Tag: Dairy Queen

REVIEW: Dairy Queen Reese’s Pieces Cookie Dough Blizzard

Denis 9 Comments

Dairy Queen Reese s Pieces Cookie Dough Blizzard Cup

What is the Dairy Queen Reese’s Pieces Cookie Dough Blizzard?

It’s the October Blizzard of the Month, and its name pretty much describes what it contains: Reese’s Pieces candy, chocolate chip cookie dough, peanut butter topping, and pumpkin-flavored soft serve. OK, it’s regular vanilla soft serve. Just checking to make sure you are really reading this part of the review.

How is it?

It’s good, but this one goes into the category of what I’ll call the Taco Bell-style of Blizzard. While Taco Bell has introduced some new items lately that are actually new, like the Crispy Chicken Sandwich Taco, most of its “new” introductions are just a slightly different combination of its core ingredients or the same combination from a few years ago that it thinks we forgot about. While Reese’s Pieces are not generally on the standard DQ menu, there have been countless Blizzards with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and/or cookie dough, so I can’t give the DQ folks many creativity points here.

I realize with the seasonal Blizzard menus, the Blizzard of the Month (which is sometimes more than one), and other new Blizzards throughout the year that every Blizzard can’t be a mind-blowing creation, and there’s nothing at all wrong with this one. It’s quite good, but I doubt my opinion is going to sway you on this one.

Dairy Queen Reese s Pieces Cookie Dough Blizzard Top

If you like Reese’s Pieces (or PB Cups) and cookie dough, then this is going to be a winner for you. If you are not on Team Reese’s, then this probably isn’t for you. I will say that the crunch of the Pieces in a Blizzard is a nice change compared to PB Cups, which have a consistency similar to the cookie dough. Even though there are chocolate chip cookie dough pieces in this, the chocolate flavor gets pushed aside by the power of peanut butter. So if the chocolate part is important to you, then maybe ask them to add in a bit of chocolate fudge topping or chocolate chunks.

Anything else you need to know?

Dairy Queen Reese s Pieces Cookie Dough Blizzard Spoon

Assuming that the nutrition info on the DQ website is correct — which is not always a safe assumption because, in the past, the chain has challenged the laws of both math and science by listing negative numbers for dietary fiber — this is the highest calorie Blizzard I can remember seeing. The small size has a whopping 900 calories, and the large has 1,710 calories, along with 81 grams of fat and 192 carbs. Wow.

Conclusion:

At the risk of hurting the feelings of this Blizzard, there’s nothing special about it. But don’t feel bad little Blizzard, you are still pretty good.

Purchased Price: $4.29
Size: Small
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Small) 900 calories, 39 grams of fat, 20 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 490 milligrams of sodium, 108 grams of carbohydrates, 2 gram of dietary fiber, 88 grams of sugar, and 17 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Dairy Queen Sea Salt Toffee Fudge Blizzard

Denis 3 Comments

Dairy Queen Sea Salt Toffee Fudge Blizzard Cup

What is the Sea Salt Toffee Fudge Blizzard?

It’s part of the Fall Blizzard Menu at Dairy Queen, and it features salted toffee pieces, rich fudge pieces, and caramel topping with vanilla soft serve.

How is it?

It’s the surprise hit of the fall season!

I wasn’t sure how much I would like this one because I don’t think I’ve ever bought a toffee bar in my life. Sure, I’ve had toffee plenty of times, but it’s usually been during the weeks after Halloween when I ask one of my kids for a piece of candy from their massive haul and they generously offer me a Heath bar because they don’t want to give up any of the good stuff. As a standalone candy, toffee is just OK to me. But as part of a tag team with the fudge pieces in this Blizzard, it’s really tasty.

Dairy Queen Sea Salt Toffee Fudge Blizzard Toffee

The toffee pieces in here are quite small, but they pack a solid punch with their extreme crunchiness and buttery sweet flavor. The caramel topping blends well with the not-so-different toffee flavor, and then the fudge pieces provide a vastly different chewy texture and nice chocolatey kick. It all comes together to form a complex and pleasant taste experience that sets this one apart from most other Blizzards.

