Baskin Robbins Flavour of the Month - Nutty Cream Cheese Brownie

Okay, seeing as my boyfriend and I usually go to Baskin Robbins at the start of every month to try their new flavour of the month (and maybe pick up a tub of an old favourite too), I should start writing about them too.

This month's flavour is Nutty Cream Cheese Brownie. I'll be honest, the title doesn't make it sound too appetising. The website describes it as "Chocolate fudge ice cream with a cream cheese frosting ribbon, brownie pieces and walnut pieces throughout". And it actually sounds quite delicious.

Anyway, we had a sample taste of this ice cream, and decided we were definitely going to buy a pint of it. It honestly tastes exactly like a brownie that has been liquified and then frozen, odd as that sounds. The chocolate is extremely rich, meaning that the cream cheese frosting was difficult to detect, which was my only complaint. The brownie squares were small but moist and plentiful, as were the walnuts, which added a nice crunch.

I definitely enjoyed this flavour of the month and wish it wasn't around for a limited time!

Sara Lee Caramel Peanut Brittle

After the success of Sara Lee's cookies and cream, I definitely had to try some more flavours. I was grocery shopping last night and as luck would have it, Sara Lee ice creams were on sale so I picked this up, as it sounded the most intriguing to me.

Described as "Made with fresh cream from selected Australian dairies, and swirled with a gooey caramel fudge and crunchy peanut brittle pieces coated in real milk chocolate". It made me hungry. 

I was a bit worried about what state the ice cream would be in though after the long trip home from the grocery store. And there were a few ice crystals around the edges from the re-freeze. However, I had nothing to worry about as when I scooped away that top layer, it gave way to a perfectly fluffy texture.

The picture above shows just a tiny hint of what I would find when I scooped further...

TONS of chocolate-coated peanut brittle pieces! I really love when an ice cream has tons of bits in it. It's hard to avoid them but trying the base itself, I would guess at vanilla - however it did have a hint of caramel.
Not much sign of the swirl so far, but as I only ate off the top layer I hope there is more to be found further down. 

The peanut brittle pieces are delicious with the ice cream - perfectly sweet and salty. The chocolate coating just helps to bring it all together. I enjoyed my sample of this ice cream a lot and will definitely be finishing this off in time and possibly buying again.

Pizza Capers Ice Cream?

Just discovered the Pizza Capers franchise, and while I was looking around their site I saw they had 590mL tubs of ice cream under their dessert menu. They also have 520mL tubs of gelato!
The ice cream is from "The Little Ice Cream Shoppe" a brand I have never heard of before. The website, thelittleicecreamshoppe.com.au , says that it was founded in 2012 and is exclusively available at Pizza Capers, so I guess that's why!

Described as follows: 


Salted Caramel & Malt Crunch:
A delicious salted caramel swirl folded through creamy malted ice cream with crunchy chocolate malt chunks.

Red Velvet Chocolate Cupcake:
A decadent Belgian chocolate fudge ice cream folded with a red velvet ribbon, fudge and chocolate cupcake bites.

The Flavour So Crazy It Doesn’t Even Have a Name! 
A positively silly combination of vanilla ice cream with candy coated chocolate beans, swirls of chocolate sauce, sour candy surprises, marshmallows and choc butterscotch balls.

Cookies and Cream 
Creamy vanilla ice cream with a silky chocolate ribbon, loads of chocolate cookie chunks and cookie dough pieces.

Chocolate Gelato
Decadent Belgian chocolate blended into a rich Italian gelato.

Mango Gelato (Dairy free) 
Fresh mangoes given the Italian treatment, blended into a smooth and refreshing mango gelato.

Needless to say, I will be trying these soon!

Flavour Comparison - Cookies & Cream (Connoisseur and Sara Lee)

Connoisseur and Sara Lee both have a premium cookies and cream flavour, and since Connoisseur has been a favourite of mine for years and I'd only tried the Sara Lee take on it this week, I thought it'd be fun to do a comparison. 

