Milk Bar Ice Cream's Seasonal Selection

Oh, what a happy holiday it is when there's seasonal ice cream flavors at the store AND a new blog post! Milk Bar out of NYC has not only expanded its line since I first reviewed them--doubling in size or more--but they have two wintry delights that have blown into town, one better than the other:

Candy Cane Chocolate Chip Cornflake - With the exception of chocolate mint ice creams, there has been a tendency in recent years for mint ice creams to be Altoid-level minty. Happily, this ice cream airs on the side of sugary peppermint, pleasantly complemented by bits of marshmallow fluff. (The marshmallow flavor is very faint, but is enough to make an impression.) The chocolate chunks are enough in number to be a part of at least every other bite, offering a nice kiss of chocolate to the mint. Unlike other Milk ice creams, the corn flake mix-in was not crunchy at all. Similarly, the advertised candy cane swirl was non-existent. A crunchless ice cream, but a good ice cream all the same.

Gingerbread House - "Do you like nutmeg?!?" This the question this ice cream asks again and again despite my cries of, "No!" The base, though advertised as gingerbread, is nutmeg all the way. This flavor cannot even be saved by the gingerbread cookie hunks within, nor the simple sprinkles throughout. Good mix-ins, terrible flavor imho. If you enjoy eggnog to get your nutmeg fix, though, you should give it a shot.

Jeni's - Three Winners and a Dud

The aforementioned "three winners."

When I first blogged about Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams in 2012, they were only in area of Columbus, Ohio (AKA the perfect halfway point when driving from Chicago to Virginia). Based on those visits, they made my list of Top 25 to Visit. Since then, they have slowly started taking over the country with pint in many grocery stores plus locations in eleven states, including several locations in Chicago. Jeni's is always innovating, so occasionally I find myself placing orders online to get the latest flavor since they don't always last long in scoop shops. Here is my review of four recent flavors:

Strawberry Pretzel Pie - From first bite I started asking myself, "Is this the best ice cream I have ever had?" While I think Toscanini's probably has an edge over Jeni's, this is undoubtedly the best I've ever gotten from a mass produced facility and the best to have ever graced the inside of my freezer. Sure the strawberry and pretzels are nice, but there is something magical in the base that made my tastebuds pause to savor. Made in collaboration with Dolly Parton to benefit her non-profit, you can feel good eating it as well. Get on Jeni's email list for the next time they manufacture this flavor because it sells out FAST.

Maple Soaked Pancakes - They could have just lazily made a maple ice cream with pancakes thrown in, but, no, they incorporated the buttery flavor necessary to make this a genuine breakfast experience. Promoted for National Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day, I only consumed the flavor at more conventional times because some slopes are too slippery to risk taking.

Sunshine - A flavor designed to raise awareness (and funds) towards children's mental health, I knew I wanted to support...and not just because it sounded delicious. A grey ice cream boasting of tasting "like sunshine on a cloudy day," it is a fruit ice cream with mouth-puckering punches of lemon, tangerine, and passion fruit. While not as over-the-top incredible as Jeni's buttermilk frozen yogurts--perhaps their best creations overall--this is still a must-try flavor.

Everything Bagel - Cream cheese ice cream is an excellent base for cheesecake ice cream. So imagine that. Now subtract enough sugar from the cream cheese base to make it more savory than sweet. Not add onion and garlic. (Yes, you read that correctly.) Thankfully, I only sampled the flavor, which was enough to send me running away at full speed. But some people must love it because this is not the first time they've had the flavor. So don't take my word for it; try it for yourself!

Ample Hills Creamery from Brooklyn, NY

Astoria location.

My last pre-pandemic trip was to New York City. Having been numerous other times, I decided to give that trip a focus: pizza (R.I.P. Domenico DeMarco, founder of Di Fara), bagels, and Ample Hills Creamery ice cream. From the factory in Red Hook to the shop at the south end of the High Line in Chelsea to a few blocks from Madison Square Garden before a Rangers game, Ample Hills had the flavors that kept me coming back. This past January when I was flying back to Chicago after the holidays with family, I used my four hour layover to take a quick bus trip from LaGuardia to the Astoria location.

