Target’s exclusive Museum of Ice Cream line has four new flavors this year — Malt Shake, Queen Bee, PB&P, and Cone Zone. To be honest, I didn’t try any of the original varieties that debuted last year. I assume they must’ve been decent to justify having new flavors. Well, let’s find out how these new varieties are.
Malt Shake
If you’ve ever wanted to eat a Wendy’s Chocolate Frosty without having to go to a Wendy’s, the Museum of Ice Cream Malt Shake flavor would be one way to do it. Of course, the other way would be to order it via DoorDash and hope it’s not a cup of chocolate malt soup when you get it.
The pint features malted chocolate ice cream with mini malted milk balls.
The base tastes like a hardened Wendy’s Frosty, making it a pint that was hard for me to put down. One complaint I’ve read about this is how the tasty base is a little gritty. It is, but being that it’s supposed to be like a malted shake, it should be that way. After all, if I remember correctly, a Wendy’s Frosty has some grittiness.
The Whoppers-like candy encased in the base taste and crunch better than the classic candy. Biting into one turns the maltiness up to 11. Unfortunately, there were significantly less than 11 of those mini malted milk balls in my pint. Hence, the reason why the photo above is an empty sea of malted chocolate ice cream.
Malt Shake is a great flavor, and my favorite of the four, but it would’ve been more fabulous with more balls.
Purchased Price: $4.00 (on sale)
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1/2 cup) 230 calories, 14 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 100 milligrams of sodium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 22 grams of sugar, and 4 grams of protein.
Queen Bee
Of the four new flavors, Queen Bee sits on the throne.
Nah, just kidding. I wanted to shoehorn that throne line into this review. But you already knew that since I mentioned Malt Shake is my favorite 15 seconds ago. It’s tasty, but it’s not what I’d hope it would be. It features honey ice cream with chocolatey covered honeycomb and English toffee with almonds.
While there are two honey-related ingredients, Winnie the Pooh would take off his red shirt, stomp on it, and growl in protest of how little honey flavor the pint has. The honey ice cream reminds me of Ben & Jerry’s Sweet Cream base, and the chocolatey coating overwhelms the honeycomb’s flavor. The English toffee isn’t Heath-like. Instead, they’re like gloops of caramel with chunks of almonds.
With all that said, it’s a decent ice cream, but it has a ho-hum flavor doesn’t make me want to protect it by stinging anyone who might be a perceived threat to eat some of it.
Purchased Price: $4.00 (on sale)
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1/2 cup) 230 calories, 14 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 55 milligrams of cholesterol, 110 milligrams of sodium, 25 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 24 grams of sugar, and 3 grams of protein.
PB&P
The PB stands for peanut butter, but the P stands for pretzels. The pint contains peanut buttery ice cream with chocolatey covered pretzel pieces and a peanut butter swirl. If you’re a fan of sweet and salty, this would be the pint to get.
Obviously, there’s a potent peanut buttery presence. The ice cream base has a pleasant nutty and sweet flavor, while the swirl brings more of the salty side of peanut butter. The thing about the swirl is that it’s not a gooey ingredient that’s easy to scoop out. It’s a hardened stream that I sometimes had to stab at to break it up into smaller pieces.
The chocolatey covered pretzels are a much-needed addition to cut through the rich peanut buttery flavor of the other two components. They have a significant crunch and the saltiness from the swirl enhances them. Unlike the chocolatey coating around the honeycombs in Queen Bee, the one that surrounds the pretzels doesn’t mask the flavor of what’s inside of it.
Overall, PB&P is a good sweet and salty flavor, and my second favorite of the four.
Purchased Price: $4.00 (on sale)
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1/2 cup) 230 calories, 15 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 55 milligrams of cholesterol, 230 milligrams of sodium, 22 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 19 grams of sugar, and 4 grams of protein.
Cone Zone
Finally, we have the pint that honors Conan O’Brien. Just kidding. But it would’ve been cool if it did. Inside the pint there’s vanilla and chocolate ice creams with chocolate coated sugar cone pieces and a fudge ribbon.
The fudge ribbon tastes similar to the fudge flakes in Ben & Jerry’s pints, but maybe a tad sweeter. Much like the peanut butter swirl in PB&P, the fudge in the pint is solid, which can lead to excavating things like this:
The ribbon also amps up the flavor to make the battle between the chocolate and vanilla ice creams in the pint unfair. And you might think the chocolate-coated sugar cone pieces might further enhance the cocoa flavor, but with most of them, I noticed a strong marshmallow flavor that made the chocolate less intense and prevented the pint from being overly one note.
Cone Zone is a fine ice cream, but even with the crunchy sugar cone pieces, I didn’t find it to be as exciting of a flavor as PB&P and Malt Shake.
Purchased Price: $4.00 (on sale)
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1/2 cup) 250 calories, 16 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 21 grams of sugar, and 4 grams of protein.
Damn, that PB&P sounds right up my alley! We don’t have Target here in Canada anymore, though, so I’ll have to see if I can find something similar. But being able to buy a Wendy’s Frosty for your home freezer? That’s a game changer!
The OG Target Exclusives were trash worthy at best. You did not miss much Marvo
But really, what wouldn’t be more fabulous with more balls? ??
If you didn’t have the first versions of Museum, then you wouldn’t know that they were boring and lacking mix ins, even though their descriptions said otherwise. The reviews were widely negative. Looking at round 2, I can see they didn’t learn from their mistake. I was mildly interested in the malt flavor, but since I didn’t see much in the way of mixins, I’ll pass.