Kindness Project Delivers 100 Cakes to the Community

Cool story. Food has an incredible power to bring people together.

On a similar note, I actually made a cake that I gave away for free at the merch table at my most recent concert. It was a huge hit and I plan on making it a regular thing.

Wild Party Variety Hour

This Saturday, June 26, I will perform "Something Delicious This Way Comes" AKA Post #100. Clownish weirdness at its best, plus a singalong!

Wild Party Variety Hour
Prop Theatre
3502-04 N. Elston
Chicago

Note from 2012: I have since performed "Something Delicious This Way Comes" on numerous occasions and performed different pieces at Wild Party Variety Hour a few more times.

Bobtail Ice Cream

There are many reasons to love Bobtail ice cream. First of all, according to their website, “Bobtail is the only Chicago company that makes truly homemade, hard-pack ice cream.” They also have creative local-inspired flavors, like the addictive Cubby Crunch (vanilla ice cream, sprinkles, Oreo®, chocolate chips, toffee). And they stick to natural ingredients whenever possible, which is why the once blue-dyed Cubby Crunch is no longer artificially colored to match its namesake team. But even more excitement has been churning at Bobtail since January of this year.

At an Oracle Theatre event, I was introduced to Chris Liebelt, Bobtail’s General Operations Manager. In addition to generously bestowing me with some freebie coupons, he let me know that every week of 2010 will feature a customer-suggested flavor. Understandably, this got both my imagination and taste buds excited. It has been a successful tactic for generating business: I have stopped by Bobtail every time I’m been even remotely nearby so I can check out the latest!

The most popular ways of coming up with new flavors seem to be the following: (1) imagining ingredients that one rarely sees in ice cream and mixing them in or (2) taking flavor combinations featured in other treats and adapting them into ice cream form. But Bobtail customers have found inspiration from more diverse sources: current events (Blago’s Blues, blueberry ice cream with macadamia nuts), video games (1-UP, lime ice cream with coconut, inspired by the green mushroom in Mario Bros.) and children’s programming (Bobtail the Builder, chocolate ice cream with chocolate-covered peanuts, almonds, Oreo® and raisins! RAISINS!). Gourmet cooking was the inspiration for Strawberry and Goat Cheese ice cream; already a legend, the flavor was the talk of the town for weeks. (Imagine strawberry cheesecake ice cream, only more subtle and delicate.) Also worthy of mention is the breakfast-inspired Lemon Poppy Seed ice cream. Mmm hmm. These flavors made my simple suggestion of Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting seem old hat.

I asked Chris some questions about behind the scenes at Bobtail:

What’s the usual process for coming up with new flavors at Bobtail?

The team at Bobtail is always inventing flavors and have always picked 2 new ones each month to sell. Every year we hold an ice cream contest where cone shaped entry forms can be colored with the flavor creation. These entries cover all the walls in the store. So we pick the most creative and yummy sounding ones straight from our stores walls.

What is the likelihood any of these customer-suggested flavors will work their way into Bobtail’s regular rotation? What flavor would you say has been the most successful? Have you had a favorite?

One of our long standing flavors, Daley Addiction (vanilla with hand stirred butter fudge) came from a flavor contest and has become one of our most popular flavors. I once mentioned it to Mayor Daley, but he didn't seem too impressed. This year my favorite has to be the Goats Cheese Strawberry. People would ask to taste it with hesitation in their voices, but then their eyes would light up and say "It tastes just like strawberry cheesecake!"

Where are your favorite places to get ice cream when you aren’t in Chicago?

Traders Point Creamery in Indiana makes a pretty awesome organic ice cream.[Editor's note: They are located just outside Indianapolis in Zionsville.]

World-wide, what are some of the crazier flavors of ice cream you have tasted, good and bad?

I had basil ice cream a few weeks back which was too overpowering but probably would work well as a side for another dessert. My favorite flavor is Banoffee (banana and toffee).

How successful has the experiment of a new customer-suggested flavor each week been? Any chance that Bobtail will continue with a regularly rotating customer-suggested flavors next year?

