Indulging in Indulgences

I was recently able to take some time off and escape to Florida for a few days. After a rough winter, a beach vacation with good friends, cocktails and delicious food was just what I needed.

While on vacation we received a special delivery of Breyers Gelato Indulgences. The package included all four of Breyer's new Gelato Indulgences flavors; Vanilla Caramel, Rasberry Cheesecake, Tiramisu and Triple Chocolate.

With six days of vacation I was able to spend qaulity time with each of these flavors. All of the Breyers Gelato Indulgences are rich and creamy but the texture is light as if it's whipped. Each flavor looks like it's hand crafted since there seems to be a personal touch to all of the flavors, like the chocolate shavings on top of the Triple Chocolate or the crumbled graham cracker on the Rasberry Cheesecake. The first thing I did was take a little spoonful of the Rasberry Cheesechake with a little graham cracker topping...The rasberry swirl had a delicious tartness that was perfectly balanced with the creamy cheescake flavored ice cream. The graham cracker topping has a nice texture. Whether it's an actual cheescake or this Gelato, I always want more graham cracker! The triple chocolate is rich but not too heavy. You can distinctly taste the difference between the dark chocolate and milk chocolate. The white chocolate swirl and chocolate shavings bring this flavor to a whole new level.

I was wary of the of the tirimisu because although the ingredients (delicate mascarpone gelato, decadent espresso sauce, ladyfinger cookie pieces and gourmet cocoa) sounded delicious I thought it was going to be too much. Luckily I was completely wrong. This tirimusu gelato let me feel like I was on vacation. Looking out over the ocean while having a bowl full of tirimisu gelato was heavenly. The tirimisu gelato felt as if each layer of the delicious tirimisu dessert was in every bite of this gelato. The Vanilla Caramel was also surprisingly not as rich as I thought it would be and perfectly creamy and flavorful.

I was incredibly lucky to be able to take this trip and to have the opportunity to try all of these new delicious flavors. Whether you're on the beach in florida or you need to put your feet up after a long week of work I would definitely suggest trying the new Breyers Gelato Indulgences.

Thank you to my special friends at Unilever for sending me this wonderful treat!

Breyer's Toppings

Wow! It's good to be back posting! Our new team member Patrick inspired us to get back to it and in the process we found this post written but erroneously never posted! Our apologies. Sometimes life gets in the way of ice cream! Well, at least in the way of writing about ice cream. We usually have room for ice cream!

We can't believe it has taken us this long to write about the adorable box of Breyer's Toppings we got in the mail, way back, in well, um...well, we am too embarrassed to admit how long it took to write this post.

To begin with, in general, I think sprinkles are okay. I don't love them. I have to have rainbow ones on a dish of vanilla carvel and chocolate ones on a black raspberry ice cream cone, but other than that, I don't opt for them. I think they are waxy and boring and leave a yucky coating on my mouth. Until now. Enter Breyer's sprinkles. Best I have ever had. In fact, so good they are dangerous. I sometimes find myself eating them by the spoonful, no ice cream required. Seriously good. They are sweet without being too sweet, and crunchy, not chewy. And the chocolate ones actually taste like, well, chocolate!

The only problem? I have never ever seen them on the shelves of a store. And I have looked at my Shaw's, Stop & Shop, Target, Sudbury Farms (local), and Price Chopper. Never. I just see those waxy, yucky ones. Their site says they are at all Walmarts, some Targets, and at grocery stores nationwide. Not mine. (Well, I don't have a Walmart near me, so that doesn't count.) For now I am hoarding my sprinkles.

I also LOVED the fruit toppings. I particularly liked the cherry, and look for all excuses to use it. The topping tastes fresher and less bottled than most other jarred fruit toppings I have tried.

Tina was lucky enough to get the same package and she raved about the caramel and chocolate toppings having great textures and not being too rich. And instead of fighting with some hard plastic bottle to eek thick fudge out of the toppings come in a squeezy tube which make them easy to pour plus super easy for kids too who love to douse their sundaes in toppings. A+ for clever packaging of not only product but the overall branding.

Try yours today!

Added bonus: the presentation from Breyers was also great -- what a fun treat (no pun intended) for designers and ice cream lovers to get in the mail. Thanks, Breyers!

