Boston's Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl is 1 week away...yippee

The event of all ice cream events is only 1 week away. Boston will hold its annual Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl, the all-you-can-eat ice cream (yogurt, gelato and sorbet too!) extravaganza on Boston's City Hall Plaza. Seriously we start planning for this months in advance and gather up all friends to join us for an ice cream lunch. I am totally bummed this year because I am traveling 2 of the 3 days the event is being held so I guess I'll just have to make my one day worthwhile. 

Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl 2011

Tuesday, June 7-9, 2011

Noon - 8pm

Boston City Hall Plaza

Here are all the awesome flavors. So excited to see my favorite Key Lime Graham gelato from Ciao Bella once again and am excited to try Ben & Jerry's Americone Dream. Oh and I just tried Baskin Robbins S'More the Merrier...OMG..love it and will definitely plan on getting a couple scoops of that one. Check out all the flavors to expect and like usual I am sure there will be more.

Baskin-Robbins®

• Lucky Mint
• Firehouse #31
• S'More the Merrier
• Oreo®Gold Rush

Ben & Jerry's®

• Late Night Snack
• Americone Dream
• Milk and Cookies
• Bonnaroo Buzz^TM
• 
  
• Ciao Bella Gelato®
• Chocolate S'mores
• Mango Sorbet
• Wild Blueberry Sorbet
• Key Lime Graham Gelato

Edy's®

• The Original Rocky Road
• Cookies and Cream
• Orange Sherbert
• Espresso Chip

Friendly's

• Hunka Chunka
• Vienna Mocha
• Mocha Chocolate Chip
• Rocky Road

HP Hood/Brigham's®

• Hood BoSox Brownie
• Hood Frozen Tangy Yogurt Rasberry Vanilla
• Brigham's Oreo
• Brigham's Mocha Chip

SoCo Creamery

• Dirty Chocolate
• Vanilla
• Espresso Cookie
• Berkshire Berry
• Mexicali Chocolate

Scooper Bowl 2010...oh how we already miss you!

From the desk of Bethany: 

I think it would be kind of cool for both Tina and I to wrote a little about the Scooper Bowl and since I am on the couch relaxing and catching up from the Annual Ice Cream Party (more to follow) I thought I would take a bit of time to write my post.


For me, the Scooper Bowl always kind of kicks off the summer for me, even though the weather this year was kind of dreary and overcast and chilly to say the least...


This was a pretty cool Scooper Bowl though. A month or so ago we got an email from Russell over at Ice Cream Geek (your super awesome source for the science behind the ice cream making...) saying he'd be in Boston (from Dallas) for the Scooper Bowl this year. I have to admit, T and I were both slackers about replying and then when we did reply, we suggested we meet at the end or even after because the usual Scooper Bowl craziness seemed a little tough for meeting a new ice cream friend. But it turned out the Scooper Bowl was a little emptier thanks to the dreary weather and we ended up meeting Russell and his lovely wife Kathey in the confines of the Bowl's fences. (That's me, Tina, and Russell above.) What fun people! We had a nice time talking ice cream (favorite flavors of the day, the science behind ice cream -- the kind of stuff people with an ice cream obsession might talk about...) Tina had to get back to work but I had some time before my next meeting downtown. I joined Russell and Kathey for lunch at Wagamama (a favorite of theirs from their days in Sydney -- and, we come to find out, all three of the United States locations are in Boston so they just had to go!) Anyway, conversation continued to follow with talk of ice cream (well, duh) and some recommendations of Boston tourism. We really had a great time and hope to see them at next year's event!

From the desk of Tina: 

I agree with Bethany that Scooper Bowl is such a kick off to the summer and an event that really gets us excited to launch into our busy blogging season. It gets us chatting about all the different brands and flavors and how we might be able to do it better (no all the time of course but we try!). So since I work right around the corner in the city we usually do an ice cream lunch and I have one precious hour to hit up all the flavors or as many as I can handle. It's not as easy as you think to have 30 scoops in one hour. Really have to be selective. And this year it was even more exciting as Bethany mentioned we hooked up with another ice cream blogger whose wife labels him "The Alton Brown of Ice Cream"...seriously he truly knows the science of ice cream...so cool chatting with another person so into the art. So B and I did our rounds then went for seconds with Russell and Kathey before I had to unfortunately go back to my desk and try not to fall into an ice cream coma (very difficult by the way). 

