I hear the words “sea salt” I think not of Italy but of my home state of New Jersey. And being a big caramel fan as well, I was really looking forward to digging into this stuff. Color wise, it’s somewhere between beige and tan, strongly reminiscent of coffee ice cream. Once you dig a scoop in, you’ll locate the caramel swirl, though it should be noted that it’s not criss-crossing every square inch of the container, more popping up every now and again like jokes in recent seasons of The Simpsons. There also aren’t actual visible-to-the-naked-eye chunks of salt scattered throughout the mixture like little NaCl nuggets.

But speaking of salt, that leads me to maybe the biggest surprise about Häagen-Dazs Gelato Sea Salt Caramel, which is that the sea salt isn’t distributed evenly through the ice cream. If asked to predict ahead of time, I would have guessed that the salty taste would be pretty uniform with caramel becoming more and less prominent depending on how much of the swirl was in each bite. What I didn’t realize is that the sea salt is actually contained IN the caramel swirl. In essence, there’s sort of a “base” caramel foundation flavor, and then the saltiness waxes and wanes with the amount of swirl you get.

And boy, does it ever: some bites you might as well be eating plain caramel ice cream, with others you’ll be surfing a saline wave. At times it’s almost a delayed reaction, lingering after the caramel taste has faded, but it never becomes overwhelming, so you won’t feel like someone tossed a salt lick into your dessert. If anything I would have hoped for a little more salt… it’s good, so either expand the ribbon or mix a little bit into the base caramel.

Speaking of which, the overall caramel flavor is nicely rich and creamy, so I guess no lawsuits need to be filed over the “gelato” name, pending the results of the air content analysis I ordered. (Got my eye on you, Häagen-Dazs… or should I say, Hojnowski-Dziedzic?) The caramel swirl adds a nice textural element, and I was impressed by how easy it was to scoop even right out of the freezer — with lower air content and increased richness you might suspect it’d be harder to dig into, but actually quite the opposite. Or I’m just getting super-strong, another distinct possibility.

This is a good dessert, although the cost and calories have to be at least a little prohibitive. Still, it blends relatively well and is rich, as promised. (You’ll also need to hit the stairmaster for an extra 20 minutes the next day, as not promised but implied.) It isn’t the best ice cream I’ve ever had, but definitely a successful experiment, and one you shouldn’t hesitate to reach for if you’ve got a craving for some sweet n’ salty goodness.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 270 calories, 100 calories from fat, 11 grams of total fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 85 milligrams of cholesterol, 150 milligrams of sodium, 38 grams of total carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 28 grams of sugars, and 4 grams of protein.)

Other Häagen-Dazs Sea Salt Caramel Gelato reviews:
The Ice Cream Informant

Item: Häagen-Dazs Sea Salt Caramel Gelato
Purchased Price: $4.49
Size: 14 fl. oz.
Purchased at: Giant
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Official ice cream of both the Vatican AND the Jersey Shore. Smooth and rich, just like you like your men. Caramel ice cream + caramel swirl = great combination! When it’s there, the salt adds a terrific element. Mostly-black carton makes you look super cool.
Cons: Misleading company names. Not enough salt to justify making up 2/3rds of the product name. Recent seasons of The Simpsons. Definitely needs a wider caramel swath. Legally I’m allowed to plop a Frosty in a cup and sell it as “gelato.”

The last time The Impulsive Buy reviewed a Häagen-Dazs product, fellow writer Jasper came up with a groundbreaking, but ridiculously simple hypothesis for why one of the company’s premium ice cream varieties has never received below a “7″ score on a TIB review.

Let’s take a look back, shall we?
 

Häagen-Dazs routinely comes out with interesting and well-executed new products but, look, when your product’s primary ingredients are sugar and cream, you’re set up for success

I couldn’t agree more. Taking a look at your standard Häagen-Dazs container, you almost always see cream as the first ingredient listed, followed by skim milk and then sugar. To make things even richer, Häagen-Dazs also adds egg yolks to many flavors. But what happens when they pull the old switcheroo on the first two ingredients, adding more skim milk than cream, and then adding a little corn syrup to act as the main sweetener instead of sugar? While were at it, let’s just take out those yolks as well. What kind of machination of frozen dessert wizardry does that leave poor schmucks like me with?

