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Review: Breyers Blasts! Girl Scout Cookies Samoas Frozen Dairy Dessert
As a kid, I hated Girl Scout Samoa cookies due to the fact that I hated coconut for most of my life. Since I’ve started to like coconut recently here over the past few years, I’ve given Samoas another chance and they’ve gone from being a cookie that I hated to being my second favorite Girl Scout cookie (Tagalongs will always be number one, BY FAR). Since I’ve grown to like Samoas, I was willing to grab a container of this Breyers Blasts! Girl Scout Cookies Samoas Frozen Dairy Dessert and give it a shot for another Breyers review. Now, the Girl Scouts had a marketing deal with Dreyers / Edy’s for many years, but within the past year, they’ve switched that branding deal over to Breyers thus the “New” tag on this even though the Girl Scout Cookies Samoas flavor has been around for a long time under a different umbrella. Not sure why specifically, but the cynic (and realist) in me guess it probably had everything to do with money, not that there’s anything wrong with that. I picked up a 1.5 quart container of this on sale at Meijer for $3.00 and each container has twelve half-cup servings and each serving is 140 calories.
The description of this on the container is so detailed that I might as well post it here to save myself the effort: “Girl Scout Cookies Samoa pieces, Coconut and a Rich Fudge Swirl in Coconut Caramel Flavored Frozen Dairy Dessert.” Whew, that’s a mouthful. What I can say about that long description is that there definitely was no shortage of coconut in here since when I ripped off the lid, the strong odor of coconut is what immediately greeted me. Like I said, there was a time in my life when that would have disgusted me. Now, I love that. Also quite prominent in this container was the fudge swirl as it was both thick and and amply spread. The caramel frozen dairy dessert did not really have any caramel smell, but it did have the correct coloring. The Samoas cookie pieces, while present, were not amply spread and it was obvious that those would only be an occasional treat and not an overstuffed amount like the Blasts! line typically presents. So, since there seemed to be a shortage of cookie pieces, it was apparent that the frozen dairy dessert and mix would have to do the heavy lifting in terms of carrying the Samoas flavor in here.
So, I first took a quick hit of the coconut and caramel flavored frozen dairy dessert and much like the smell when I first opened the lid, this was mostly coconut flavor. There was an extremely mild taste of caramel, but had I not read the container first, you could have fooled me that this was caramel. I then took a quick nip of the fudge swirl and it was definitely rich like the tagline had promised. The cookie pieces were as I would have expected them to be based on prior history of eating them…extremely crunchy with strong coconut and caramel flavoring. After my individual testing, it was time to mix together everything into one spoonful and what I got was a fun little bundle of dessert. The coconut flavor, as I’d expect, was quite strong and the fudge added a sweet gooey and decadent thickness to that coconut flavor (the caramel flavor was there, but not noticeable on its own). The cookie pieces then added some crunch and graininess to the spoonful as the coconut shards typically found in the cookie added some additional texture on top of the crunch of the cookie as a whole. Still, much like the smell, this was all coconut, all the time. If that’s not something you are cool with, you will not be cool with this because it could really be too much to handle.
Buy It or Fly By It? All in all, this was a decent way and alternate way to enjoy Girl Scout Samoas. Was this the best dessert ever? No, definitely not. Was this good enough that I’d recommend to others? Yes, I would say that it was and that gives it a BUY IT rating, although I can not stress enough the warning about the strength of coconut flavor. If Samoas are you favorite Girl Scout cookie, then you’ll probably enjoy this a ton. If it’s a cookie that you just enjoy and that’s it like me, then you’ll probably feel the same way about this as I do. Good, but not great and Dreyers has done a solid job taking over the Girl Scout cookies franchise with this one.
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Other Review:
*On Second Scoop
Review: Breyers Strawberry Shortcake Frozen Dairy Dessert
I find the whole concept of frozen dairy dessert to be hilarious. It’s a dessert that wants to be ice cream but doesn’t quite go far enough according to government regulations, so instead it becomes a frozen dairy dessert. I don’t know why that amuses me, but it does and I’ve certainly tried out several of them here on this blog in Breyers reviews. One thing I do appreciate about them is that they are fairly low calorie compared to regular ice creams (especially premium ice creams), so that is a nice characteristic. Today’s review is of another frozen dairy dessert in this limited edition Breyers Strawberry Shortcake Frozen Dairy Dessert. I picked up a 1.5 quart container of this at Meijer on sale for $3.00 and each of the twelve half-cup servings in the container is a fairly reasonable 130 calories.
