Think Cold Thoughts With Fro-Zing!

Weather Underground says is is 101.4° in Waltham right now, and it is all I can do to not have another ice crean cone today. Yes, I already had one at 11:40 today at J.P. Licks in Newton Center as I was heading back from an errand -- 8+ months pregnant and 100+° weather -- I thought it warranted a cone. OK, OK...I'm not going to lie. I don't even need either of those excuses, but it did feel extra validated today!

I guess next best thing would be to at least write a long overdue ice cream review...well, a tart frozen yogurt review...it will give me an excuse to put a couple more spoonfuls of a frozen treat into my mouth and perhaps make me think frozen thoughts! Hurrah!

Back in March (I know, it's been a while, but quite honestly, what could be better than a post about frozen ANYTHING on a 100+° day in July!), Kemps sent both Tina and I two cartons of their latest Fro-Zing! and I have to say, I was quite surprised. I am not usually a fan of tart frozen yogurt, but these new flavors have got me double thinking the whole thing!

The blueberry was quite good. The flavor reminded me of the days as kids when we used to put refrigerated yogurt in the freezer and take it out on a hot day, eagerly scraping away at the block of solid yogurt. The bonus was the air that was whipped in -- the effort of scraping away was gone, and I could enjoy the tangy blueberry taste without all the hard work. I found it to be quite refreshing on this summer day.

The raspberry vanilla was my favorite though. The first thing your senses are struck by is the swirl of pink and white frozen goodness as you open the package. The pink is so bright and inviting that that alone cools you off. However, one bite of this frozen yogurt is what really got me. Yes, I was getting live and active cultures which are supposedly good for me, but there was something more to it. It reminded me of a summertime favorite from growing up in Connecticut where my dad grew rows of raspberries, with Mom and Dad collecting quarts of the fresh red berrries at the peak of the season, cleaning them and lightly sugaring them to draw out the juices and finally, adding them to a cup of vanilla yogurt. To this day, it's still a summertime treat I savor when I go home, the only thing better is the raspberry fresh off the plant, still warm from the noonday sun. But I digress. The flavor of this yogurt was just that: the vanilla yogurt mixed with the sweetened berries -- the tart so welcoming because of the nature of the fruit. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the refreshing subtle sweetness of the raspberry vanilla and find it almost to be a comfort food when I can't be home visiting Mom and Dad.

My only complaint with these frozen yogurts is they are "drier" than ice cream. Dry might not be the right word, but as ice cream melts to the spoon and curls right out to the shape of the spoon, I find tart frozen yogurt (all of them, not just Kemp's) to kind of break up more and have a less smooth texture, probably due to the absence of as much fat as ice cream has. Late breaking news (10 or so minutes after this post was finished): if you let the frozen yogurt sit out for a bit, you get a still cold and refreshing, but super light and airy almost perfect texture. So basically, my only complaint came out of my impatience.

Though I forsee the raspberry vanilla being my favorite of the Fro-Zings!, looking through their Fro-Zing! flavors, the next on my list to try is the cherry vanilla. Can't wait!

[Scoopalicious is celebrating National Ice Cream month with a Post-A-Day throughout the month of July!]