Tag: Blizzard

In the interest of full disclosure:

• The true answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is not 42, it is in fact, peanut butter.
• Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are the George Washington of the Candy Mount Rushmore.
• Brownies make cake their bitch.

That should put in perspective how excited I was for the latest Royal Blizzard, and why I hope you heed my warning. Dairy Queen took the awesome Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard, tossed in average brownie pieces, and added a glob of what I can only imagine Mr. Peanut’s excrement must taste like — an incredibly cheap, artificial tasting peanut butter that is salty enough to make a 60’s Star Trek salt vampire reach for a glass of water.

The Blizzard certainly makes a good first impression with both peanut butter cups and brownie pieces giving you their best come hither from the top of the vanilla soft serve. When isolated, the brownie has a slight fudgy quality but is unremarkable in every way.

The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are perfection incarnate as always, but the peanut butter core is nothing like the uniform comet shape shown online. Instead, a glob of the creamed legume rested just beneath the surface. This ended up being a blessing in disguise as, to put it bluntly, the poor distribution prevented it from entirely ruining the rest of the treat. A Reese’s-only bite is outstanding, but that entirely defeats the purpose of this Royal Blizzard.

Be aware that while this is the October 2017 Blizzard of The Month, it has been consistently on the menu for a few months now. Regardless, don’t waste your time or extra pocket change on this one, just go with the classic Reese’s only Blizzard and BYOPB (and who doesn’t?) if you really want to add a core.

Purchased Price: $3.79
Size: Small
Rating: 4 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Small) 850 calories, 370 calories from fat, 41 grams of fat, 17 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 65 milligrams of cholesterol, 560 milligrams of sodium, 105 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 83 grams of sugar, and 19 grams of protein.

Chocolate. Ice cream. Cake.

I’m not going out on much of a limb in declaring these to be some of the best things in life. Dairy Queen apparently agrees as they have dubbed September’s Blizzard of the Month, Best Chocolate Cake. The not so humbly named treat combines chocolate cake pieces with white icing and chocolate chunks nestled inside of cocoa fudge blended vanilla soft serve.

The site of chocolate islands awash in a turbulent sea of fudge-tinged ice cream invited me to become a willing castaway. Diving in, the cocoa fudge and chocolate chunks melded into a divine experience rich enough to make Count Chocula blush. Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse as soon as my spoon included one of the titular cake pieces. See, the thing about a Blizzard unabashedly named Best Chocolate Cake is that it needs to wow you with, you guessed it, the chocolate cake.

Instead of the promised white icing rich chocolate cake, my taste buds were met with a dull, lifeless dry husk. While providing a coarser texture than the smooth chocolate chunks and creamy base, it failed to deliver on any semblance of the word “best.” Instead, I found myself wishing that they were left out entirely. They felt like speed bumps in the middle of a chocolatey superhighway.

If the white icing exists then it lends nothing to the cake as it is completely overwhelmed by the, admittedly fantastic, chocolate flavor from the other elements. Worse yet, the cake pieces seemed to sink to the bottom and hamper the delayed gratification of the last mix-in laden bites that are typically my favorite part.

Cake misstep aside, I very much enjoyed the Blizzard overall. If you can look past the ill-chosen moniker, the chocolate highs were more than enough to offset the dry cake lows. I hope to see the cocoa fudge and chocolate chunks play a role in future offerings sans cake pieces which are, in fact, not the best.

Purchased Price: $3.59
Size: Small
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Small) 830 calories, 350 calories from fat, 39 grams of fat, 18 grams of saturated fat, 1 grams of trans fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 310 milligrams of sodium, 111 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 89 grams of sugar, and 15 grams of protein.

With the launch of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Marvel teamed up with Frito-Lay for a Doritos bag that plays music and Dairy Queen for the Guardians Awesome Mix Blizzard Treat.

I think Frito-Lay got the better end of the integration stick, even though everything about the Guardians Blizzard sounds fantastic. I mean what’s not to love about mini brookies (brownies and cookies baked together), caramel, and choco chunks blended with creamy vanilla soft serve?

Brookies are pretty frickin’ awesome! Except when you can’t really taste them.

I should have suspected that it would be a hodge-podge of unidentifiable sweetness when the received treat looked nothing like hero shots featuring healthy chunks of brookies. My Blizzard looked more like chocolate chip ice cream and it tasted that way. It was good, but if I wanted plain chocolate chip ice cream, I would have just gone to the supermarket for a pint.