Apparently something vaguely Italian. Don’t get me wrong. Häagen-Dazs’ new line of Gelato keeps with the gut-busting ethos of premium frozen dairy products that pack more than 200 calories per 1/2 cup serving, but seriously, by inverting the first two ingredients of their standard ice cream the company is taking the ice cream equivalent to a fall from the Majors to Single A. That’s a big gamble for something that promises a “taste of Italy” and comes in similar, if not identical, flavors as your standard ice cream. God knows I love a good pizza and could totally use some one-on-one kitchen pointers from Giada, but I was skeptical that this new line of frozen desserts could live up to its gourmet billing.

The new line of Gelato comes in seven flavors, but because my local Walmart isn’t exactly a café in the streets of Florence, only Vanilla Bean and Cappuccino were in stock. I chose the later, mostly because my stops into Walmart tend to occur before the sun rises, and I felt like getting a proper caffeine kick to compliment my breakfast of a Chick-fil-A Chicken Biscuit.

When judging frozen dairy, I like to borrow a page from Jasper’s playbook and apply the Pint Test. You may recall the Pint Test judges an ice cream/gelato’s quality on whether or not you would sacrifice your better health sense to finish the pint (or 14 oz. container) all in one sitting.

But I propose a corollary to the Pint Test. Any bastard with the willpower of a child in Toys “R” Us (like myself) can finish a pint on a hot summer day without thinking about it. The true test is whether or not someone like Jillian Michaels would finish a pint during a 14 degree morning after topping off a gargantuan church/fire department/community club sponsored breakfast of all-you-can-eat pancakes and sausage.

For that to happen, you know it’s good.

Unfortunately Jillian didn’t respond to my request for assistance in this review, but thanks to an 18 degree morning, I was able to capture an ethos that doesn’t exactly benefit gelato eating*.

I was expecting the kind of intense roasted espresso flavor one gets when shoving a handful of those chocolate covered espresso beans into one’s face, but I was instead greeted by a mellow coffee flavor and a milky-sweet taste. There’s a real freshness with each spoonful, thanks to the milk, but nothing else helped make it stand out beyond your standard coffee ice cream. If anything, the cappuccino “swirl” gives you inconsistent mouthfuls. Sometimes you’re getting a jolt of flavor, other times a whimper. 

The gelato was certainly smooth, but at the same time it lacked the frothy texture and almost whipped mouth feel that makes a cappuccino more than just espresso beans and milk. If anything, it reminded me of a condensed form of reduced fat ice cream, with the flavors dissipating rather than lingering (as an exceptionally rich ice cream would). The gelato melts quickly, and instead of holding its shape when scooped out, it sags back into a puddled indentation of sweetened cream, corn syrup, and yes, skim milk. My God, I just got a sickly but remarkably accurate image. This gelato develops old lady boobs. 

Jillian Michaels may not have been on hand to test my corollary to the Pint Test, but suffice to say, her iron will wouldn’t have crumbled beneath a few tasting spoonfuls. Make no mistake about it, there’s nothing particularly Italian about Häagen-Dazs’ venture into gelato, and nothing over-the-top or memorable about each spoonful.

It’s good, but so is every coffee ice cream I’ve ever had, many of which have not developed old lady boobs. I hate to be the guy who finally has to break the company’s impeccable record of product reviews here, but this is one Häagen-Dazs product which you won’t actually feel compelled to eat in one sitting.

*Despite outside photography, I didn’t actually eat said Gelato outside. That would have just been cold as balls.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 230 calories, 90 calories from fat, 10 grams of fat,62 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 90 milligrams of cholesterol, 45 milligrams of sodium, 32 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 23 grams of sugar, 4 grams of protein, and 10% calcium)

Other Häagen-Dazs Gelato reviews:
Serious Eats
On Second Scoop

Item: Häagen-Dazs Cappuccino Gelato
Purchased Price: $3.86
Size: 14 ounces
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Clean and sweet coffee flavor. Smooth and creamy base with zero grit. Not finishing off an entire container and living with a day’s worth of self-disgust as you contemplate whether or not buying another pint is in order.
Cons: Not really a pint. Nothing exceptional or robust about the coffee flavor. Price per spoonful sucks. Cappuccino identity crisis. Melts too fast. Sags in your spoon like old lady boobs.