As you can see below we had some favorites. Each year we see many of the same flavors but I am always excited for what's new. My favorite from the "what's new" category was Ben & Jerry's Bonnaroo Buzz. LOVE the coffee and malt ice cream and then the whiskey caramel swirl was as they say in Boston Wicked good! Others worth noting from me....Brighams' Peppermint Stick, Ciao Bella's Key Lime Graham Gelato, Haagen-Dazs Caramel Cone, and Gifford's Chocolate Lover's Chocolate.

All in all this event never disappoints even if the weather didn't work on our behalf (actually the rain helped us...so much less elbowing for scoops) and I want to thank Dana for supplying us with tickets to raffle off to our lucky winner Laurie (we'd love to hear all about your visit Laurie!). I can't believe I have to wait another year for this but it really got me excited for what's ahead during these next couple hot months.

Of course, a Scooper Bowl post wouldn't be complete without some flavor reviews, so we've posted below all the flavors and our comments...


The list below is copied from the Scooper Bowl site, and is the ranking from their "Text Your Favorite" -- our comments are next to it each (if we tried it). Bethany in orange, Tina in pink...

Ben & Jerry's® Boston Cream Pie	10.40% I had actually already tried this one the day before, but I LOVE it. I LOVE the custard (pudding?) swirls...Definitely a favorite of the day.
Ciao Bella Gelato® Key Lime Graham Gelato	9.30% Yum. Tina's recipe might be better though! Discovered this in NYC a couple years back and its always been at the top of my list...super creamy, refreshing and full of flavor.
Häagen-Dazs® Caramel Cone	9.30% I love anything with Caramel in it but this one is awesome..
Baskin-Robbins® Wild 'n Reckless Sherbet	7.00% Wow. I don't know about this one. Purple, blue and green and super sweet. Certainly not refreshing as many sherbets are. (pictured in top photo)
Ciao Bella Gelato® Mango Sorbet	7.00%
Baskin-Robbins® Superfudge Truffle	5.70% Um, yum if you love chocolate and lots of it. (pictured in top photo)
HP Hood® Fenway Fudge	5.70%
Ciao Bella Gelato® Blood Orange Sorbet	4.70% LOVED this. SO refreshing and wonderful. And wonderful color! Wasn't my favorite but tons of flavor and refreshing.
Breyer's® Cherry Vanilla	3.50% Breyers is local and I feel badly saying this, but I have never been the biggest fan of Breyers. That being said, I might have to change my mind, I LOVED this.
Brigham's® Cookie Dough	3.50% Pretty good. Nothing special.
Ben & Jerry's® Bonnaroo BuzzTM	2.30% I tasted Tina's. Probably would have liked it more if I liked alcohol and coffee flavoring. LOVED it! Probably my favorite new flavor I tried. I love coffee ice cream and malt flavor so that with the whiskey caramel swirl was awesome. B&J never disappoint.
Ben & Jerry's® Milk & Cookies	2.30%
Breyer's® M&M Vanilla	2.30%
Edy's® Birthday Cake	2.30% Always a favorite. I am a birthday cake ice cream nut! I love how Edy's swirls in frosting into their version. This is a fave of mine from Edy's.
Garelick Farms/Gifford's® Cherry Amaretto Chocolate	2.30% Oh, yum! It was just okay for me but I am not a huge cherry fan.
Garelick Farms/Gifford's® Chocolate Lover's Chocolate	2.30% Very rich. Now I know why this one got "the world's best chocolate ice cream" at the World Dairy Expo....rich and awesome.
Garelick Farms/Gifford's® Maine Lobster Tracks	2.30% This was good, but I got no lobsters in my entire scoop!
Häagen-Dazs® Bailey's® Irish Cream	2.30% Super smooth and flavorful. Could probably only eat a little due to the strong flavor but do like it.
Häagen-Dazs® Lemon Sorbet	2.30%
Baskin-Robbins® Premium Churned Light Mint Oreo®	1.20% Not fair I missed this one and Mint is my favorite.
Ben & Jerry's® Hannah Teter's Maple Blondie	1.20% So not a fan. This was either too maplely or too fake tasting. I am leaning towards the latter because I LOVE the maple ice cream I make that uses an entire cup of dark amber maple syrup per quart, tastes so yummy, and doesn't taste like this ice cream.
Ben & Jerry's® Phish Food®	1.20% Probably my favorite B&J flavor...the light version is just as good too.
Breyer's® Chocolate	1.20%
Breyer's® Strawberry	1.20%
Brigham's® Mocha Chip	1.20%
Brigham's® Peppermint Stick	1.20% (pictured in top photo)
Ciao Bella Gelato® Malted Milk Ball Gelato	1.20% Good, but again, Tina's might be yummier. She'll need to share her recipes! Good but I think I liked mine better with dark chocolate chunks in it and a little stronger malt flavor.
Edy's® Maxx Chocolate Cookies & Cream Collision	1.20%
Edy's® Maxx Chocolate Peanut Butter Chunk	1.20%
HP Hood® Rainbow Sherbet	1.20%