The base of this container is a vanilla sweet cream flavored frozen dairy dessert mixed with a strawberry swirl and then chunks of yellow cake pieces. I can confirm the fact that all of those were there and this entire container did have a mild smell of the namesake dessert. The strawberry swirl amount was just adequate, but it was spread judiciously throughout the container. The cake pieces, while there were not a ton of them, were also spread equally throughout the container as well. They were about the size of a die, so when you got one, you know you wouldn’t be cheated.
When I took my first spoonful, I went first for the sweet cream frozen dairy dessert and it was pretty much just like taking a spoonful of whipped cream and being that is what Breyers was going for I’d assume, that was a success. Much like whipped cream, it was surprisingly fluffy too, so that was also a success. I next went for some of the strawberry swirl and much like the sweet cream frozen dairy dessert, it did a solid job nailing that strawberry flavor too. It wasn’t overly sweet and it wasn’t overly potent, but it was definitely strawberry. Finally, I went for one of the cake pieces individually and yep, you guessed it, it tasted like a small chunk of yellow cake as well. One thing about these cake pieces that was particularly nice was that they were soft and had some chewiness to them. I continue to be marveled by how manufacturers are able to do that in a product that is frozen and Breyers had succeeded here. Since I had tasted all the component individually, I then went for a spoonful that incorporated everything and this was pretty much just like a frozen version of the summertime strawberry shortcake treat. I won’t go so far as to say it was delicious, but I will say that it was satisfying and tasty. Sweet, but not too sweet, and somewhat “fresh” tasting. Basically, it was you’d expect from the namesake dessert.
Buy It or Fly By It? No one will ever say that this is award-winning or the greatest thing ever, but this is a nice and tasty treat and I’ll give it a BUY IT rating. It’s a frozen version of the delightful summertime tradition and if it’s a hot day, this would do a good job cooling you off on a hot day with something emulating it namesake. Not sure how long this will be available since it is tagged as a limited edition, but if you see it in the store, don’t hesitate to pick it up.
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Review: Breyers Blasts! Strawberry Waffle Cone Frozen Dairy Dessert
Sometimes its difficult to figure out if manufacturers get bored with their products and/or they just like to endlessly tinker with formulas as ways to introduce new products. Previously, I had reviewed the Breyers Blasts Waffle Cone with Chocolatey Chips Frozen Dairy Dessert, but out of need to endlessly tinker or just come up with a way to introduce something as “new” when it is really just a slight alteration of the existing product, Breyers has recently put out this Breyers Blasts! Strawberry Waffle Cone Frozen Dairy Dessert. I got this on sale at Kroger for $2.49 and it’s 1.5 quarts and has twelve half-cup sized servings of frozen dairy dessert. Each serving comes in at 130 calories, so it’s a semi-reasonable caloric load as far as frozen desserts go.
As you can tell by comparing the two names of this pictured product and the product that I had previously reviewed, the key difference in the two is that this one is made up of a strawberry frozen dairy dessert base. It was pinkish in color, like strawberry ice creams tend to be, and also carried a mild and pleasing strawberry smell. That strawberry smell is helped along by the other key difference in this container and that’s the presence of the almost jelly-like strawberry swirl that is spun throughout the container. Outside of those two key differences, the only other difference, albeit minor, between the two products was that the former included “chocolatey” chips. This does not as the only inclusions in here are the chocolate covered waffle cone pieces.
Much like the smell of the frozen dairy dessert, the taste was what I would strongly classify as pleasing. It wasn’t overly sweet and it wasn’t bland either…it was just nice strawberry flavor and I was particularly fond of that. The strawberry swirl added that jelly-like mouthfeel to each spoonful that it was included in and also added a little additional punch of strawberry flavor to up the strength factor of that flavor. The fudge covered waffle cone pieces were what you’d expect in terms of flavor as they mixed the typical waffle cone flavor with a mix of chocolate, just like the ice cream cones that I (and perhaps you) would eat as a child. They also brought some nice crunch to each spoonful that broke up the strawberry flavoring of the frozen dairy dessert. The chocolate sweetness that came along with those covered cone pieces, made this one both sweet and somewhat sinful (because of the chocolate).
