Tag: Haagen-Dazs

Haagen-Dazs was a staple in my household growing up, but I was always dismayed that it was Rum Raisin. But that’s what Mom liked, so that’s what we got!

Fast forward decades later, I usually have Haagen-Dazs’ Vanilla Milk Chocolate Almond Ice Cream Bars stocked in my freezer. It reminds me of a Drumstick, but fancy and without the cone. I share my journey with Haagen-Dazs as it entirely influences what I thought of its new Butter Cookie Cones.

This frozen novelty foray is commendable, especially since Haagen-Dazs launched not one, not two, but four flavors out the gate. But at $8.99 for a box of four, it won’t replace my usual bars.

Which four flavors, you ask? My 8-year-old self was very pleased that there was no Rum Raisin version. The “Butter Cookie Cone Collection” (Haagen-Dazs’ fancy website words, not mine) consists of the following:

Chocolate: Chocolate ice cream and chocolate fudge sauce, topped with chocolate curls and cookie pieces.

Strawberry: Strawberry ice cream and a tangy raspberry sauce, topped with white chocolate curls and cookie pieces.

Coffee: Coffee ice cream and espresso fudge sauce, topped with roasted almonds and cookie pieces.

Vanilla: Vanilla ice cream and a caramel sauce, topped with chocolate curls and cookie pieces.

Biting into the fancy curls and pieces actually reminded me of how much I enjoy eating Talenti Gelato Layers. Like Layers, the rich and creamy ice cream was a nice backdrop for all the pops of texture and added flavors from the toppings and cones.

Speaking of the fancy cone, it had the pasty look of an untoasted Pop-Tarts pastry than a golden butter cookie. Unlike Pop-Tarts, though, it was much thicker and didn’t have that same crumbly nature. It had more of a shortbread snap to it. I could bite into it easily, but I found it plain tasting. Most of its flavor came from the chocolate lining that went down into the bottom of the cone, probably to help prevent sogginess, like a Drumstick. Even though the cone was a bit plain, the most delightful bite of all the flavors ended up being the chocolatey tip/end of the cone.

I was also pleasantly surprised that the sauces were piped into the middle. So, halfway through the ice cream biting, I got either chocolate fudge, raspberry sauce, espresso fudge, or caramel sauce, which added another layer to the eating experience.

The vanilla flavor was like eating a Drumstick with a glow up. It was far from boring with the caramel sauce in the middle and cookie pieces! I usually order vanilla from ice cream shops because you can’t hide behind inclusions, and if a place has good vanilla ice cream, you know it’s legit! So, while I couldn’t confirm with my taste buds that this was made with Madagascar vanilla, it was smooth and luxurious, thus signaling high quality to me!

I experienced this same quality with the milk chocolate ice cream. Also, while the chocolate-lined cone had a chocolate base with chocolate fudge sauce and chocolate curls, they were varying degrees of cacao, so it didn’t taste one-note. The different depths of chocolate and the textures from the toppings kept things interesting.

My favorite was the strawberry one. The tanginess of the raspberry sauce and the sweet strawberry ice cream really mimicked a fresh red berry. With the cookie butter cone added into the mix, it was almost like eating a strawberry shortcake (with a touch of milk chocolate from the cone).

I had the coffee one last because I didn’t want it to take over my taste buds and cause the other flavors to taste muted. But it was more latte-like with cream and sugar rather than straight coffee, so my initial concern was not an issue. This was the only flavor with nuts, but while they were clearly almonds, they ate more like peanuts because they were a bit less crunchy than I expected. The espresso fudge was a lovely decadent touch and brought out more coffee flavor.

The back of their packages read, “Deliciousness unlike anything you ever tasted before.” They were indeed elevated, but worth $8.99 a box? The jury is out on that one, but it definitely piqued my interest. If Haagen-Dazs sold some single serve cones out in the wild, I’d get another, but I don’t want these boxes taking up precious ice cream bar space in my freezer!

Purchased Price: $8.99 per box
Size: 14.8 oz (four cones per box)
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Vanilla), 7 out of 10 (Chocolate), 8 out of 10 (Strawberry), 7 out 10 (Coffee)
Nutrition Facts: (1 cone) Vanilla – 280 calories, 16 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 120 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 22 grams of total sugars (14 grams of added sugar), and 4 grams of protein. Chocolate – 300 calories, 17 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 100 milligrams of sodium, 33 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 22 grams of total sugars (14 grams of added sugar), and 4 grams of protein. Strawberry – 270 calories, 15 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 100 milligrams of sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 21 grams of total sugars (11 grams of added sugar), and 4 grams of protein. Coffee – 280 calories, 16 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 100 milligrams of sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 19 grams of total sugars (15 grams of added sugar), and 4 grams of protein.