As I continued to eat, I would occasionally get a bite of rich, delightful fudge – guessing that was from the brookie. Unfortunately, it was a fleeting delight that quickly faded back into the sugary indistinctness. I want bigger chunks, dangit! I think a brookie sundae in DQ’s Hot Desserts section would have been much more satisfying.

Also, I couldn’t taste the caramel. I could see the remnants lining the cup, but no warm caramel notes at all – just cloying sweetness. As the cherry on top, said sweetness was paired with a strange artificial aftertaste. I couldn’t tell if it was coming from the soft serve, the caramel, or the brookie?!

Even though all the mix-ins were a bit too blended for my liking, I did enjoy the texture. The soft serve was creamy and the mix-ins broke up the monotony of vanilla soft serve. I kept thinking that Cold Stone Creamery would make a killer version of this.

Don’t get me wrong. The Guardians Awesome Mix Blizzard isn’t bad. It just isn’t awesome.

(Nutrition Facts – Mini – 380 calories, 14 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 35 milligrams of cholesterol, 170 milligrams of sodium, 56 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 45 grams of sugar, 8 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $3.09
Size: Mini
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Tastes like chocolate chip ice cream. Good texture.
Cons: Hodge-podge of unidentifiable sweetness. Cloying sweetness + artificial aftertaste = Ugh.

I think Tony Hawk deserves an apology.

When I was a teenager, Tony Hawk—one of the greatest skateboarders of all-time—was practically synonymous with the word “extreme.” He flipped around halfpipes and grinded on rails with ease. Heck, the guy even risked his own health to land a two-and-a-half spin jump, perhaps the most extreme skateboarding trick ever performed.

And for what? To have Dairy Queen soil the word “extreme” with its new ice cream creation?! Look, DQ, “extreme” is a title that’s earned, not just a word that you can slap on something that’s been stuffed with candy. By that measure, the following things would also be “extreme”: a piñata, an Easter basket, and me after stress eating fun size Kit Kats while binge-watching House of Cards.

Undue title aside, the new Dairy Queen Reese’s Extreme Blizzard has caught my eye like a well-executed 360 kickflip. It’s the Blizzard of the Month for April, and it features Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Reese’s Pieces, mixed with peanut butter and chocolaty topping in DQ’s signature vanilla soft serve.

Locating a couple of spoonfuls without any candy pieces wasn’t an easy task, but I wanted to see if the peanut butter and chocolaty toppings really had any effect on the flavor of the vanilla soft serve. To my surprise, they actually do. In my experience, many standard Blizzard flavors seem to have the same decent (but rather boring) vanilla base. That’s not the case here. The ice cream is heavy on the peanut butter, sweet and fairly salty, and then finishes with a noticeable cocoa flavor.

I would love to comment on the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but I got maybe one-fourth of a peanut butter cup in my entire small Blizzard. I’m unsure if there were truly that few cups put in the Blizzard in the first place, or if there had been more but the blending process obliterated many of them.

Either way, the lack of Reese’s Cups in my Reese’s Extreme Blizzard left me extremely disappointed. (See what I did there?) Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are known for their perfect balance of chocolate and peanut butter, and that flavor balance was sorely lacking in this Blizzard.

On the other hand, there are a ton of Reese’s Pieces throughout the Reese’s Extreme Blizzard. Some are whole and virtually frozen solid, others are a bit more ground up and provide a lighter crunch. The Reese’s Pieces do provide a bit more sweetness, but on the whole their peanut butter flavor is pretty redundant with the richness of the ice cream.

All in all, I’d say the Reese’s Extreme Blizzard is basically just a Reese’s Pieces Blizzard with an extra squirt of peanut butter topping. It’s an enjoyable treat, but it falls well short of “extreme” in my eyes.

I’m sorry, Tony.

(Nutrition Facts – Small Blizzard – 730 calories, 270 calories from fat, 30 grams of fat, 16 grams of saturated fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 340 milligrams of sodium, 88 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 85 grams of sugar, 17 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $3.89
Size: Small
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Strong peanut butter flavor. Lots of Reese’s Pieces for added crunch. Tony Hawk, extreme skateboarding legend.
Cons: One-fourth of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Candy’s flavor was redundant with ice cream. Me, extreme stress eating legend.