Buy It or Fly By It? I figured I’d be bored with this because it was just a re-hashing of an existing flavor. What it didn’t do was bring an almost summery and fresh flavor (from the strawberries, of course) to an old and reliable flavor combination. For that, I would say that this flavor goes as far as to be considered fun and because of that, I give it a BUY IT rating. While I didn’t welcome this derivation at first, I certainly welcome it now and would encourage you to do the same if you see it pop up in your grocer’s freezer case.
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News: National Ice Cream Month / Ben & Jerry’s Week!
For those of you that don’t know, July is National Ice Cream Month. Basically, for gluttons like myself and some of my fellow ice cream related blog brethren, this is the best time of the year. In celebration of that, I’m going to spend the next week posting a new daily review of a product from one of the most known ice cream purveyors in the United States as I hit on a different Ben & Jerry’s flavor every day. One caveat though is that not every single review will be of one of their ice cream products. They’ve been churning out some frozen Greek yogurt products recently, some of which I’ve already looked at, so I’ll be mixing in a couple of those review in as well.
Also, expect to see a lot of different ice cream/dessert related reviews this month as I try to celebrate this great month in style. Hope you enjoy!
Review: Breyers Blasts! Birthday Blast Frozen Dairy Dessert
In general, I like the Breyers Blasts! line of products quite a bit and have had lots of success with them. The Blasts! line is right up my alley as in most cases, I choose add-ins over overall flavor of the ice cream (or in this case, frozen dairy dessert). Since Blasts! are all about add-ins, that makes them a big winner. Seeing a new flavor in the freezer case at my local Kroger, along with a Breyers sale, I decided to pick up this 1.5 quart container of Breyers Blasts! Birthday Blast Frozen Dairy Dessert on sale for $2.99. It’s a fairly economical 130 calories per serving and it’s twelve half-cup servings per container.
I opened up this container and what I saw was craziness. Breyers rather sheepishly (in my opinion) describes this as “Cake Pieces And Rainbow Sprinkles In Cake Flavored Frozen Dairy Dessert” and I think they sell the sprinkles short because they were EVERYWHERE (my picture does not do it justice). There were also a ton of yellow cake pieces as well, so the Blasts! tagline was definitely holding firm here. As always, the cake pieces were hard at first, but crumbled easily when you put a little pressure on them. I know I’ve seen it a million times, but I’ve always found that amazing when I open up frozen desserts. My naivete and amusement aside, this one definitely smelled like a birthday cake too, so everything about the name and presentation of this flavor delivered.
As I took my first spoonful of the frozen dairy dessert first, I could definitely distinguish the cake flavored frozen dairy dessert as this one definitely resembled a yellow cake, albeit a sweet one. Helping that sweetness and also adding a slight crunch to the frozen dairy dessert itself were the multitude of sprinkles. As for the cake pieces themselves, they were absolutely delicious and just added more birthday cake feel to this as their hardness broke up into a soft, dare I say moist, piece of cake once it encountered the warmth of my mouth. These cake pieces were also sweet, so when you mixed all of the flavor components together, what you got was something that was sweet, sweet, sweet. It also tasted like a really cold birthday cake and for that, I have to commend Breyers.
Buy It or Fly By It? Unless you are a grinch that doesn’t like birthdays and/or birthday cake, you are going to like this Breyers representation of the celebratory treat. For that reason alone, I give this a BUY IT rating. It’s incredible sweetness only makes it an occasional treat, much like a birthday cake is (like how I drew that parallel?), but it is a treat worth picking up if you want something to remind you of the real thing, albeit in frozen form. All in all, it’s another good addition to the Blasts! line by Breyers.
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Site News: Another Dessert Week!
Last week, I posted a bunch of healthy reviews with granola bars, fiber bars, etc.
Upon reviewing all the posts I have in draft status, I realized that I have a lot of unhealthy reviews of desserts out there that I haven’t posted yet, so why not have some fun this week?
This week, I’m going to post a review of a dessert-related product every single day. There will still be some “healthy” stuff on certain days, but I’ll go full-out unhealthy for every single day. I mean, why is live worth living if you can’t have fun sometimes.
Enjoy all the treats and thanks again for reading!