In its new City Sweets collection, Haagen-Dazs pairs some of its beloved ice cream flavors with classic city snacks and desserts you might eat with one hand while strolling around town. Available in Dulce De Leche Churro, Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel, Summer Berry Cake Pop, Coffee Chocolate Brownie, and Black & White Cookie, it’s pretty clear right away that some of these flavors make more sense than others.

Black & White cookies are an iconic New York treat, and churros and pretzels are things I’d associate with grabbing from a street cart on the corner, but cake pops seem to have made their way into the lineup solely by virtue of being on a stick. I guess they have them at Starbucks, and it’s hard to walk around a city without bumping into thirty of those. Maybe San Antonio or Atlanta is known for their cake pop culture and I wasn’t aware? Coffee could certainly be something you’d walk around with, and a brownie is handheld, but that one doesn’t exactly scream “city” to me either. That being said, I’ve never been one to turn down a brownie regardless of its credibility as street fare, so let’s find out if these pints deserve a place in my bodega’s freezer.

Black & White Cookie

Black & White Cookie combines “vanilla bean ice cream with soft cookie pieces and ripples of chocolate frosting.” Beneath this description, they encourage us to “Forget the cookie and grab your spoon,” and I agree with Haagen-Dazs here. I prefer this flavor in ice cream format more than any Black & White cookie I’ve ever eaten.

There are a very generous number of cookie pieces throughout the pint, and they mimic the soft texture of a Black & White cookie surprisingly well without ending up soggy. There are actually so many pieces that I think I got at least one in just about every bite. While you don’t really notice them tasting lemony, I did see lemon oil in the ingredients list, which I think is often typical of the cookie base in these treats. Points for authenticity, Haagen-Dazs. The frosting ripple tastes and feels like actual frosting and not just a generic chocolate sauce. I anticipated this pint being fairly boring, but it ended up being my favorite of the bunch.

Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 410 calories, 24 grams of total fat, 16 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 100 milligrams of cholesterol, 110 milligrams of sodium, 42 grams of total carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of dietary fiber, 36 grams of total sugars, 28 grams of added sugars, 6 grams of protein

Coffee Chocolate Brownie

Coffee Chocolate Brownie features “classic coffee ice cream, gooey brownies, rich espresso chocolate sauce, and crunchy cocoa nibs.” I’ve had better coffee ice creams, but I still like the base here, and while it’s not as present as some of the swirls in the other flavors, the espresso chocolate sauce does give a nice coffee flavor boost when you get some.

I have two main issues with this flavor. First, it seems that most of the cocoa nibs have been pulverized, so instead of getting a crunchy bit here and there, a lot of spoonfuls are kind of gritty (is this the city tie-in?). The other problem is the brownie pieces in my pint were almost nonexistent. For as many cookie pieces as there were in Black & White, I had to go digging to find any brownies, and when I did, they were too small to be anything but the suggestion that possibly a brownie had once been nearby. There weren’t any chunks large enough to have a gooey texture, and if brownie wasn’t in the name of the ice cream, I couldn’t have told you this contained brownies.

Rating: 5 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 360 calories, 20 grams of total fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 90 milligrams of cholesterol, 130 milligrams of sodium, 38 grams of total carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 31 grams of total sugars, 25 grams of added sugars, 6 grams of protein

Dulce De Leche Churro

In Dulce De Leche Churro, “cinnamon churro ice cream and thick, gooey dulce de leche sauce” get paired up with “crispy, cinnamon-y churro pieces.” This ice cream stands out to me as creamier than some of the others, and the base does taste like cinnamon churros and not just cinnamon. I really like it. The dulce de leche ribbon is thick and gooey as advertised. The churro pieces themselves are plentiful, but unfortunately, they fall into two categories. Some are crispy, almost surprisingly so, more reminiscent of crunchy cereal pieces than the crispy outside of fried dough. There’s an audible crunch to them, and my first few bites had only these pieces.