Only Two More Days of Boston's Scooper Bowl! Starts Today in an HOUR!

Not much else to say about that besides "go, go, go!"

As a reminder:

Government Center, Boston (Green or Blue Line to Government Center Stop)

Wednesday and Thursday from 12-8pm



Flavors (directly from the Scooperbowl site...)

	Baskin-Robbins® Pink Bubblegum Premium Churned Light Mint Oreo® Superfudge Truffle Wild 'n Reckless Sherbet
	Ben & Jerry's®Boston Cream Pie Bonnaroo BuzzTM Hannah Teter's Maple Blondie Milk & Cookies Phish Food®
	Breyer's®Cherry Vanilla Chocolate M&M Vanilla Strawberry
	Ciao Bella Gelato® Blood Orange Sorbet Key Lime Graham Gelato Malted Milk Ball Gelato Mango Sorbet
	Brigham's® Cookie Dough Mocha Chip Peppermint Stick Vanilla
	Edy's®Birthday Cake Edy's Maxx Chocolate Cookies & Cream Collision Edy's Maxx Chocolate Peanut Butter Chunk Orange Sherbet
	Garelick Farms/Gifford's®Cherry Amaretto Chocolate Chocolate Lover's Chocolate Maine Lobster Tracks Old Fashioned Vanilla
	Häagen-Dazs® Bailey's® Irish Cream Caramel Cone Mint Chip Strawberry Sorbet
	HP Hood® Blueberry Frozen Tangy Yogurt Chocolate Chip Fenway Fudge Rainbow Sherbet

More information can be found at the Scooperbowl/Jimmy Fund Website.

We'd love to hear your reviews, etc!

And the winner is....

Lucky "Laurie" is the proud winner of the pair of Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl 2010 tickets. Have fun Laurie and its the one time we can't say "don't eat too much" because we hope your pile of cups is as tall as this little ones!

Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl 2010

June 8-10

noon-8pm

Boston City Hall Plaza

Last chance to win tickets to Boston's Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl 2010

Yippee...only 7 more days til I eat about 20 cups of ice cream in less than one hour. Man does that sounds indulgent or what! And only one more day until you can enter to win a pair of tickets to The Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl 2010, the all-you-can-eat ice cream event at Boston City Hall Plaza on June 8-10 from noon until 8pm everyday.

Post a comment by the end of the day Tuesday, June 1 for a chance to win a pair of tickets to this super fun event!

The Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl 2010 - Your chance for FREE tickets

Oh the day we wait for all year long is quickly coming and we couldn't be more excited! Its Scooper Bowl 2010, the all-you-can-eat ice cream extravaganza on Boston City Hall Plaza that supports cancer care and research for adults and children at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Wow, its been 27 years since the Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl has been gorging people of all ages with ice cream and in return has raised more than $2.65 million for cancer research. Simply amazing and just awesome!

This year it means even more to me for more than one reason. Not only am I a huge ice cream fan who attends this event faithfully but cancer runs way too close to me as well. Recently a close family member was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and she is fighting every step of the way. Not only is her husband a cancer survivor (he is the 5% with his rare form of cancer that has made it almost 10 years!) but she also has an even more rare form and is fighting the battle in the most positive way. SO if it takes eating a little (more like a whole lot!) of ice cream to help make a difference I am there!

And we want you to be too because its super fun, super yummy and all for a great cause. If you are interested in trying bottomless cups of more than 30 flavors of ice cream on one given day and taking part in this super fun event just post a comment and we'll be raffling off a pair of tickets (compliments of The Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl..thanks Dana!). Comment by the end of the day Tuesday, June 1st to qualify.

Comment and win a pair of FREE tickets!

Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl^®

^{presented by FedEx}

^{Tuesday, June 8 – Thursday, June 10, 2010}

^{Noon – 8 p.m. every day}

City Hall Plaza, Boston

http://www.jimmyfund.org/eve/event/scooper-bowl/default.html

Scoopalicious and Friends Visit Boston's 27th Annual Scooper Bowl

Today is the last day of the Scooper Bowl for the year. It seems like it was only yesterday we were anticipating the month of June in excitement for one of our favorite events of the year, and now, like another birthday, it has quickly come and gone.

Scoopalicious made it over to the event yesterday. Though the weather was downcast (but not raining) the crowds were unbelievable. I thought that the impending weather might keep people away and make it a more accessible day for us to "report" back, but Tina thought maybe because the weather in Beantown was downright awful, that yesterday's crowd came today.

Either way, we had a good time, and enjoyed the company of each other as well as our friends Alouette and Steve (a.k.a. Spaghetti) and ate ice cream until we were sick!

Here are the flavors we got to choose from...

Baskin-Robbins® (This was the second stop so we actually tried them all!)

• Cotton Candy. Yum, Tina and I both liked this one. What are we? Thirteen?
  
• Rock 'n Pop Swirl. Pop Rocks in ice cream, I guess. I thought they were Nerds because they didn't pop, and the ice cream tasted grape. First grape ice cream I ever had. Not a huge fan.
  
• York® Peppermint Pattie. Tina and Alouette loved this one. Me? Too minty. I am not a fan of anything too minty.
  
• Premium Churned Light Raspberry Chip. Very good. Love the chocolate and raspbetty combo, but particularly liked the swirls of raspberry sauce throughout.
  

Ben & Jerry's®

• Orange & Cream. I don't remember this being an option.
  
• Oatmeal Cookie Chunk. Yum. Tina, Alouette and I were all big fans. Tina liked the fact that the chunks were chocolate, not raisins.
  
• Chocolate Macadamia. Did not try.
  
• Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road. I really liked this. Tina wasn't as impressed. Our big question of the day? What is brickle? Answer: Practicallyedible.com describes butter brickle as: "It's small, shattered, crunchy pieces of golden-brown coloured, buttery-tasting hard toffee, which are also sometimes sold as "toffee bits." Ben & Jerry's site says Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road is "Chocolate Ice Cream, Peanut Butter Cookie Dough, Brickle Candy Pieces, & White Chocolatey Chunks." I tasted the chocolate and what I thought was brickle, but did not taste the white chocolate or peanut butter chunks. Tina tasted the peanut butter cookie chunks, but took them to be peanut butter cups.
  

Breyers® (Did not try any of them. By the time we got there we were too full! Sorry, Breyers!)