Dairy Queen Sea Salt Toffee Fudge Blizzard Caramel

One caveat here -— if you are excited about the sea salt part of this Blizzard, well, calm down. As much as I tried, I couldn’t discern any salty taste at all, from the sea or anywhere else. I don’t want to call the fine people at DQ liars, especially considering I’m sure they have a whole team of lawyers that would frown upon such a statement, but I do think putting sea salt in the name of this Blizzard is a bit of a stretch.

Anything else you need to know?

I bet you can’t name three brands of toffee candy bars. In the U.S., there are basically two — Heath and Skor (and although they competed against each other at one point, both are now made by The Hershey Company). I tried, without much success, to see where those two candy bars rank in popularity compared to the likes of Snickers, Kit Kat, Milky Way, Twix, etc. The best I could do is find that the Heath bar was 56th in popularity in 1987, back when I’m not sure there were many more than 56 different candy bars being made. And maybe it’s time for someone to do a new survey.

Conclusion:

If you are like me and do not have an affinity for toffee, you should still give this Blizzard a chance because it’s unexpectedly good. And if you are one of the few people who actually goes out and buys toffee bars, then you are probably going to love this.

Purchased Price: $4.29
Size: Small
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Small) 710 calories, 25 grams of fat, 14 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 570 milligrams of sodium, 110 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 86 grams of sugar, and 13 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Dairy Queen Pecan Pie Blizzard

Denis 5 Comments

Dairy Queen Pecan Pie Blizzard Cup

What is the Dairy Queen Pecan Pie Blizzard?

It’s Thanksgiving in a cup! Actually, it’s the September Blizzard of the Month (sharing the stage with the return of the Pumpkin Pie Blizzard) and part of the fall Blizzard menu, which presumably means it will be available beyond September since most of the month is technically summer. Calendar confusion aside, this is a new offering from Dairy Queen and includes gooey brown sugar pie pieces, crunchy pecans (is there such a thing as non-crunchy pecans?), creamy caramel topping, and vanilla soft serve with whipped topping.

How is it?

Dairy Queen Pecan Pie Blizzard Pie Piece

Remember in grade school when someone would say, “If you love it so much, why don’t you marry it?” The “it” in question could be anything, from a pudding cup to an embarrassed classmate. In this case, let’s say it is the gooey brown sugar pie pieces. Yes, I would marry them, all of them. Just don’t tell my wife. Seriously though, the little square pie pieces in here alone are worth the price of this Blizzard, both monetarily and physically for the higher-than-usual calorie count of this concoction compared to most other varieties.

I had never heard of brown sugar pie prior to this, and now it’s one of my new favorite things. The ingredients are basically flour, eggs, sugar, molasses, caramel, and sugar, which is probably what a kid in grade school would use if you asked one to make a pie, and maybe that’s why it’s so good. The pieces are really more chewy than gooey with a wonderfully satisfying sweet taste and texture, just like pecan pie filling.

Dairy Queen Pecan Pie Blizzard Spoon

Now that I’m done deifying the brown sugar pie pieces, the rest of this is pretty good too. The caramel topping does a great job of adding flavor to the soft serve, and the pecans are just fine. Mine had a few big ones on top for show and a lesser amount mixed into the Blizzard. The pecan flavor was there, but perhaps pushed aside a bit by the pie pieces and caramel. It would have been nice to have a few more pecans in there, but overall it’s hard for me to find much fault with this Blizzard.

Anything else you need to know?

Even if you are not a fan of pecans, I would encourage you to give this a shot, and why wouldn’t you follow the advice of some random guy on the internet? Even if you can’t stand pecans, maybe try getting this without them. It will be worth the strange look you get for ordering a Pecan Pie Blizzard with no pecans.

Conclusion:

Dairy Queen Pecan Pie Blizzard Full

Anything with the words pie and Blizzard in it is likely going to be good, but this was a surprisingly special treat. I hope this one sticks around for a while.

Purchased Price: $4.29
Size: Small
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Small) 750 calories, 35 grams of fat, 17 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 65 milligrams of cholesterol, 350 milligrams of sodium, 97 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 76 grams of sugar, and 15 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Dairy Queen Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Blizzard

Denis 7 Comments

Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Blizzard Top

What is the Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Blizzard?

It’s the July Blizzard of the Month made with soft-baked Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookies and mini chocolate chip morsels mixed with Dairy Queen vanilla soft serve.