It came as a different sort of surprise when I ran across one of the non-crispy pieces. They look the same as the crispy ones but bloated, like whatever they were coated in failed to keep the ice cream from saturating the interiors. These pieces have a chewy (not in a good way), waxy texture to them, and I was tempted to spit them out. They seem like maybe they’re not supposed to be in there, like part of the cardboard container somehow ended up getting mixed in. If you can avoid or overlook these pieces, this flavor might be the best one, but that’ll take some careful eating because there are a lot of them.

Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 390 calories, 23 grams of total fat, 16 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 90 milligrams of cholesterol, 115 milligrams of sodium, 41 grams of total carbohydrates, 0 gram of dietary fiber, 37 grams of total sugars, 30 grams of added sugars, 5 grams of protein

Summer Berry Cake Pop

In Summer Berry Cake Pop, we’re given the duo of strawberry ice cream and sweet cream ice cream with “perfect, fluffy cake pieces” finished with “tangy raspberry sauce.” I like the strawberry ice cream, and the sweet cream flavor, while not particularly noticeable as sweet cream, is fine enough. When it comes to the cake, though, this is another instance of the mix-in being a dud. There are more cake chunks than there were brownies, and the cake pieces don’t detract from my enjoyment like the weird churro ones did. Instead, they’re just kind of there. They don’t really taste like anything, and there’s definitely nothing fluffy about them. Are cake pops ever fluffy? They’re kind of an underwhelming dessert to begin with. When you take fluffy cake, tear and smoosh it to pieces, then smash those pieces back together, you’re left with a denser and arguably less enjoyable product than you started with. So if you take this into account, the cake pieces here probably do taste like what you might expect from a cake pop. The best feature of this pint is the raspberry sauce thickly swirled throughout, and it delivers the tanginess it claims.

Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 320 calories, 20 grams of total fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 100 milligrams of cholesterol, 65 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of total carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of dietary fiber, 29 grams of total sugars, 23 grams of added sugars, 5 grams of protein

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel

For Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel, Haagen-Dazs says, “our incredible chocolate ice cream and thick, creamy peanut butter are complemented by crunchy, lightly salted pretzel pieces.” As a huge pretzel person, I was eager to dig into this one but immediately realized I’d have to exercise some patience. It was clear upon opening that it needed some time to soften up, and even after a few minutes when I tried to spoon some out, I basically picked the top third of the pint up in a solid piece revealing the peanut butter to be totally in the center, more like what you’d find in a pint with a “core” than one with peanut butter dispersed throughout. This core is solid, and I had to hack at it to distribute it throughout a serving. Otherwise, it’s all chocolate ice cream with no peanut butter flavor.

The pretzel pieces are individually coated in chocolate which keeps them enjoyably crunchy and adds a deeper chocolate flavor than the ice cream alone. There are a lot of them, and you’re likely to have one in each spoonful, so you know this is a pretzel ice cream. While not mentioned in the description, there are also fudgy chocolate pieces that don’t have pretzel centers. When I’m getting sad that I don’t taste any peanut butter, one of these fudgy pieces shows up to make me forget I’m missing a component.

Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 450 calories, 30 grams of total fat, 16 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 90 milligrams of cholesterol, 190 milligrams of sodium, 38 grams of total carbohydrates, 3 gram of dietary fiber, 28 grams of total sugars, 21 grams of added sugars, 9 grams of protein

There was potential with this series, but most of the flavors missed the mark. Black & White Cookie does its namesake proud and is way worth picking up, but most of them melted under the bright lights. I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to get the others, but none of them are so bad that you’ll drop them in the park for the pigeons…except maybe those soggy churro pieces you set aside.

Purchased Price: $4.79 each
Size: 14 oz
Purchased at: Jewel-Osco

Sometimes gravity sucks.

I’m pretty sure even Issac Newton realized that after the umpteenth apple hit his head.

While he had apples to prove how not awesome gravity can be, we have chocolate-dipped ice cream bars. Taking bites into them causes sweet tectonic plates to crumble, shift, separate, and, thanks to our “friend” gravity, eventually fall to the ground or clothing where the five-second rule is no longer applicable because the melty chocolate adheres itself to whatever it lands on. That causes some of us to let out an expletive or two internally or externally.

But Häagen-Dazs has solved this problem with its new Soft-Dipped Ice Cream Bars.

They’re available with either vanilla, chocolate, or caramel ice cream, and all feature a soft-dipped chocolate truffle coating.