Review: Breyers Blasts! Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups Chocolate Frozen Dairy Dessert
I’ve had a lot of success with Breyers Blasts! reviews on this blog. More often than not, I’ve found them to be particularly delicious and well stuffed with add-ins. One thing I have done is try to avoid what I consider “boring” and run-of-the-mill flavors like Snickers, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, etc. because I’ve wanted to try some off the ones that seemed (to me at least) to jump out of the freezer at the store. While doing my typical perusing of the freezer case at Meijer recently, I saw a new Reese’s variation of the Blasts! product line with this Breyers Blasts! Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups Chocolate Frozen Dairy Dessert that I picked up on sale for $3.00 for a 1.5 quart container. Each container has twelve half-cup servings and each serving is 140 calories.
There are two key things in this version of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups segment of the Blasts! line that make this different. First, this is frozen dairy dessert and not ice cream like the original version. The other difference is that the base frozen dairy dessert is chocolate flavored as opposed to the peanut butter flavored ice cream of the original Reese’s product. Other than the base flavor and composition, the rest of the container is the same. It contains a Reese’s peanut butter swirl, which has hardened, and also a helping of the famous Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. One thing I did notice about the amount of these cups compared to other Blasts! products is that I seemed to have gotten a container where I was shorted on the number of add-ins and there really weren’t a TON of add-ins like there have been in the other Blasts! products. I was disappointed by that and if you look at the picture above, they are even hard to find there and that’s the best I could do for a photo.
After a couple of spoonfuls, this got to be pretty boring. The peanut butter swirl was nice and had a sweet and full peanut butter flavor and the peanut butter cups obviously tasted like the candy, but the chocolate frozen dairy dessert itself was just flat. It tasted like chocolate, but it wasn’t particularly rich or sweet. It seemed like it was just there as a somewhat chocolate tasting vehicle to deliver the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups to your taste buds. Perhaps that was Breyers’ intent when they designed this as they wanted to showcase the Reese’s product, but I’d like to think they would have at least wanted to the chocolate to have a fuller flavor. Perhaps not though.
Buy It or Fly By It? First, I will say that there was nothing wrong with this container of frozen dairy dessert and it did have solid flavor. It had chocolate and it had peanut butter and that’s a tried and true flavor combination that countless people out there love, including me. Still, I would have liked something more out of this, so I give it a FLY BY IT rating merely as a personal preference and not as a reflection of the taste itself. I just can’t get over the flat chocolate flavor and the lack of add-ins. Maybe I just got a bad container, but I’m not willing to try another one out for something that really isn’t going to intrigue me in anyway. That said, if you are just looking for a way to deliver the famous chocolate and peanut butter flavor combination to your mouth and you are particularly in love with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (I like them, but don’t LOVE them), then you will probably fall in love with this container of ice cr…err…frozen dairy dessert.
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Review: Breyers Blasts! Mrs. Fields Chocolate Fudge Brownie Frozen Dairy Dessert
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Dubba at On Second Scoop was more bored than anything with this flavor in his review. He didn’t find anything wrong with it, but I don’t think enjoyed the simplicity and the actually delivery of promises as much as I did. Still, a great review though, as usual.
Review: Breyers S’mores Frozen Dairy Dessert
This review is humorous to be for a couple reasons. Prior to starting this blog, I was okay with ice cream/frozen dairy dessert, but didn’t particularly love it. It was the same way with s’mores…I liked them, but didn’t particularly love them. After reviewing tons of products involving one or both of these things, I now LOVE them both, so when I saw another Breyers product with this Breyers S’mores Frozen Dairy Dessert on sale at Kroger, I knew I had to grab it to give it a try for a review (plus the “New” tagline roped me in too). The 1.5 quart container was on sale for $2.99 and each serving is 170 calories per serving. There’s about fourteen servings per container.
By now, we all now that s’mores are made up of graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows, so it’s no surprise that Breyers put all three of these components into the container. The marshmallow part of a s’more was made signified by the frozen dairy dessert portion of this container, the chocolate was represented by small little bits of chocolate spread amply throughout and the graham cracker portion was represented by a swirl of graham cracker that was spread starting from the middle of the container and looking all around. This graham cracker swirl was almost caramel-like, but it did have some grainy bits to signify the cracker. The frozen dairy dessert did smell like marshmallows and the entire container itself permeated of graham cracker smell, so in terms of presentation, it did a good job of representing its namesake.
