If you’re a coffee lover: Haagen-Dazs coffee is different than other brands. It has a deeper, darker flavor that works really well with how dense and deep the creaminess/density is. If you’re not a coffee fan, it’s not going to do it for you. But I concur with you that their vanilla is my personal favorite. It has the most vanilla, cream, and egg yolk flavors packed into it of any ice cream I’ve yet found, with the lowest overrun. And their strawberry is superb, although like you, I prefer my strawberries on the side, as they have much more flavor when they’re not frozen. Likewise, I’m not a big lover of chocolate in ice cream, even though I love chocolate. I just prefer it at room temperature or warmer. It loses much of its flavor when frozen. Sigh. What a week to be on a diet…
Is coffee supposed to be a weird flavor for ice cream?
Damnit, I wish I had a couple of freezer spoonfuls to savor…
The single greatest ice cream flavor, bar none, is plain banana ice cream. It’s sublime when done well.
Sadly, this tends to be nigh on impossible to source. Many home-made recipes are spoiled because they insist on being some healthy alternative ice cream that omits the usual custard ingredients. They aren’t good. It’s also hard to get an intense enough banana flavor at home for some reason, it usually ends up tasting like vanilla ice cream with the suggestion of banana.
Occasionally, you’ll find a mass market brand that makes a decent banana ice cream, but they ruin it by mixing in all sorts of stupid adjuncts like marshmallow, cinnamon, nuts of all stripes, fudge and soggy bits of cookie. I’m looking at you Chunky Monkey. A local mom and pop stand near me makes one that is banana pudding flavored, it’s nice and all, but the best bites are those scant few that are nothing but the base ice cream.
Worst of all, you sometimes get an artificial banana flavored ice cream which is best avoided. Even though I like banana Now & Laters and banana Runts, this flavor profile does not belong in ice cream.
My vote for “worst” ice cream isn’t a single flavor, but instead this damned trend where every ice cream is simply a vehicle for candy consumption. Cold Stone is one vector of the virus, Ben & Jerry’s the other. Your typical “premium” ice cream these days is nothing but a bunch of candy, nuts and salty snacks in a paper cup frozen together in an ice cream mortar. The shit to ice cream ratio is like 3:1.
you can blame the frozen yogurt craze of the 80s and 90s for that … it was a way for people to get over the sourness of yogurt
My Wife loves it. So do I. It’s been around for ever. Oddly, my Wife doesn’t like real coffee.
Inasmuch as " Croissants are Europe’s take on pastries"
Oh yeah - totally believe you. I said dry state to reflect the culture of the state - which is to stay away from intoxicants. Therefore the Gujju culture does not have traditional “recipes” for cannabis.
It wasn’t labeled as such, but it sure tasted like they left out something important.
My mom tells me that when she was young, she’d occasionally encounter teaberry ice cream, which was her favorite flavor. You can’t find it any more, and in fact I don’t think I’ve ever encountered teaberries anywhere, either alone or as an ingredient in anything. I’ve often wondered just what that flavor she liked so much was like. Google says that it’s minty.
My favorite is just plain old chocolate followed by mint chocolate chip.
I would never try anything outlandish because I know I would be disappointed especially if I was craving ice cream.
Probably like the teaberry gum:
If so, that would be a nice flavor for ice cream.
Wasn’t teaberry a little wintergreen like?
I’m very into Ben and Jerrys Cookies and Milk.
Teaberry was an excellent gum! As for ice cream I think Haagen-Dazs Rum and Raisin stands alone. I don’t think anyone else even makes it. And their various flavors with layers of hard chocolate are excellent also.
Baskin-Robbins also offered licorice ice cream at some point. That was my favorite when I was a kid.
I’ll have to look for that one. I just found their new-to-me choc. chip cookie dough (with the dough “core”) and it is quite nice.
I have fond memories of stoned me in college discovering B&J Phish Food. That stuff is over-the-top overkill … and stoned me in college probably consumed her body weight in it over the semesters. Phishing out (HA!!) the little chocolate fish was the best part. Or maybe it was unearthing a particularly fat puddle of marshmallow swirl and going to town.
For an “Americanized” take on kulfi that is nonetheless really good, I recommend Adirondack Creamery’s Kulfi Pistachio Cardamom ice cream.
A local-ish convenience-store chain called Stewart’s Shops seasonally has special-edition ice cream flavors. I don’t think they’ve ever brought back their cinnamon-vanilla blend called Sweet Cinn from a few years ago, but I sure wish they would.
I like most Haagen-Dazs flavors except their vanilla. The flavor is o.k., but as it softens it gets watery somehow and isn’t very creamy. For me, the best vanilla is creamy and has the taste of real cream. Haagen-Dazs does have my favorite strawberry ice cream.
But if we’re talking about the best taste ever, the best strawberry ice cream I’ve ever had was at the state fair in Ohio, and the best vanilla was a sample my brownie troop got as a sample after a tour of the Adohr Farms dairy.
I love cinnamon ice cream and it’s hard as hell to find here. I’ve had to resort to making my own.
The best ice cream flavor I’ve ever had was Blue Bell Ice Cream Cone flavor, which is basically all the ingredients of a drumstick but using Blue Bell’s far superior ice cream. Vanilla ice cream loaded with dark chocolate-coated cone pieces, chopped roasted peanuts, all surrounded by a rich chocolate sundae sauce swirl. Alas, it was temporary and has not returned in years.
It’s almost like we were talking about completely different products here. When I get to the end of a bowl of Haagen-Dazs vanilla and there’s just a bit of melted stuff left, to me that stuff is deeply rich and very creamy, like the essence of a rich vanilla milkshake.