May The Odds Be Ever In Your Flavor

I recently traveled up to Vermont to spend some time with the Ben & Jerry’s team. There are many things that I would like to share with Scoopalicious readers about my Ben & Jerry’s trip but a personal high of my ice-cream expedition was being able to compete with and against fellow food bloggers to create a new Ben & Jerry’s flavor. We were broken up in to teams of three and four in order to start our brainstorming. My group consisted of New Yorkers so we decided to create a New York centric ice-cream. Originally we wanted to have a donut flavor ice-cream with dark chocolate covered matzo but we didn’t realize that we would be given a list of options based on their immense inventory (How could they not have chocolate covered matzo?!).

Once we entered the test kitchen and met flavor Gurus Jon and Peter we went to work on creating our flavors. There was a true sense of competition as we were informed that the winning team would be able to have individual ice-cream socials at their Ben & Jerry’s of choice where their ice-cream would be served! Our team decided that coffee was a driving force for the New York crowd. There was an option to add liqueur so why not make it a coffee liqueur flavored ice cream! Our Ben & Jerry’s Flavor Guru, John, was scientific with testing the potency and flavor of the coffee liqueur in the ice cream. The stakes were high so we had to take sips of liquored up cream to determine how strong of a flavor we wanted. Once flavor content was determined we started making the ice cream in a large machine while we started to play with the ingredients. It was decided that our flavor would be called Cuppa Cawfee (you have to say it with a thick New York accent)

Since there wasn’t any matzo, Jon had us try dark chocolate chunks and espresso dark chocolate chunks. The team decided that the espresso chunks might be too intense since the ice cream itself had a coffee flavor, so we decided on dark chocolate. Next up was a chocolate covered almond crunch which we thought would add a unique flavor and texture. Last up was a chocolate fudge swirl to top things off.

Once the ice cream was finished being made in the machine our team was able to fold the ingredients in to the ice cream and fill pints to be frozen for the competition to be held later that day. Next up we had the opportunity to meet with the marketing department and create a poster with the graphic designers. Kathy from Ben and Jerry’s was incredibly sweet and a good sport considering how intent we were on winning the competition. We spent a lot of time trying to create a New York City backdrop with Woody (Woody is the iconic cow used for a lot of Ben and Jerry’s advertising). We decided on a scene where Woody was holding a coffee cup of ice cream while standing in front of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The competition was ready to commence. There was some fierce competitors with such flavors as 40 Weeks that had everything but the kitchen sink to entice pregnancy cravings and The Polar Cortex which played on the idea of our intense winter weather as an ice-cream by adding various crunchy flavors to represent, snow, ice and sleet. Our Flavor Gurus Jon and Peter and one other co-worker had the task of trying all of our flavors to determine who the winner would be. Their deliberation was stressful but we were able to taste all of the other team’s flavors while we waited. The Gurus returned and other teams were eliminated until it was our team and the Polar Cortex team left. It was announced that both teams were the winners and that each out us would be getting our flavors created by Ben & Jerry’s and served at our Ben & Jerry’s ice cream socials!

I will let all of you know when and at which Ben & Jerry’s my ice-cream social will be so you can try our new flavor creation.

Scoopalicious is Growing! Welcome, Patrick!

A few months ago, you may have read a great post by our guest blogger Patrick. A while back, when we realized we were letting a bunch of great events in New York pass us by (um, like meeting Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey, for instance), we realized we didn't want these experiences to go to waste. I thought of the people I knew in New York City, and I immediately thought of the enthusiasm and passion of my friend Patrick. Patrick and I have known each other since grade school, and there are few people that I know that seem to love and live life as fully as Patrick. I talked to Tina and we thought it would be a great idea to have him as our Guest Blogger/New York Correspondent. His first (and highly successful) mission? To an event to meet Nutty the Water Skiing Squirrel!)

Fast forward to February, and it looks like we have made the right choice. Patrick has made such an impression on the Ben & Jerry's PR people that he gets invited to Burlington to be a VIP with a bunch of other food bloggers -- just as I did a couple of years back. He's thrilled, replies "yes," packs his bags to spend a few days up north (and props to him for going from cold to colder in this never-ending winter!).

Patrick comes back from his trip with such excitement, and as I look at the blog that Tina and I love dearly, but have so little time to give as much attention to as we'd like, and we realize, we need this energy back -- hopefully to inspire us as well. We officially ask him to be a member of the Scoopalicious team, and he says yes!

We are so excited to welcome Patrick to the Scoopalicious team and look forward welcoming ice cream season with him. Er, um, who are we kidding?! It's always ice cream season.

P.S. You might see this photo popping up more again on this blog, but it's just so Patrick I couldn't resist using it as his introductory photo!