Our customers are the most important thing to us, and they love it. I can see this running indefinitely.

New Flavors: Redemption in the Grocery Aisle

My flavor reviews of the Häagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s Classes of 2010 included touches of sadness over two elusive flavors. But the crying has ended for the flavors have been found!

Häagen-Dazs Midnight Cookies and Cream – Hands down the best chocolate ice cream since 2008’s Amazon Valley Dark Chocolate (part of the seemingly defunct Häagen-Dazs Reserve Series ). Dark chocolate ice cream with chewy chocolate cookies, plus a chocolate swirl. Drowning in this would be a pretty good way to go.

Ben & Jerry's Maple Blondie – This flavor embraces two things that Vermont is proud of (in addition to Ben & Jerry's): maple syrup and gold medal snowboarder Hannah Teter, to whom the flavor is dedicated. A good flavor, but like Dulce Delish is seriously heavy. The flavor reminds me of Häagen-Dazs Sticky Toffee Pudding, especially the bites with blondie in it.

Thank you, ice cream gods, for smiling on me once more.

Stanley Cup Sundae

The Blackhawks have done it. And now each of the players will have a day with the coveted cup.

The Stanley Cup has been victim to much debauchery, but others have used it to spread peace, love and ice cream. As the article says, "What better way to celebrate one of the sweetest moments of your life than with a giant ice cream sundae?"

Flavor battle: Dulce Delish v. Dulce de Leche

Ben & Jerry’s has a new flavor: Dulce Delish. But how does it match up against the popular
Häagen-Dazs flavor Dulce de Leche?

I was excited to do this comparison because I recently ate a dessert at a snazzy restaurant that featured legit dulce de leche: Carmelized plaintains in a crepe with cajeta and raspberry sauce. Somehow this fusion of flavors created a Dr. Pepper-esque sensation. So when I bought these flavors, I also bought some raspberry syrup.

Ben & Jerry’s Dulce Delish

• More bitter
• The dark caramel has a taste resembling cajeta, goat’s milk caramel
• Much heavier
• The raspberry syrup created flavor combat with the negatives of each flavor showing.

Häagen-Dazs Dulce de Leche

• Sweeter
• Caramel on caramel
• Lighter
• Raspberry syrup was good on the Häagen-Dazs. The flavors fused a little.

Conclusion: Ben & Jerry’s may offer the more unique flavor, but to me it was not enjoyable to eat. Go with the lighter Häagen-Dazs variety.

New Flavors: Ben & Jerry’s Class of 2010

Boston Cream Pie – I have mental list of flavors I would like to create in my home kitchen and an incarnation involving Boston cream has long been on the list. With the arrival of this excellent flavor, I can keep being lazy and just let Ben & Jerry’s do the work for me. The eggy custard ice cream base has pockets of yellow cake and doughy/custardy goodness. A teensy bit of chocolate chunks makes the flavor not as chocolate-y as an actual pie—a welcome surprise given that my typical complaint about Boston Cream Pie is that the custard is overpowered—but offers a perfect kiss of sweetness in the aftertaste. 

Milk & Cookies – The most distinguishing feature of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is the obnoxious amounts of junk it crams into its flavors. Every chunky bite of one of their pints should contain most, if not all, of the features mix-ins. This flavor is no exception, including hunks of cookies and not just Oreos—the flavor takes the long-overdue inclusion of actual chocolate chip cookie pieces to the ice cream instead of its more oft-used larval form, cookie dough. 

Peanut Brittle – I was right: it is better than the Häagen-Dazs variety. The main reason is the caramel swirl. Another reason is that the ice cream base is peanut brittle ice cream, which is sweeter that the Häagen-Dazs peanut butter base. Both support the idea that peanut brittle is foremost sweet and nutty second. However, the better idea would be a toffee-flavored ice cream since the solidified corn syrup that makes up the majority of brittle does not taste in any way like peanuts. The peanuts chunks, however, are more glazed, like what you might find in a Cracker Jack box, and less brittle. As a child of Virginia, the land of peanuts, I would know.