Connoisseur describes theirs as "crushed dark chocolate cookies crumbled through smooth vanilla ice cream", while Sara Lee proclaims "made with fresh cream from selected Australian dairies, real bourbon vanilla and packed with chunks of dark chocolate cookies."
Based on the description alone, Sara Lee sounds like a winner. I love a good description.

Visually, on the surface, there is hardly any difference between the two ice creams, though Sara Lee's (right) is slightly darker. Both have chunks and tiny crumbles of Oreo-style cookies throughout, giving both vanilla bases a grey colour. This is just how I prefer my cookies and cream ice cream!

A few scoops down to each and it becomes clear that Connoisseur wins in the chunks department, there are many cookie bits in the ice cream and some were very large. Sara Lee, on the other hand, while theirs had less/smaller cookie chunks, there was more cookie overall incorporated into the ice cream, giving it a darker colour and a stronger chocolate flavour.

Honestly, it's very hard to pick a winner here. I'd definitely go for both, being a fan of Connoissuer's line and especially this flavour, but I also think Sara Lee has converted me to their ice cream with this flavour as well. Both are excellent and perfect if you are like me and perfer the cookie side of the cookies & cream equation. 

Connoisseur Belgian Chocolate

Connoisseur Belgian Chocolate was another flavour I just had to buy when I saw it - it's not a regular feature in most supermarket freezers, it seems. I bought this while the Connoisseur brand was on sale, too, which just gave me another reason to grab it - like I needed one anyway!

Described as "rich chocolate ice cream artfully swirled with chocolate sauce made from Belgian chocolate". The description is not wrong, this is definitely a rich chocolate ice cream.

The texture was creamy and thick, yet almost dry-feeling and kind of sticky too - but maybe the stickiness was from the swirl.

The swirl, being the same colour as the base ice cream is a little hard to see, but it was there all throughout the container. And it was incredibly delicious. So rich, and chocolatey, and I think I'd definitely buy this one again. I have never really been a fan of chocolate ice cream, but I think this flavour has converted me. Excellent job by Connoisseur.

Movenpick Creme Brulee

A bit later than expected, but here is a new review! Movenpick's Creme Brulee:

I'd just like to start by saying, I was really excited to find a container of Movenpick. I had wanted to try it for a long time, but it seemed they didn't sell it in my city or anywhere near. Then last week, after my boyfriend and I went out to dinner we stopped at a Night Owl to pick up something for dessert, and there it was! I just had to get it. They had the creme brulee, maple walnut, and vanilla. I will definitely be going back to try the others!

This is an incredible ice cream. When I opened the container, I saw this: 

There is a real, burnt sugar layer on the top! This isn't just ice cream, it is art. 

Delicious art. The burnt sugar layer by itself was a little overpowering, but mixed in with the ice cream was amazing and definitely reminiscent of it's namesake dessert.
The ice cream itself was airy and fluffy yet dense at the same time. It was very sweet and creamy, with a caramel swirl that made a nice, but unexpected, addition.

I loved this flavour, but it is incredibly sweet. Even I had a little trouble finishing my bowl.

That said though, Movenpick is definitely going to be a repeat buy brand. The high quality ice cream and unique flavours definitely make it worth the premium price.

Posts Soon to Come!

I've been away the past week or so, and then when I get back home the Internet is down... that's why there's been no posts for a while. I'm currently typing this on my phone, where I cannot add pictures so the reviews will have to wait a little while!

I have three posts to come as soon as I can. The last Harry's flavour, Pavlova, another Connoisseur flavour, and one from Movenpick.

Connoisseur Caramel Honey Macadamia

Let me just start off by saying, I am a huge fan of the Connoisseur brand of ice creams. Before I even had the idea to start this blog, I'd consumed copious amounts of it over the years. I love the stuff. I've tried nearly every flavour and I'll have reviews of them all up eventually, but today I'm going to start with Caramel Honey Macadamia.

