What is the Dairy Queen Red Velvet Cake Blizzard?

It’s Dairy Queen’s Blizzard of the Month for February, and it features red velvet cake pieces and cream cheese icing with, as always, vanilla soft serve. This is not technically new, as DQ has offered it in February a few times in the past. But it’s been five years since the last time it was available, according to our handy-dandy Blizzard of the Month List.

How is it?

We all know better than to expect fast food to actually look like it does in a commercial or promotional photo, but the difference here was pretty glaring. Based on the window sign at DQ (and the name of this Blizzard), I was expecting it to be, you know, red. What I got was basically white with small red freckles and a tinge of reddish-pink. I think it was partly a blending issue, as the population of cake pieces increased dramatically as I tunneled downward, but even then, the reddish color only increased modestly.

I’m also not sure enough of the cake pieces were pulverized in the blending process to spread their redness around. A better blending might have made it slightly closer to the color on the window sign but still far from the vibrant red-pink color shown on the DQ website.

Of course, the more important issue is how it tastes, and the flavor of this one really makes up for the underwhelming appearance. For one thing, it’s different than most Blizzards, with no chocolate overload or extreme sweetness. The red velvet cake delivers a subtle chocolatey flavor that seems a bit more complex than just “regular chocolate,” and the cream cheese brings a sweet creaminess that pairs nicely. This won’t blow away your taste buds with a powerful burst of flavor, but it should make them happy.

Anything else you need to know?

I needed to know exactly what red velvet cake is because, to be honest, I was not exactly sure. I’ve had it many times, and I liked it, because, duh, it’s cake. But I’m not sure I could really describe what it tastes like. I’m still not really sure.

Some will claim that it’s just chocolate cake with red food coloring, but “real” red velvet cake generally includes cocoa, buttermilk, and vinegar, which together provide the reddish hue through a chemical reaction. Scanning the ingredients on the DQ website, it appears this red velvet cake is closer to a red-colored chocolate cake. It does contain cocoa, but there is no mention of buttermilk or vinegar.

As you can see from a cross-section of a piece, it’s not exactly light and fluffy like you might imagine for cake; it’s really more the consistency of a red velvet brownie. So if you are a red velvet cake purist, this might not be for you.

Conclusion:

I’m always down for a Blizzard that is not some rehashed combination of chocolate, fudge, and Oreo, and this, well, it takes the cake for being different. It’s not the best Blizzard I’ve had, but it stands out as being unique for having two flavors not found in any other versions I can recall, and together they taste excellent. So this is a perfect treat to share with your significant (or even insignificant) other on Valentine’s Day or any time before it disappears for another five years.

Purchased Price: $4.79
Size: Medium
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Medium) 910 calories, 37 grams of fat, 19 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 75 milligrams of cholesterol, 500 milligrams of sodium, 128 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 90 grams of sugar, and 17 grams of protein.

What is the Dairy Queen Caramel Apple Pie Blizzard

It’s one of the stars of the Dairy Queen Fall Blizzard Menu. It contains apple topping, pie pieces (or more accurately, pie crust pieces as I’ll explain below) and caramel coated truffles with vanilla soft serve and the obligatory garnish for all pies, whipped topping.

How is it?

Let me ramble a bit before I answer that question. I had high expectations for this Blizzard because I love me some apple pie. I’m not talking about grandma’s secret recipe pie with the steam rising from the top as it emerges from the oven. Yes, I’m sure your Gammy’s pie is delicious, but for some reason I’ve always been partial to the industrial strength versions.

The main reason I went to middle school every day (OK, most days, unless I could successfully fake a stomachache) was to get one of those tasty, sugar-loaded Hostess apple pies at lunch. And even now, I still tear up a little thinking about the long-extinct fried apple pie at McDonald’s, despite the real risk of permanent mouth injury caused by its hot-as-lava filling. This Blizzard reminds me of that Hostess/McDonald’s pie taste, without the latter’s third-degree burns. And the addition of the truffles make this something special.

There’s so much going on with this Blizzard, but everything blends together beautifully. This certainly isn’t the best-looking Blizzard ever, and even when you take away the whipped topping, it’s ordinary looking. But as I learned in middle school when I wasn’t eating Hostess pies, don’t judge a book, or a Blizzard, by its cover.

Because I am dedicated to my craft, I took the time to extract the three different pieces for you to examine (crust, apple, truffle from left to right). If it disgusts you to know that I had to suck and lick the soft serve off each piece, then just don’t read this sentence. I even dissected the truffle so you can see its guts spill out.

The crust pieces maintain their crispness even while encased in soft serve, the apple chunks deliver a subtle but satisfying fruit flavor, and the caramel coated truffles are very indulgent with their ooey-gooey center. It seems like most new Blizzards either feature chocolate or some sort of berry as the main component, so this one also stands out for being unique.

Anything else you need to know?

One of the other Blizzards on the fall menu, the Pumpkin Pie Blizzard, has “real” pumpkin pie pieces. But this one is worded a bit differently on the DQ website, which proclaims that it contains “apple topping” and “pie pieces.”

After perusing the list of ingredients and skipping over many, many words that I can neither pronounce nor define, I confirmed that the pie pieces here are indeed just pie crust pieces. That, of course, raises the question of whether a pie crust on its own is a pie, but I’ll let those more scholarly than I debate such topics. So to answer the question at hand — no, you didn’t need to know any of that.

Conclusion:

The only thing that kept me from giving this Blizzard a perfect score is that the apple pieces are a bit small and rubbery, like they were harvested from a fruit cake. And if you take a bite that doesn’t contain a chunk of apple, there’s really no fruit flavor in the soft serve, so it might have been nice to get some kind of apple flavoring or sauce in there. But those are just minor grouses; overall, this is an exceptional Blizzard, and I’m happy it will be around all fall.

Purchased Price: $4.39
Size: Medium
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Medium) 930 calories, 37 grams of fat, 26 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 65 milligrams of cholesterol, 420 milligrams of sodium, 133 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 103 grams of sugar, and 16 grams of protein.