• Vanilla
• Coffee
• Cherry Vanilla
• Cookies & Cream

Brigham's® Ice Cream

• Vanilla
• Chocolate
• Confetti & Cream. Brigham's Cake Batter. Very good. Why do so many cake batter ice creams have blue icing swirled in? Tina says it is to appeal to the kids. She's probably right.
  
• Black Raspberry Frozen Yogurt

Edy's®

• Coffee
• Take the Cake. I love all cake batter ice cream. This one fit the bill!
  
• Mint Chocolate Chip
• Low Fat Caramel Praline Crunch Frozen Yogurt

Garelick Farms/Gifford’s®

• Chocolate
• Old Fashioned Vanilla
• Mint Chocolate Chip Yogurt
• Maine Lobster Tracks. I wasn't thrilled with this, but Steve loved it.
  

Häagen-Dazs®

• Zesty Lemon Sorbet
• Chocolate
• Bailey's® Irish Cream. I don't like liquor flavored anything. This, however, was amazing. Wow.
  
• Vanilla Honey Bee. We had vanilla. Was it Vanilla Honey Bee? Either way, it was wonderful. Man, Haagen Dazs is the creamiest ice cream there is. Hands down. Um, could Haagen Dazs be any more of a pain to spell correctly though?!
  

HP Hood®

• New England Lighthouse Coffee
• Cookie Dough Delight. I did not try this one. Tina did. She thought it was good, but again, there were so many and it wasn't among her favorites.
  
• Fenway Fudge. Another one of our favorites of the day!
  
• Maine Blueberry & Sweet Cream Frozen Yogurt. I love blueberry ice cream. I don't know how I missed it. But I think I may have had this before and it was yummy when I did!
  

Spasso

• Amaretto gelato
• Dulce de Leche gelato
• Chocolate gelato
• Chocolate Chip gelato
• Crema Café gelato
• Lemon sorbet
• Coconut sorbet
• Mango gelato. Alouette said this tasted "flowery." I had a taste and could see why she would say that.
  
• Raspberry gelato. This was good, but not particularly anything I would write home about. Ok, really, I don't actually write home much about ice cream -- if they want to know, they read my blog -- ok, I guess I wouldn't blog home about it either.
  
• Zabaglione gelato

I hope I didn't miss anything, but between the sugar high and all...I can't say that I remembered everything. I think of the Scooper Bowl as kind of the pub crawl of ice cream -- you know you enjoyed it, but can't exactly remember why.

One thing I just wanted to mention, just in case you forgot, was that the Scooper Bowl is $8 for all you can eat. It's a pretty good deal. But if you need more convincing, consider it your good deed for the day. All proceeds go to the Jimmy Fund. Want to learn more about the Jimmy Fund and it's history? Mass Moments by Massachusetts Council for Humanities has a nice summary here. And for all of you Massachussettsians, Mass Moments is a great daily email that sends some little known facts about, um, Massachusetts. Kind of fun!

In closing, here are some pictures...

But hey, stop reading and looking at our pictures and get to the Scooper Bowl -- last day is today, Thursday, June 11, from 12-8pm.

An overview of the fun. Funny, aside from the little girl in the bottom of the frame, it looks like all adults. This is not the case. In fact, schools take field trips to the Scooper Bowl. As much as I like ice cream, I can't quite find the educational value in that.

Volunteers. Next year, we want to!

A Baskin Robbins ice cream cone. There was also a large pint of ice cream walking around too, but I am not sure what brand it was. Does it matter? It's not everyday you see a giant pint of ice cream shaking hands and waving...

Haagen Dazs was on top of things. At some counters you had to wait while they put out the popular ones, and the lines were out of control and there was a lot of grabbing. You had to be fast. Not HD (I am just going to abbreviate, I have decided...). They were there. They were ready. They were prepped. And no lines.

And one (or twenty? I couldn't quite count how many cups she has) for the road...

Scooper Bowl Boston June 9-11 - All U Can Eat Ice Cream

Seriously, if you work (or live) anywhere near City Hall Plaza in Boston than this weeks water cooler chatter is not about the weather, its about whether or not you are heading over to The 27th Annual Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl for an ice cream lunch or not. Me..I'll most likely be there more than one day and since I am feeding for two these days there is absolutely no guilt!

The nation's largest all-you-can-eat ice cream festival starts tomorrow and ends Thursday. It goes from noon-8pm daily and will offer a few flavors from each of nine different premium brands. So that is about 9 brands times three flavors(some actualy offer more) equalling approx. 27 scoops...and there is always seconds. Thank god for maternity pants that give!

Truly this is a fun event and one of the most anticipated in the summer here in Boston. Its all about how many cups you can proudly stack, little ones covered in creamy sweetness, and just pure ice cream madness all for a good cause, The Jimmy Fund.

Individual tickets can be purchased at the entrance...
$8 for adults (Ages 10 and up)
$4 for kids (ages 3-9)
Free for kids under 3
$15 Scooper Passes available allowing you to attend up to three times are available online

Scoopalicious Scopes Out Scooper Bowl 26

The Scoopalicious Team: Tina and Bethany at Scooper Bowl 26
(That's Hochy in the background! Hi Hochy!)

So the Scoopalicious crew and two of our favorite assistants (thanks Al and Steve!) went to the Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl in Government Center, Boston today! This event has been a Boston staple for many years...in fact, the Scooperbowl is in its 26th year and its the nation's largest all-you-can-eat ice cream festival. Temps hit 95°, almost breaking the June 10th record of 96° set in 1959. Record breaker or not, it was a scorcher. (I felt pretty badly for my Haagan Dazs Honey bee friend at left here...)

We spent about an hour at the event, testing at least one flavor from almost each of the stands...

We aren't of the group who thinks we should stack our cups, but there are quite a few people who DO enjoy this...(These are actually mellow to those stacks I have seen in the past...)


We'll go into more detail in a future post, but here is one favorite from each of us...

B: "I loved the cake batter at Edy's. I am a big big fan of cake batter. Started with cake batter and ended with cake batter."

T: My vote goes to Coldstone Creamery's For Coffee Lover's Only... Supersmooth coffee ice cream, roasted almonds, caramel, and Heath Bar BUT there are two more days of this event so this could easily change!

The best information is on the Scooperbowl is on their website.

This event is one not to miss -- and I have to admit, I am surprised Boston is the only one that serves up such an awesome event yearly. It's a great cause and a tasty event. I guess I am going to just thank my lucky sprinkles that I live in Boston.

We'll be back with more flavor reports soon, but for now, we'll leave you with two things.

One, we invite YOU to submit your scoop on the Bowl...favorite flavors? overall experience?

Two: a picture is worth a thousand words. Here are some good ones...(thanks T!)

26 loooong hours til Scooper Bowl - Boston

But who's counting! All you can eat ice cream for three days for just $8 and all for a good cause. Unheard of! I already have plans to be there every day at lunchtime. Helps when my office is two blocks away! This really is such a fun and anticipated event. It's so fun to see all the little ones with ice cream all over their face, the friends arguing about what flavor is best, or the businessmen taking an extra long lunch while probably never admitting where they were! What's also fun is that you get to try new flavors that may not even be available yet...oh and have as much as you want of it (again, best part!). I do have to admit there is a limit to how much ice cream should be consumed in one day but for this one day, forget about it!

Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl
City Hall Plaza, Boston
June 10 and 12, 2008: 11:30 a.m. - 7 p.m.
June 11, 2008: 11:30 a.m. - 8 p.m.

http://www.jimmyfund.org/eve/event/scooper-bowl/default.html

Work near City Hall Plaza? Then skip lunch and make it an ice cream lunch!
Playing hooky on a warm summer day? We won't tell but watch out, your coworkers may be there!
In Boston on vacation? Then you found a goldmine to fill your day!

...or with this year's extended hours you can scoop away til sundown.


Last year's favorite....Cinnamon Bun by Ben & Jerry's. Can't wait to see if anything tops that! Stay tuned....