I cannot find Hannah Teter’s Maple Blondie (Maple Ice Cream with Blonde Brownie Chunks & a Maple Caramel Swirl) and am not interested in Mud Pie (Chocolate & Coffee Liqueur Ice Creams Swirled Together with a Chocolate Cookie Swirl). Dulce Delish will be reviewed next week alongside Häagen-Daz's Dulce De Leche.

UPDATE: Hannah Teter's Maple Blondie was finally found and reviewed!

New Flavors: Häagen-Dazs Class of 2010

For some reason, no matter where I live, the grocery stores I frequent never carry ALL of the new ice cream flavors. I reeeeeeally want to try Midnight Cookies & Cream. I do not know if it has to do with regional sales patterns or if it is a dastardly plot of the gods to bring me misery. Enough whining, here are the reviews:

• Amaretto Almond Crunch: I love almond for its roasted flavor and its texture. Neither of these are in the foreground of this flavor. But it’s still good! I normally don’t like amaretto, but I like this! Super-creamy and the brittle is much more like toffee with accents of nut than brittle. No brittle ice cream has even approximated the tastiness of the fallen Häagen-Dazs flavor, Macadamia Brittle. But this new one if good. Seriously.
• The Five flavor series, which features ice cream that only uses five ingredients has a new flavor: Lemon. To me, lemon has always been better as a sorbet or Italian ice. This flavor, however, fights back. It isn’t just tart; it has a sour sting. Little pieces of lemon help bring variety to the texture, something most of the flavors in the Five series lack.
• Dark Chocolate Mint: Häagen-Dazs has made some of the best chocolate ice creams to be found in the grocery store, but all of them have gone the way of the dodo. That is why last year’s Limited Edition flavor Dark Chocolate was so highly anticipated for a certain blogger. That flavor, like this one, left much to be desired. In both cases, I expected a richer flavor than what I tasted.
• Last year’s Peanut Brittle makes a repeat showing. It didn’t wow me in 2009 because the peanut butter ice cream drowned out the sweetness of the brittle. Hopefully, Ben & Jerry’s new Peanut Brittle ice cream will be better.
• As you can probably guess, I have no interest in trying the two banana flavors currently in the store (Split and Foster, if you’re curious).

I am VERY sorry to report that, from the looks of things, Häagen-Dazs has phased out it Reserve Series. Pints of ice cream are already a luxury product, so to offer a high end pint the failure was a fault of timing, not of product to be sure.

UPDATE: Midnight Cookies & Cream was finally found and reviewed!

Made-to-Order Cream Puffs!

Recently, in a period lasting just over 48 hours, I consumed 7 cream puffs. It all started when my friend Amber, visiting from Virginia, read about a new place in Time Out Chicago. Figuring the place would be a tourist trap of overpriced, mediocre pastry, I indulged Amber and her husband John. Boy, was I wrong.

Beard Papa’s specializes in made-to-order cream puffs. With the success of Cold Stone, made-to-order desserts are increasing in popularity. Each variety comes in the same eggy pastry shell but offers different options for toppings (powdered sugar, chocolate and cookie crumb) and fillings (regular custard, chocolate custard, strawberries and cream custard or an assortment of Häagen-Dazs ice cream*). Since treating friends to dessert has become my calling card, I bought 6 for us to share, which were ravenously consumed. And then, the next day, I bought 6 more for my 4 person department. After one bite, my boss declared she would go there for lunch. And when she returned to the office, she came bearing more cream puffs. And the next night, John and Amber shared what remained of the half-dozen they had bought that day.

When all was said and done, I had tried each of the toppings and custard fillings. My Virginia friends and I agreed on the following:

• The chocolate topping, a classic éclair, was the superior topping. The cookie crumb topping, however, was disappointing, tasting sugary, but burnt.
• Each of the fillings were fantastic. The strawberries and cream did not taste a bit artificial and had pieces of strawberry in it. The chocolate was rich and made from two types of Belgian chocolate. The classic yellow custard tasted fresh and full.
• The most unique option was an eclair with strawberries and cream filling with chocolate on top.(Top 20 to Visit)

With 9 different options of custard-filled cream puffs and numerous ice-cream-filled options, one visit isn’t enough. Look for a Beard Papa’s in your area and try them all. But be careful because each box contains highly addictive substances; John and Amber are already reporting a decrease in motivation in the workplace that stems from cream puff withdrawal.


