Review: Blue Bell Moo-llenium Crunch Ice Cream

Blue Bell got off to a slow start on this blog and even when I did start doing reviews of their products, I stuck only to pint-sized containers, which kind of limited my flavor options since Blue Bell does not do many pints (at least in my local stores).  Seeing a sale at my local Meijer, I finally decided to step outside the pint-sized container realm and embark upon my first review of one of their half-gallon size flavors with this review of their Blue Bell Moo-llenium Crunch Ice Cream which was on sale for $4.23 at Meijer.  Very few companies still make half-gallon sized containers, so that's a point of pride for Blue Bell and it's about time I joined the party with a review of one.  Each half-gallon is sixteen half-cup servings and each serving is 170 calories (according to the container; the website says 190).

I'm not sure where the "Moo-llenium" part of the product name comes into this other than the fact that ice cream is made of milk and milk comes from cows, but I can definitely tell where the crunch part comes in as this one has a whole lot of ingredients that project a whole lot of crunch.  Blue Bell's product description states "Classic vanilla ice cream with a combination of dark chocolate chunks, creamy caramel chunks, roasted pecan halves, chopped almonds and walnut pieces" and as you can see above, there are a ton of all those things in there, as you can see in the picture above.  To somewhat steal a product name from a competitor, Blue Bell might as well have called this something like Kitchen Sink because outside of that competitor's product, I don't think I've ever seen so many different things in a container of mass-produced ice cream in my life.  I can't really address the add-ins better than the picture can, but what I can address is the classic vanilla ice cream by saying that it carried a strong and very appealing smell of vanilla.

That smell of vanilla was a harbinger of things to come as the ice cream definitely tasted of strong vanilla with a slight hint of brown sugar and I can very easily say that it was flat-out delicious and one of the better tasting vanillas that I've ever had.  Outside of the vanilla flavor, the rest of this is just about crunch and since crunch isn't a flavor, but instead a texture, there's not a lot to say about it.  That said, there's so many different kinds of add-ins, it's hard to address them individually, nor do I think Blue Bell wants you to since they've put so many of them into the container.  What I can say is that they all added a wonderful textural difference to the vanilla ice cream and you could tell the occasions that you came upon a dark chocolate or caramel chunk because each of those had a melt-in-your mouth quality to them.  The nuts were mostly indistinguishable on their own (there was a slight edge to the walnuts), but their collective crunch was very enjoyable and very appreciated.

Buy It or Fly By It?  This ice cream is a crunch-lovers dream and being that I am a card carrying member of the crunch-lovers club (which doesn't actually exist, but if it did, I would join it), this one is right up my alley and gets a very strong BUY IT rating.  The fact that the crunch is paired with one of the most delicious tasting vanilla ice creams that I've ever head only adds to its appeal and I can honestly say for a basic recipe of vanilla and a bunch of add-ins, this is one of my most preferred ice cream creations that I've reviewed on this blog.  If you love vanilla and/or add-ins, pick this up and you will be more than happy.

BUY IT!!