Kroger has been running some absurd sales on Blue Bunny products recently and after staying away from them for the longest time because I felt their products were too expensive, I've been snatching these up at their discounted price left and right and have already done some reviews. That sale was still going on a recent trip to my Kroger recently, so I grabbed another one of the Duff Goldman creations in this 1.75 quart container of this Blue Bunny 24 karat Carrot Cake Ice Cream on sale for $2.49. Yes, it was $2.49 (it was part of a discount sale that added up to extra discounts) when it regularly goes for at least $5.49, so that's some monster savings. Anyway, each serving is 130 calories and since it is a bigger container than the typical ice cream container, it has fourteen half-cup servings. Carrot cake is something that I've come to later in life after hating it as a child. I love it now and because of that, I was anxious for this review.
One of the key components of any container of ice cream for me is the mix-ins and being that Blue Bunny describes this as "Carrot cake flavored ice cream swirled with cream cheese frosting flavored ice cream and carrot cake pieces", I was expecting at least a decent amount of carrot cake pieces. When I opened this up and dug in past the initial ice cream layer, I was not disappointed. While they weren't plentiful, there was an adequate amount of them and when I did encounter them, some of them were as big as dice. That made me giddy (I don't have a lot going on in my life, apparently), so being somewhat skeptical of this ice cream going in, my hopes were immediately raised. What also raised my hopes was the smell of the carrot cake ice cream itself. It smelled strongly of cinnamon, oatmeal and raisins like any carrot cake would and since that's the namesake of the ice cream itself, that's a good sign. What was also encouraging was the cream cheese flavored ice cream as well. It smelled sweet like the frosting on a typical carrot cake and being that Blue Bunny had successfully (at least in terms of visual and smell characteristics) re-created a carrot cake in frozen form, I was very anxious to jump in.
Once I dove in, the euphoria that I had based on the smell and appearance was muted a bit, but I don't mean that in a negative way. What I mean is that my expectations had gone through the roof and it would have been nearly impossible for anything to meet those expectations. What I got when I start diving into this ice cream was something that had a very good taste. The carrot cake ice cream had wonderful taste and conveyed all the flavors that I found in the smell (cinnamon, oatmeal and raisin). It was not a spicy cinnamon, so to speak, but it definitely was a noticeable cinnamon taste. The cream cheese ice cream had that sweet frosting taste and while it was not too sweet and painful to your teeth like frostings can sometime be, it definitely was a more than solid re-creation of the cake topper itself. While the two different flavors of ice cream themselves would have made this a solid flavor on its own, what made it really fun was the presence of the carrot cake piece mix-ins. There was nothing overly special about them in terms of flavor as they tasted like a typical carrot cake, but the fact that they were so large and chewy made this ice cream really fun to go through.
Buy It or Fly By It? In my first review of Duff's products, I was summarily unimpressed. In this instance though, I was quite impressed with Duff's effort and I give this a BUY IT rating. I'm not sure I'd pay full price for this since I'm such a bargain shopper, but if bargain shopping is of no concern to you, then this would be a good and flavorful container of ice cream to pick up, especially if you adore carrot cake. It's not as wonderful as the real thing, but it is a reasonable and fun approximation.
BUY IT!! |
When I tried this one the only thing that kept running through my mind was how similar to dunkaroos it tasted like. My taste buds might be crazy but that's all it reminded me of in a good way.
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