Dipping my spoon into the container (yes, I’m a slob and I eat these straight from the container), I was expecting something that was similar to the smell in that it would taste exactly like a s’more. Unfortunately, that was not the case. It resembled a s’more somewhat, but did not exactly taste like a s’more. For some reason, that disappointed me greatly and I’m not sure why. That said, the frozen dairy dessert did do a pretty solid job of nailing the taste of marshmallow, although it is exceptionally sweet and that can wear on you after a while. The graham cracker swirl had a hint of graham cracker taste and its graininess made it somewhat graham cracker-like, but it really wasn’t close to the real thing. Still, it did have a nice taste and I liked it quite a bit). The chocolate bits were pretty much what you’d expect in terms of taste and they added crunch, but didn’t do much else. All in all, this was close, but no cigar when it came to representing its namesake.
Buy It or Fly By It? This wasn’t a bad treat, but it just wasn’t memorable. It ended up being pretty boring when it was all said and done, so I give it a FLY BY IT rating. Had the proportions been a little different (more chocolate and more of the delightful graham cracker swirl), I may have a different opinion on this, but based on the construction of the container that I got, I was just bored. If they overloaded this in a different way with a different container or changed the recipe mix altogether, I may be inclined to give it a different rating.
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Review: Breyers Blasts! Waffle Cone with Chocolatey Chips Frozen Dairy Dessert
Therapists say that the first step to fixing a problem is first admitting that you have a problem. So, here I go: I eat too much ice cream (or ice cream related products). Of course, the second step to fix a problem is actually wanting to fix the problem and in the case of frozen desserts, I’m not sure I ever want to stop eating them. So, in that quest to never solve that problem, another sale at my local Kroger led me to try out another Breyers Blasts! 1.5 quarter container with this Breyers Blasts! Waffle Cone with Chocolatey Chips Frozen Dairy Dessert for $2.50. I’ve seen a couple of reviews of this on the internet at On Second Scoop and Junk Food Guy that have made me want to eat my hand, so I’m surprised it took me this long to pick it up. Oh by the way, the container has about twelve half-cup sized servings and each serving is 140 calories.
As you can perhaps read on the container, this container is made up of “Fudge Covered Waffle Cone Pieces with a Caramel Swirl and Chocolate Chips and Vanilla Flavored Frozen Dairy Dessert.” Whew, that’s a long description to digest and frankly, it’s fitting because there was A LOT of all of that going on in this container. The whole point of the Blasts! line is that they overfill the container with add-ins and that was certainly the case with this container. There were waffle cone pieces, caramel swirl and chocolate chips everywhere I looked and being that I prefer to chew my way through ice cream, I LOVED the fact that this was composed that way. One thing I will note though, although it doesn’t really matter, is that the chocolate chips were actually more like squares and not the traditional tear drop shaped morsels that we’ve been conditioned our entire life to look at. Anyway, with my mouth watering and my eyes bulging from the cornucopia of perceived joy in front of me, I was ready to dive in.
And dive in I did as I devoured spoonful after spoonful of this delicious treat. The waffle cone pieces and “chips” had a wonderful chocolate flavoring and crunch that was accented by the gooey caramel to make a delightfully sweet treat. The vanilla frozen dairy dessert was nothing special as it was slightly thin like frozen dairy dessert tends to be, but that really didn’t matter because this was all about the add-ins and if I haven’t said it already, I’ll say it again…they were wonderful. Everything about this between the crunch of the add-ins and the gooeyness of the caramel and the chill of the frozen dairy dessert was absolutely wonderful.
Buy It or Fly By It? Clearly this gets a BUY IT rating and is easily my favorite of all the Blasts! flavors I’ve had so far. There’s a chance this one might hold up over time as well because it is that darn good. It’s everything I love about frozen desserts, meaning that I can chew my way through it and since I’m a crunchy junkie, that’s all I ever ask and that’s exactly what Breyers delivers with this wonderful sweet treat. It’s just too bad it’s frozen dairy dessert and not typical ice cream, although if it was ice cream, it wouldn’t be such a calorie “freebie”, so to speak (of course, I mean “freebie” compared to actual ice cream).
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Crazy Food Dude 