* I do not recommend the ice cream filling. My opinion is that the cream puffs filled with Häagen-Dazs ice cream would be the optimum choice of presentation at an ice cream shop—a fresh alternative to the waffle cone. At a cream puff shop, however, the ice cream overpowers the puff. It’s worth trying, but go to Beard Papa’s for the custard.


UPDATE (Nov. 2012): The Chicago location has closed. Consult the store locator linked above for the nearest Beard Papa's.

No Scoop Day

Ben and Jerry’s annual Free Scoop Day is tomorrow. For the first year ever, I found out about it ahead of time…but none of the Chicago shops are participating. Hopefully you fair better.

1st Annual Pi Day Party

Last Sunday was Pi Day, which occurs every year at 3.14. It offers a universal celebration of math and science...but mostly eat pie. Though I have done no actual research on the matter, the origins of the holiday are mysterious. Some believe it was handed own by the Greek gods themselves, who also gave birth to the Greek alphabet. Others believe the holiday was founded by a scientist who was turned into a pie whilst performing experiments involving centrifugal force. Some believe it was a culinary genius trying to reach a new market of desperate high school geometry teachers. Regardless of the day's beginnings, the day is a gift we must share.

I invited the whole internet to my new apartment (Population: two couches, two chairs and whole lot of empty space) telling people to bring a pie, savory (chicken pot pie, pizza pie, shepherd's pie, quiche) or sweet (pecan, apple, ice cream). Sadly, my 1st Annual Pi Day Party had more stories than pies, the subject of those stories being how there was a pie, but it got eaten beforehand. Luckily, I had made my favorite chicken pot pie (a recipe handed down by Boren's mom) and my staple fudge pecan pie. Other contributions were Manno's homemade apple pie, a store-bought apple pie, a frozen pizza, a $40 fully loaded Uno's pizza and a store-bought pecan pie. For those who didn't mind filling up on more dessert than dinner--we call them rational--it was a splendid day.

But let's not get lost in the deliciousness of Pi Day. Let us also remember (and honor!) the number, the letter, the legend that is Pi. To do that, I present to you a quote by a great man. Actually, it is Boren's favorite quote of mine: "There are too many songs about love. There should be more songs about...math!"

Duck season! Rabbit season! Girl scout season!

The freezer in my new apartment has ten containers of ice cream in it. (Some people read more than one book at a time; I have my own variation.) Four of them are the different varieties of one of my favorite seasonal offerings: Edy’s Girl Scout Cookie ice cream.

Thin Mint – Easily the best of the three flavors, which is not surprising since Thin Mint is also the superior cookie and is best eaten when out of the freezer. There are other mint cookie ice creams, but none that make chocolate their primary concern over mint. The cookie mix-ins vary from small sandy pieces to large crunchables. Two “half-gallons”* now grace my freezer.

Samoa – My friend Amber observed that this flavor made with the famous coconut cookie was like a creamy macaroon. The most unique flavor of the bunch, but the cookie doesn’t become an ice cream flavor so much as the cookie is mixed in to vanilla ice cream.

Tagalong – Without chocolate, peanut butter does not seem like a dessert treat to me. The cookies are covered in chocolate, but the ice cream is in vanilla ice cream.

Girl Scout cookie season is short. I like to stock up on my Thin Mint ice cream. Make sure you grab some before it’s too late.

* In the past five years, ice cream companies have shrunk the size of their larger containers. The idea was to keep the pricing the same, rather than charging more for the half-gallon. Edy’s packaging is currently at 1.5 quarts. Somehow, “three-eighths gallon” doesn’t have the same ring to it. 


Note from 2012: Sadly, my beloved Thin Mint has fallen victim to the "Frozen Dairy Dessert" epidemic and is no longer palatable.