Here are my favorite flavors I have tried so far:

Salted Crack'd Caramel: burnt caramel ice cream with chocolate covered buttery crackers

Every so often I have a flavor that awakens my tastebuds in a way that makes them seem somehow more alive than they have ever been. This is one of those flavors. Burnt caramel 4eva.

Egg-carton flight.

Snap, Mallow, Pop!: marshmallow ice cream with baked rice crispy clusters

When I think of marshmallows in ice cream I usually think of that cloyingly sweet fluff. Or I think of toasted marshmallows blended into the base. This flavor is neither, embracing the subtlety of the marshmallow found in Rice Krispies Treats. That, plus the puffed rice? Yum.

The Munchies: pretzel-infused ice cream with Ritz crackers, potato chips, pretzels and crushed M&M's

Crush the pretzels to dust and blend them into the base. Why, oh why, haven't I thought of this? Too often pretzels in ice cream soften into disappointment. Here you get the flavor and the texture of the mix-ins. Personally, I wanted more chocolate but still a must try flavor.

To make matters even more exciting, every location of Ample Hills Creamery features an original flavor specific to that particular location. I can't say I've tried them all (yet)--especially the Jersey City location or the one in Long Beach, CA--but trying their different flavors is definitely ice cream crawl material.

Carina's Cupcakery in Chicago

(Editor's note from 2025: Carina's Cupcakery shut down business on February 1, 2025. Just six months previous, Carina made the cakes for my wife and me's wedding celebration in Chicago. Gone, but not forgotten.)

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A little over a year ago, a theatre artist friend posted that one of his theatre artist friends had started a cupcake business out of her home kitchen. I investigated, saw that she delivered (which has been so necessary in pandemic-land), and dove in, sweet tooth first. Her business, Carina's Cupcakery, may primarily be cupcakes and cakes, but she does many other things, too; over time she has delivered cake pops, caramel corn, and macarons along with my cupcake orders. (These additional items haven't made it to her website's menu yet, but I can attest to their quality for when they do!) 

Carina's specialty is flavors of the Philippines, some flavors I'd first been introduced to by another Jennivee's Bakery and others I first had from Carina. Another menu often features monthly specialty flavors, which means there's often something new I haven't tried on the menu. I've tried the ones I am most excited about and decided it was time to blog about it.

Without further ado, here is my personal ranking from favorite to not-my-favorite-but-still-tasty:

• 

  From Carina's Cupcakery's
  Facebook page.

  Date Night (chocolate covered strawberry, seasonal)
• Ube Jammin' (ube)
• Philippine Sun (mango pineapple)
• Ginger Spice (cinnamon and spices, seasonal)
• Chocolate Cravings (quadruple chocolate)
• Lemonade Stand (raspberry lemonade, seasonal)
• Spill the Tea (chai spices, seasonal)
• Cupcake de Coco (brown sugar and coconut)
• CocoJoy (coconut almond chocolate)
• Cupcakes 'n Cream (Oreo)
• Big Buko (pandan and coconut)
• So Corny (corn and coconut)

If you're like me, you'll try them and soon want to make your way through the menu. It's dangerous, but worth it. So if you're in Chicago, give Carina's Cupcakery a try!

Milk Bar grocery store pints

Milk Bar is a New York City legend. Whether their Cereal Milk soft serve, their pie (formerly known as "crack pie"), or their cake truffles, dessert there is a sweet-toothsome experience. But I have a confession: I've always *liked* Milk Bar, but haven't *loved* Milk Bar. Their sugar-forward approach may give the chic place an adult candy store feel, but to me it was always at the expense of depth of flavor. Until now.

I happened to be walking through the Whole Foods freezer aisle, just taking stock, when I saw that Milk Bar now has grocery store pints! I jumped on the opportunity to buy one of each flavor, praying that this NYC export wasn't the bitter disappointment of Serendipity's grocery store pints. The results of my scientific inquiry? Well, I liked them enough to blog about it, which is saying a lot these days.

From favorite to still-good-but-not-as-good, here are my thoughts:

Cereal Milk: Admittedly, when I eat cereal, I do not drink the milk remnants afterward. To me, it is concentrated sugar, like drinking soda from the machine is too many parts syrup. That said, when I had the Cereal Milk soft serve in New York, I was underwhelmed. It ends up all it needed was more milkfat. Simple and an instant classic, this pint has a subtler sweetness than its namesake, all with crunchy cornflakes mixed in to add some textural diversity. A wonderful flavor.

Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow: Are you even making ice cream in post-Ben & Jerry's America if you don't have a flavor boasting to have the most crazy chunks mixed in? This long flavor name doesn't even mention that the flavor base aims to taste like cookie dough, something I'm not sure it achieves. What is does taste like is toasted bliss, vaguely s'mores-like. The mix-ins--chocolate chips, more crunchy cornflakes, and the occasional patch of a marshmallow-like substance--only add to the flavor experience, making each bite a little different from the next.

Birthday Cake: In general, I find this flavor trend cloying and something colorful intended for kids, but Milk Bar made it right. Rich and flavorful, my only complaint is that the delicious frosting mix-in (usually the downfall of Birthday Cake ice creams) was in hunks rather than a ripple. This made some bites a bit much.

Pie: A somewhat bland name for an interesting flavor. The "deep vanilla" base has a hint of burnt sugar. With the "gooey butter filling" giving the ice cream a St. Louis "Gooey Butter Cake" effect, this flavor is almost too rich for me...he says still licking the spoon. Lastly, they have some oats mixed in to approximate pie crust, but for me oats just don't work as a mix-in. Sure, they maintain their texture, but they linger too long and end up dominating. Still, a good flavor.

Lost Larson in Chicago

If there's one reason to retcon my Best of Chicago Sweets List, it is Lost Larson. The bakery has become my favorite in Chicago. It's located in Andersonville between two of the neighborhood's longest Swedish holdouts--the Swedish Bakery and the delicatessen--before both tragically disappeared in the past five years. But while Lost Larson is definitely modern, it still keeps things Swedish, offering a lingonberry almond cake, limpa bread and semla, among others delicacies. In addition to their chai latte (the best I've ever had) and their cheddar and kale scone, these are my favorite items from Lost Larson:

(1) Afternoon Tea Bun - To the naked eye, it is a cinnamon roll shape that's merely covered in granulated sugar. Incorrect. There is sugar, lemon zest and earl grey. It is simple, yet mind-blowing. My favorite by far.

(2) Cinnamon Roll Bread Pudding - Like everything at Lost Larson, the cinnamon rolls are good. The cinnamon roll bread pudding, however, is great. Dense and sweet. It may not have a cream cheese frosting, but it doesn't need it.

Afternoon Tea Bun.

(3) any seasonal fruit dough-y pastry - Croissant, danish, whatever they're calling it that day, get it. My favorite is when they have rhubarb, but that is more personal preference than studious recommendation.

(4) Chocolate Passionfruit Caramel Tart - Did I mention they do pastry of the non-dough variety? Lost Larson excels at this, too! What would you say to a dark chocolate tart topped with a caramel that has been flavored with passion fruit? You would say, "Yes. I would like to eat that now, please."

(5) Almond Croissant - Almond croissants were perfected in my mind by West Seattle's Bakery Nouveau. Here at Lost Larson, we have a worthy local option. The almond paste in the middle of this powdered sugar topped delight doesn't taste like marzipan and it doesn't taste like amaretto; it tastes like--who'da thunk?--almonds.

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!

Freezer Faves: Signature Select's Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup

 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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Gasp! Is he really recommending a--double gasp!--grocery store brand ice cream?!? (Clutches pearls.)

I am often confused with being an ice cream snob. But the truth is I appreciate high-brow and low-brow ice creams. Who among us doesn't crave a Dairy Queen blizzard or McDonald's caramel sundae from time to time?

In proclaiming the virtues of this particular flavor, I would argue that that its chocolate base has more of an actual chocolate flavor than most so-called chocolate ice creams. (It still isn't like taking a bite out of a 72% cacao single origin chocolate bar, but one should turn to fresh gelato or even fresh chocolate sorbetto for that.) And, unlike most products offered by the grocery store staple brands Edy's/Dreyer's and Breyer's, this flavor is actually ice cream and not "light ice cream" or "frozen dairy dessert."

Moving beyond the singing the praises of its chocolate base, I must also declare its peanut butter cups to be hunks of joy. Mixed in along with an exceptionally good (but not overpowering) peanut butter swirl, the cups are not in every bite, but are such that I often bargain with myself that I'll stop eating "one more peanut butter cup...no, one more...no, one more..." 

Signature Select's Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup, I salute you!

Freezer Faves: Kemp's White Chocolate Raspberry

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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"Decadent mascarpone cheesecake ice cream with a luscious raspberry swirl and white chocolaty chips."

Need I go on?

Sure, the base may not scream of mascarpone and there aren't as many raspberry swirls as I'd like, but damned if this flavor ain't the truth. With the white chocolaty flakes packing every bite, this flavor is similar to Häagen-Dazs' Double Belgian Chocolate Chip, in that it utilizes a sweet and creamy base with a differently textured mix-in to produce a chocolate truffle effect, albeit a white chocolate truffle.

When I turned a half gallon of this flavor into a mere two portions, I knew I had my hands on an instant classic.

Kemps' White Chocolate Raspberry, I salute you!

Freezer Faves: Häagen-Dazs' Double Belgian Chocolate Chip

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 have blogged about this flavor before. Indeed, it was this flavor that inspired me to share my extensive ice cream knowledge on the blogging platform when a co-worker I had a decade-and-a-half ago falsely claimed there were no good American chocolate ice creams. And this flavor was once considered my all-time favorite ice cream flavor. But while my palate has become more refined over the years, there is no denying that Häagen-Dazs' Double Belgian Chocolate Chip still kicks serious butt.

While it has gone through a number of name changes over the years--Belgian Chocolate Chocolate to the simplified Belgian Chocolate to its new, most accurate name--the flavor has remained the same. A pint of creamy chocolate ice cream that is nearly fifty-percent dark chocolate shavings. Every single bite is equal parts ice cream and shavings so delicate and small that they are nearly indistinguishable from the base were it not for their full-bodied punch of flavor. The effect is that of a chocolate truffle ice cream with two types and textures of chocolate blending into a wholly original experience.

Häagen-Dazs' Double Belgian Chocolate Chip, I salute you!

Freezer Faves: Talenti's Roman Raspberry

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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When my lactose-intolerant lady friend told me her favorite dairy-free grocery store option was made by Talenti, I balked. I've never been impressed with their gelato. Quite frankly, I thought their gelato stunk and tasted of the plastic container it came in.

Enter Roman Raspberry dairy-free sorbetto.

Soft, scoop-able sorbet. None of that icy block that you have to scrape and scrape and scrape away at until you eventually get a satisfying amount onto your spoon. And the flavor envelops your taste buds with tart berry flavor that forces you to pause a moment to savor before dipping your spoon in for more.

 

Now, authetic, fresh sorbetto is comprised of merely sugar, water and the fruity flavoring agent, be it fruit or juice. Talenti's Roman Raspberry contains more than that; it is a mass-produced grocery store product so of course there are preservatives...but the final product has only six ingredients! Ultimately, though, one should trust the taste buds. It is so close to being the real thing, one might question if, in fact, it is the real thing. I dare say it is.

Talenti's Roman Raspberry, I salute you!

Pandemic Land Special: What's Good in the Grocery Store?

There hasn't been a ton to report on dessert-wise during pandemic times. I am limited to the spots that are walking distance from my apartment. But while I prefer to review local spots, the pandemic has allowed me to settle in with a few new grocery store favorites AKA my Freezer Faves. This week I will be reporting on my best new discoveries as well as a few old stand-bys. Scroll on for more...