My wife rarely reads my reviews, so I’m going to roll the dice and hope she doesn’t see the following statement: If I could marry a member of the pie family, I would get on bended knee and offer a glistening strawberry ring pop to French silk pie so that we could be together forever

I’m not even a big pie person, but there’s something about that smooth, chocolatey goodness that just gets me. So, I was quite interested in trying Dairy Queen’s new-ish French Silk Pie Blizzard, which is part of the Fall Blizzard menu. It was apparently introduced in 2004 and has been available at various times since, but we’ve never reviewed it. It’s quite possible—even likely—that I’ve had it in the past and forgot, considering I don’t even remember what I ate for lunch today, and I had to check my phone to determine the day of the week. So it’s new to me.

I knew I would probably like this Blizzard, but the question was whether I would love it. The list of components was promising: choco chunks, pie pieces, and cocoa fudge with whipped topping. But despite my high hopes, let’s just say this Blizzard is more like a friend rather than marriage material. The chocolate flavor is great, and even a bit silky, at least as silky as you can get for ice cream, and the whipped topping always makes a Blizzard better.

My issue is the pie crust. I’m not sure if my local DQ got a bad batch, but the crust pieces were very crunchy, almost with the consistency of an animal cracker. There was very little of the crumbliness I associate with pie crust, and the pieces were monstrous, with a few being about the size of two Cinnamon Toast Crust pieces fused together. And the flavor was more like a cookie than pie crust.

Again, the chocolate part was wonderful. The cocoa fudge flavor did a perfect job of transforming the vanilla soft serve into chocolatey bliss, and the choco chunks brought an added layer of texture and taste. But the crust pieces just put a damper on the whole thing.

So I like you, French Silk Pie Blizzard, but I’m sorry to say that I don’t want to marry you. But we can still be friends. And yes, it is you, not me.

Purchased Price: $4.99
Size: Small
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 730 calories, 33 grams of fat, 20 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 310 milligrams of sodium, 98 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 76 grams of sugar, and 14 grams of protein.

I’m 10 percent sure Dairy Queen Caramel Java Chip Blizzard has no caffeine. But I’m 100 percent sure it has coffee, choco-espresso crunch pieces, and caramel topping blended with soft serve because I copied and pasted most of this sentence from the Dairy Queen app. Looking through the ingredients of the dessert that I’m 10 percent sure children should eat, I noticed instant coffee and coffee concentrate. Okay, I’m eight percent sure now.

As you can guess from the photo above, my Blizzard was not served upside down. But it didn’t help that I took a short outdoor walk from the Dairy Queen to someplace with enough light to take decent photos, which ended up being the sitting area of a Starbucks inside a Target. The heat and humidity probably caused more melting. (Yes, I bought something from the Starbucks.)

But sitting next to those baristas was helpful because doing so made me realize that I probably got more coffee flavor in my mouth by breathing in the air at a Starbucks inside a Target than I did from the Caramel Java Chip Blizzard.

Those choco-espresso crunch pieces aren’t chocolate-covered espresso beans. Instead, they’re coffee-flavored rice crisps in a chocolatey coating, and the way they crunch reminds me more of Buncha Crunch candy than cocoa-coated espresso beans. Mine had a lot of them, enough that every spoonful had one. But the java flavor isn’t robust even with so many of them. With the first few spoonfuls, I could notice it, but at some point, that faded, and I mostly tasted the coating with a slight dark chocolate bitterness.

Much like the choco-espresso crunch pieces, the caramel topping mixed with the soft serve makes itself known with every spoonful, and I wonder if its buttery sweetness contributed to the lack of java flavor. Also, I didn’t taste any coffee when eating the caramel-enhanced soft serve on its own. However, the chocolate and caramel combination is good, and the crispy crunch from those chocolatey pieces is delightful.

Despite eating a small order, I still don’t know if Dairy Queen’s Caramel Java Chip Blizzard contains caffeine. However, ordering and drinking a Starbucks cold brew while eating the Blizzard and writing this review probably prevented me from finding out. But what I do know is that this needs more coffee flavor. It’s so weak that I could convince the Starbucks baristas in front of me that this is a Choco Caramel Blizzard.

Purchased Price: $6.89*
Size: Small
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 630 calories, 22 grams of fat, 16 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 260 milligrams of sodium, 95 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 76 grams of sugar, and 13 grams of protein.

*Because I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things are a bit pricier here. You’ll probably pay less than I did.

Once you reach a certain age, the word “party” takes on a different meaning. As a kid, the parties were non-stop: frequent birthday parties at school, pizza parties after your T-ball team finished last in the league, and a party just because the ice cream truck was in the neighborhood and all your friends got together. In high school and college, some people just needed a time and a place, and the party was on.

But after that, things change, especially if you have kids. Who’s going to babysit, what’s the parking situation like, is the party location more than 10 minutes from my house? If you’ve reached that stage in your life in terms of parties, the good news is that the new Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Party Blizzard has arrived, and there’s no need to have someone watch the kids, unless you don’t want them to get a sugar high.

This creation, a party of the Summer Blizzard Menu, is loaded with sugar in the form of chocolate chip cookie dough, peanut butter topping, peanut brittle crunch, and sprinkles. I’m going to assume you are familiar with the first two components, as cookie dough and peanut butter topping are mainstays of the Blizzard family. They both do a solid job here. The cookie dough is soft and chewy with a hint of chocolate, and the peanut butter topping adds some extra creaminess to the vanilla soft serve base.

As for the peanut brittle, it’s a nice addition but not exactly mind-blowing. The pieces are quite small, sometimes even smaller than the sprinkles, and as such, they deliver more crunch than flavor, especially in a mixture that already has peanut butter topping. If you do zero in on a piece of peanut brittle, there is a slightly different peanut buttery flavor compared to the topping, but it really doesn’t stand apart. The sprinkles add some color and crunch, but they also don’t bring much in terms of flavor.

With a nice mix of chewy cookie dough, crunchy peanut brittle, and sprinkles, this Blizzard delivers some nice texture variation and a solid peanut butter flavor with a hint of chocolate. It would have been better if the peanut brittle pieces were larger, but this Blizzard still delivers a satisfying party for your tastebuds without things getting out of hand.

Purchased Price: $4.19
Size: Small
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 880 calories, 39 grams of fat, 18 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 490 milligrams of sodium, 120 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 87 grams of sugar, and 17 grams of protein.