The ice cream has the typical Häagen-Dazs quality — creamy, sweet, and enjoyable. While the chocolate and vanilla varieties just feature their respective ice cream flavors, the third one also has a caramel swirl. But with the two bars I’ve eaten, there hasn’t been much of any gooey caramel goodness. None of the varieties stand out to me, probably because they’re basic flavors. I like them all equally.

As for the coating’s flavor, it has a pleasant cocoa taste that, with its slight bitterness, leans more towards dark chocolate. It allows some of the ice cream’s flavor to come through, but it pretty much dominates every bite.

But does the coating allow me to keep my Tide-To-Go Pen unsheathed whenever I eat these bars?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Out of the four bars I’ve eaten so far, I’ve only had a small loose piece fall to the ground with one of them. But that was with my most recent bar, and I think it was my fault because it happened while I was dancing to celebrate about how cool it is that the soft-dipped coating didn’t shatter with each bite. But, to be honest, it feels like it’s going to come apart, but it doesn’t.

Although Häagen-Dazs’ Soft-Dipped Ice Cream Bars have simple flavors, I appreciate the brand’s efforts here with the coating that keeps me clean. It won’t earn the brand a Nobel Peace Prize in physics, but it has won my award for Ice Cream Bar That Will Make Me Swear Less and Does Not Force Me To Pre-Treat My Clothes.

DISCLOSURE: I received a free sample of the product (Thanks Häagen-Dazs). Doing so did not influence my review in any way.

Purchased Price: FREE
Size: 3-pack
Purchased at: Received from Häagen-Dazs
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 bar) Vanilla – 250 calories, 18 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 45 milligrams of cholesterol, 30 milligrams of sodium, 19 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 17 grams of sugar, 14 grams of added sugar, and 3 grams of protein. Chocolate – 260 calories, 18 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 45 milligrams of cholesterol, 30 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 18 grams of sugar, 15 grams of added sugar, and 4 grams of protein. Caramel – 270 calories, 18 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 45 milligrams of cholesterol, 110 milligrams of sodium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 20 grams of sugar, 18 grams of added sugar, and 3 grams of protein.

I have enjoyed the few varieties of Haagen-Dazs Trio Crispy Layers that I have tried so far. Texturally, they are a pleasure to devour. They also scratch a chocolate itch, that’s for sure. Each one has a variation of ice creams with oodles of chocolate layers throughout the container.

Recently, Haagen-Dazs launched a new flavor for the Trio Crispy Layers line: Ruby Cacao Crackle with Pistachio and Sweet Cream Ice Cream. I had heard of ruby chocolate before this, but have never gotten the chance to try it, so I was very excited to snag this.

The concept with the Ruby Cacao Crackle is similar to the rest of the Trio Crispy Layers line. Pistachio and sweet cream ice creams are stacked on top of each other with shards of ruby cacao in between every two layers.

The top of the pint has the sweet cream and pistachio ice creams swirled together for a nice aesthetic effect. Once you get past the top, it’s alternating layers of the two.

Upon digging in, the first thing that hits me is the pistachio ice cream. It’s rich and earthy, but still very sweet. Unfortunately, it overpowers the sweet cream ice cream. There was not a single bite throughout the container that didn’t taste like pistachio. It’s not bad at all, but it’s uneven. Both are decadent without being too heavy and are a tad icy. It’s the typical Haagen-Dazs formula.

The supposed star of the show, the ruby cacao, is certainly interesting. The pistachio kept masking its flavor, so I had to isolate some pieces to really analyze it. It has more of a delicate flavor than I was expecting. It reminds me of white chocolate, but with some berry undertones coming through. There is a touch of tartness to its mild sweetness. Frankly, it’s just not that special. Texturally, the ruby cacao adds the satisfying crunch to the mix that I was hoping for.

All in all, this was a decent near-pint, but I don’t know if I’ll ever purchase it again. The pistachio ice cream completely dominated everything else. I would have preferred a little bit more balance between the flavors. If you like pistachio ice cream, you should definitely try this, though. Personally, I’ll probably stick with any of the other Trio Crispy Layers flavors available.

Purchased Price: $5.49
Size: 14 oz. container
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 340 calories, 23 grams of fat, 14 grams of saturated fat, 80 milligrams of cholesterol, 65 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 27 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein.