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What is your favorite brand & flavor of ice cream?

I know I know, who wants to talk about ice cream in the dead of winter (in 49 states anyways :p)

I gotta say, right now mine is Starbucks Caramel Macchiato. :)

Hi Brandon:

I love that Chocolate with marshmallows inside. Not sure what it is called but it is so darn good ;) I also like chocolate with caramel chunks from an honest to goodness ice cream place where they sell those large waffle like sugar cones and pull the ice cream from the huge buckets in the freezer that you can see under the glass.

Funny that you mentioned this. It was in the mid 40’s here just north of Chicago yesterday and I had a vanilla bean ice cream bowl last night before heading off the slumber. I like my ice cream and this was the first of the year!

Wayne

The fresh made in my White Mountain Ice Cream maker.:D

My favorite type of ice cream is frozen custard, high butterfat content so its very smooth and creamy. The local custard stand has a flavor called 7 C's- chocolate custard, with chocolate chips, caramel, cashews, cookies, chocolate fudge nuts. Hmm...flavor of the day this thursday...

Unfortunately for me, any ice cream is good ice cream

One of my favorites is Blue Bell's "Homemade Vanilla". Plain and simple, but this one is done right.

Pecan Pralines - mmmm
Mint Chocolate Chip - mmmm

Oh, and Blue Bell still sells 1/2 gallon containers. None of this 3.25 pint nonsense. :p

I don't really have a favorite brand (whatever's on sale usually-I have to hypermile the grocery bill as well), I like chocolate or cookies and cream. I probably eat more ice cream during the winter than during the summer. I generally prefer frozen fruit bars, bomb pops or a slurpee during the summer.

I had mastic ice cream at a Greek restaurant in Portland* once. It was great**. There's a place in Brunswick that does gelato and I like the almost chewy texture of it.

And since somebody brought up slushies, I had an awesome ice wine slushie at a winery in Niagara-On-The-Lake.

I'm more savory than sweet, hence not a big dessert guy, so it takes something unusual really to excite me.

* The real one, not the copy.
** My wife (and probably most people) would beg to differ.

I use Mobil 1 AFE 5W-20 in my Elantra as it's "ICE" Cream.... :P

I like peach or peanut butter.

There are quite a few small independent ice creams places around that are really good. If I have I had to pick something at the supermarket, my all time favorite is "Brigham's Peppermint Stick Ice Cream".

Usually the bowl that is in front of me.

There are quite a few small independent ice creams places around that are really good. If I have I had to pick something at the supermarket, my all time favorite is "Brigham's Peppermint Stick Ice Cream".

We looked for peppermint last weekend but they seem only to sell it near Christmas. You can only get mint with choc chip the rest of the time. Well, there's a Friendly's ice cream cake but apparently it's a bit nasty.

I don't eat ice cream all that much anymore, but I always enjoy green tea ice cream and mochi cake ice cream at japanese restaurants. Great change of pace.

This thread is relevant for me, since I had a molar yanked yesterday and bought a bunch of ice-cream (and yogurt and tuna fish and other mush) to keep alive until I can chew again. I just bought whatever was on sale - chocolate-ish and vanilla-ish (whatever fancy names they use for the standard flavors) because any cookies/brownie-chunks/chocolate chips are all magnetized at the plant to be drawn into swollen tooth sockets and lodge themselves in there for a decade or more. You can actually hang from a thread attached to a chocolate chip that has found its way in there.

What stands out in my mind is a small ice-cream stand in the mountains just outside of Wilkes-Barre PA, painted in pink and white and looking like a giant Good-n-Plenty box. They make a "peanut butter and jelly sundae", with the peanut butter you usually find in a Reeses sundae along with strawberry and other syrups to fill in the jelly. It's best with plain vanilla underneath so the PB&J flavor doesn't get lost in the mix. I don't know why, but ice-cream tastes better when you go out to these places rather than eating whatever you have in a carton in the freezer.

My tastes, maybe like Wayne's, lean towards the ones with various combinations of chocolate, marshmallow and/or caramel. Ben & Jerry's Phish Food is definitely a favorite, as are Cherry Garcia and Triple Caramel Chunk.

But the so-called "super premium" ice creams like Ben & Jerry's and Haagen-Dazs are awfully expensive, at $3-4 for a mere pint, and they have way too much fat in them IMO. "Super premium" is a USDA regulated term that simply refers to an extremely high butterfat content, not to actual quality.

We also try to avoid dairy products from cows treated with BST/rBGH, which rules out most of the more "mainstream" ice creams in more affordable, larger containers. Even "all natural" Breyers and the other big guys offering "5-ingredient" ice creams still won't step up on this issue. But I have noticed that many of the smaller, regional dairies across the country have figured out that offering local, sustainable hormone-free products slots them into a nice market niche and may prove the key to their survival. Our choices in this realm include Umpqua (http://www.umpquadairy.com/), Sunshine (http://www.sunshinedairyfoods.com/) and of course Tillamook (http://www.tillamook.com/), and of course I like them all!

My favorite brand the last couple years has been Alden's (http://www.aldensicecream.com/), whose ice cream is fully organic, and tastes just as good to me as the super-premiums. It still has plenty of fat (6-8g) to not taste like low-fat, but still half or less the fat of the super-premiums. And less than half the price, at about $5 for a 3-pint container -- often on sale for $3.50-$4. I wish they had more flavors, but if I'm in the mood for a "normal" flavor like Chocolate or Vanilla, it's as good as it gets.
http://www.aldensicecream.com/_images/news/sidebar_vanilla.png

Another favorite of ours is Coconut Bliss (http://coconutbliss.com/), the rare dairy-free dessert that might actually taste BETTER than ice cream. The Cherry Amaretto is mind-blowing, and even my wife (who doesn't like cherries very much) agrees. Might sound hypocritical since it's so expensive ($6/pint) and coconut isn't exactly low in saturated fat, but it is a fun treat once in a while.
http://coconutbliss.com/sites/default/files/flavors_cherry.png?1274502050