Sounds pretty enticing, doesn't it? I love the descriptions and background to the flavour they give on the back of the containers. This one is described as "honey roasted macadamias smothered in smooth caramel flavoured ice cream and honey sauce". 

It's a nice, smooth, buttery-looking caramel ice cream and if you look reeeally hard, you can see the macadamias...

There's a better view!

Okay. I really love this ice cream. It's rich and smooth just like Connoisseur always is. It has a sweet, slightly mild caramel flavour. I would enjoy just this caramel base flavour all by itself, but the macadamias really steal the show. They're delicious! They're covered in honey and have a nice, roasted flavour. The honey is strong, but not overpowering. There's just enough of the macadamia halves and pieces that you may not get them on every spoonful - but it's fun hunting for them so I don't mind!

This ice cream is definitely going into my "buy again" list. Connoisseur did an excellent job with this.

Coles Swirl Raspberry and Vanilla

Just a quick review. Had a small taste of this last night (as it's my mother's, not mine, so I had to be sneaky).

For a supermarket brand, this was really good ice cream and sorbet! The vanilla was creamy, melt-in-your-mouth and sweet. The raspberry sorbet was tangy and delicious. I enjoyed this a lot, and I might have to buy this for myself! I'm going to check out the other Coles store brand ice creams in future now too.

Harry's Ice Cream Co - Banana Caramel Swirl

The container of Banana Caramel Swirl proclaims, "with ripened Cavendish bananas", which made me excited thinking that there'd be pieces of real banana in this ice cream. Sadly, that wasn't the case, however the ice cream does have a strong banana taste. It's obvious that real bananas were used to give this ice cream it's flavour, which is definitely a good thing.

However, I thought the banana taste was too overpowering at times. Especially when compared to the caramel swirl, which I think there just was not enough of. The little pocket of caramel at the top of the picture was so far the only swirl I found.

I guess I had high expectations for this flavour after how good the lamington was, but it just isn't that great. The taste of real bananas is the only plus to this ice cream. I also think it needs more caramel. I'll finish this container eventually, sure, but I doubt I'll buy this again.

Harry's Ice Cream Co. - Lamington

Harry's Ice Cream Co is a new premium ice cream brand to hit the shelves of Woolworths, with three unique flavours released in September 2012 - Pavlova, Lamington, and Banana Caramel Swirl.

I went out today and picked up all three, and I couldn't resist reviewing the lamington for my first post. I was really interested in how it would turn out. The lamington is such an iconic Australian food and one of my favourite desserts as well. The container proclaims, "with chocolate, strawberry and coconut", which sounds about right - the lamingtons I've eaten have all consisted of the typical sponge cake fingers or cubes, dipped in chocolate icing and rolled in coconut, sometimes with cream in the middle - but I've never seen strawberry incorporated! 

Well, this looks pretty good! My first spoonful was of just the ice cream. I was immediately hit by a strong coconut flavour, but it wasn't unpleasant at all and just what you'd expect from a lamington flavoured ice cream. There's tiny bits of dessicated coconut in there too, which is a nice surprise!

The chocolate swirl was amazing too - dense and rich and tastes just like chocolate lamington icing.

I didn't get to any strawberries until much further down, and they were pretty tiny. I didn't taste them much unless I was really concentrating on them. I thought they'd be odd in a lamington flavoured ice cream, but they work nicely enough.

Texture-wise, well... though it's no fault of the ice cream itself (probably from either the supermarket freezer or the ride home) half was icy, like it had melted and been refrozen at one point. The other half was smooth and creamy and just like a premium ice cream should be. Weird how only half the container was affected, but whatever.

I really loved this ice cream. I found it hard to stop eating it. I expected I would though as I love lamingtons!

I'd give this a solid 9/10. The only reason it lost a point, in my opinion, is I think it could have done with some pieces of sponge cake instead of the strawberries! That, however, is my only complaint. This is excellent ice cream and tastes just like it's namesake.