How is it?

Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Blizzard Nondescript Cup

Despite the nondescript appearance, complete with the nondescript cup it was served in, this is a top-notch Blizzard. DQ has done numerous varieties of cookie dough Blizzards in the past, and I’ve never really loved any of them. The cookie dough always seems a little gritty because it’s not really cookie dough; it’s “edible” cookie dough. What’s the difference? Regular cookie dough, as in the kind you would use to make cookies, has raw eggs and uncooked flour in it. That makes it unsafe to eat, even though we have all done it. I’m not suggesting that you should eat raw cookie dough, but I think we can agree that it does taste better.

Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Blizzard Cookie Bits

The soft-baked cookies in this Blizzard come pretty close to tasting like raw cookie dough, and they have a really nice non-gritty texture and taste much better than the cookie dough in other Blizzards.

Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Blizzard Chips

As for the mini chocolate chip morsels, DQ is not messing around when it says mini morsels. They are tiny, and even though they deliver some chocolate flavor, it would have been nice to have some bigger chip pieces.

This Blizzard is also really sweet — not too sweet, but close. The sugar content doesn’t appear to be higher than the average Blizzard, and the ingredients list on the DQ website has a lot of words I don’t know, so I can’t really explain the extra sweetness. But those are minor issues, and I enjoyed this one quite a bit.

Anything else you need to know?

You can still visit the spot where the famous Toll House cookies were invented in the 1930s by Ruth Wakefield at the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, except that there’s now a Wendy’s and a Walgreens there. You can, however, check out the restored sign and a marker, but don’t get too carried away with the historical significance as the 1709 date on the sign was a marketing ploy, as was the name. The Toll House Inn was built in 1817, and it was never actually used as a toll house. Thanks for ruining it for us, Wikipedia.

Conclusion:

This is not quite good enough to make my personal Blizzard Hall of Fame, which is topped by the late, great Nerds Blizzard, but it’s still delicious, so maybe I can put it in my Blizzard Corridor of Fame.

Purchased Price: $4.29
Size: Small
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Small) 550 calories, 19 grams of fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 gram of trans fat, 65 milligrams of cholesterol, 310 milligrams of sodium, 83 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 65 grams of sugar, and 13 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Dairy Queen Brownie Batter Blizzard

Denis 2 Comments

Dairy Queen Brownie Batter Blizzard Cup

What is the Brownie Batter Blizzard?

This is one of the six flavors in the “New! Summer Blizzard Menu” from Dairy Queen. Only this flavor is not new (it has been released several times over the years), and only the recently reviewed Girl Scout Thin Mints Blizzard is truly new. But enough with semantics, let’s move on to discuss the BBB (Brownie Batter Blizzard), which contains brownies in both batter and piece form.

How is it?

Remember in school when you had to determine the average, median, and mode? This Blizzard is all of those blended into one. There’s nothing wrong with it, but the batter flavor doesn’t really come through with any distinction.

Dairy Queen Brownie Batter Blizzard Spoon

If I really try, I can pick out subtle flavor hints that remind me of brownie batter, but it mostly tastes like chocolate syrup or fudge flavoring. The brownie chunks are fine, but you could have convinced me they were chocolate cookie dough instead of brownie. I did enjoy the chewy texture of the pieces.

Dairy Queen Brownie Batter Blizzard Brownie

Anything else you need to know?

Even though this Blizzard is nothing special, it got me thinking…is there such a thing as a “bad” Blizzard? I’ve never had one, but if you mix ice cream with any type of candy, cookies, brownies, nuts, etc., then it’s going to at least be palatable. So I am hereby challenging DQ to raise their game and dive into the gross-out food trend we’ve seen with jelly beans, sodas, and the like. How about a ketchup and mustard Blizzard? Or pickles and onions? Just think of all the social media action you would get off those, DQ.

Conclusion:

Dairy Queen Brownie Batter Blizzard Top

If your bucket list includes trying every DQ Blizzard ever released, then I guess go ahead and give this one a whirl. But if not, then you are not missing out on much by picking another Blizzard variety.

Purchased Price: $4.79
Size: Medium
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Medium) 770 calories, 34 grams of fat, 13 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 450 milligrams of sodium, 105 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of dietary fiber, 79 grams of sugar, and 15 grams of protein.