Freezer Faves: Tillamook's Monster Cookie

While this blog is primarily a fan of local scoop shops, it acknowledges that sometimes a person just wants to stay in for the night. That being said, this is one of my Freezer Favorites.

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I was delighted when mid-pandemic, the local Chicago-area grocery stores started carrying the Oregon brand Tillamook. Having lived in the Pacific Northwest, Tillamook's extra creamy ice cream is well-known to me. But enough boasting about my extensive dairy dessert knowledge, on to the blog!

M&M's, oats, chocolate chips, and peanut butter. What makes these cookie ingredients a "monster" you ask? Elementary, my dear blog reader. It is not the cookies that are the monster, but, in fact, you...once you have your first taste of a monster cookie. Om nom nom nom.

Tillamook's Monster Cookie ice cream is my first time hearing of this classic cookie being made into an ice cream. And they knock it out of the park. This isn't bursting with mix-ins, but instead strikes a delicate balance one might not associate with the eponymous baked good: not too much oats, which would result in the still being chewy after the ice cream part has melted away; not too much peanut butter, which could easily overpower the other flavors; and kissed with just enough chocolate chips and wannabe M&M's to elevate the sweetness in every bite.

But the crowning achievement is the ice cream base. Boasting itself to be cookie-dough flavored ice cream, the base is definitely more than your average sweet cream. Were it a blond-folded taste test, would I name the flavor cookie dough (as I would with Thomas Sweet's Chocolate Chip Cookie flavor)? Probably not. But that doesn't stop the base from being exceptionally tasty!

Tillamook's Cookie Monster, I salute you!