Magnum - Double Chocolate ice cream bars - Mar. 24, 2017

Chocolate of the Day: 

Unilever
Magnum Double Chocolate ice cream bars
Good+
Weight: 3.38 fl. oz. (100 mL) / 10.14 fl. oz. (300 mL) total box of 3 bars
Calories: 310 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $3.99 (estimate) for 1 box of 3 bars
Purchased from: Safeway, Palo Alto, CA

Welcome to Day #6 of Chocolate and Ice Cream Bar Theme Week.

Today we're sampling one more ice cream bar flavor from the Magnum ice cream bar line from Unilever (Englewood Cliffs, NJ): The Magnum Double Chocolate ice cream bar.

What is double chocolate? "Answer: Chocolate ice cream dipped in a chocolatey coating, chocolatey sauce and milk chocolate."

I enjoyed this rich chocolate bar, especially its incorporation of chocolate sauce into the bar (a tidy but extravagant layer sandwiched between the chocolate ice cream and the chocolatey coating). It made this bar seem a little decadent.

The bar was made with Belgian chocolate. And, according to the packaging, the cocoa used in these bars came from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms.

Unilever - Magnum Chocolate Infinity, Double Raspberry ice cream bars - Mar. 23, 2017

Chocolate(s) of the Day: 

Unilever

Magnum Chocolate Infinity ice cream bars
Good - Good +
Weight: 3.38 fl. oz. (82 g.) / 10.14 fl. oz. (300 mL) in total box of 3 bars
Calories: 260 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $3.99 (estimate) for 1 box of 3 bars
Purchased from: Safeway, Palo Alto, CA

Magnum Double Raspberry ice cream bars
Good +
Weight: 3.04 fl. oz. (75 g.) / 9.12 fl. oz. (270 mL) in total box of 3 bars
Calories: 260 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $3.00 (sale) for 1 box of 3 bars
Purchased from: Safeway, Mountain View, CA

Welcome to Day #5 of Chocolate and Ice Cream Bar Theme Week.

Today we have a double feature with two different Magnum ice cream bars from the growing family of Magnum ice cream bars from Unilever.

Yesterday, Magnum's Dark Chocolate ice cream bar, and today the Magnum Chocolate Infinity and Magnum Double Raspberry ice cream bars.

First, thank you to the person who came up with the title "Chocolate Infinity." What a great concept.

At the core of these Infinity bars, was dark chocolate ice cream with a chocolate swirl that was covered in dark chocolate and cocoa bean nibs. It was very satisfying as ice cream bars go; the bar was creamy and smooth, with layers of smooth, rich chocolatey flavors, with a slight crunch from the tiny nib pieces.

The relatively new Magnum Double Raspberry ice cream bars were a bit more brash, in a good way—bursting with sweet, authentic raspberry and milk chocolate flavors from the first bite. Much as I like to avoid too much sugar, I really liked this bar.

The Double Raspberry bar had the concentrated flavor of a darker chocolate confection with raspberry jam, but with some ice cream to cool things down and balance the sugar a bit. If you like raspberries, this is the bar for you.

If you're interested in a combination of today's two different flavors, you might seek out the Magnum Chocolate Infinity and Raspberry ice cream bars featured last year (on March 2, 2016).

Unilever - Magnum Dark Chocolate ice cream bars - Mar. 22, 2017

Chocolate of the Day: 

Unilever
Magnum Dark ice cream bars
Good+
Weight: 3.38 fl. oz. (100 mL) / 10.14 fl. oz. (300 mL) in total box of 3 bars
Calories: 240 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $3.99 (estimate) for 1 box of 3 bars
Purchased from: Safeway, Palo Alto, CA

Welcome to Day #4 of Chocolate and Ice Cream Bar theme week.

This week the focus is on ice cream bars from larger companies. (Smaller production run ice cream bars and paletas from local artisans will have their own week later this year.)

Large or small, companies need to make bars that won't fall apart, and that also taste good. The chocolate coating on an ice cream bar needs to be not too hard or stiff, but not too soft either. Ice cream needs to stay creamy and flavorful and not become granular if temperatures fluctuate.

Unilever (Englewood Cliffs, NJ) now owns several large ice cream brands (including Magnum) in the U.S., and has experience with these challenges. Today's Magnum Dark Chocolate bar was one of the original member of an expanding family of Magnum ice cream bars.

One can almost see and taste the evolution of this line of ice cream bars. For example, at some point several years ago, someone must have been asking: How do you take a plain, standard vanilla ice cream bar vanilla bean ice cream dipped in chocolate and make it more appealing to higher-end consumers?

Today's bar, enveloped in a golden wrapper, uses quality vanilla and chocolate: 60% cacao Belgian Chocolate, and Rainforest Certified cocoa and vanilla—not something you'd see with less expensive bars. The chocolate tasted a bit better than most chocolatey coatings  out there and the vanilla ice cream did as well.

Natural flavors and coloring agents have improved. Now, if there was a way to magically get rid of some of the additives* that seem to be in most ice cream bars, that would be a true leap forward.

*Additives include mono and diglycerides, locust bean gum, guar gum, carrageenan, and PGPR (emulsifiers).

Ben and Jerry's - Cherry Garcia ice cream bar - Mar. 21, 2017

Chocolate of the Day: 

Ben and Jerry's Homemade, Inc.
Cherry Garcia ice cream bar
Good
Weight: 3.38 fl. oz. (100 mL) in 1 bar
Calories: 270 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $N/A - gift from family member (Thank you Megan!)
Purchased from: N/A - gift from family member

Welcome to Day #3 of Chocolate and Ice Cream Bar Theme Week.

Before there was today's Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream bar, there was Cherry Garcia ice cream.

The name Cherry Garcia (a riff on musician Jerry Garcia, of The Grateful Dead) was inspired by a customer suggestion. Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream was first released in February 1987, almost nine years after the company was founded.*

The original Cherry Garcia ice cream had a base of vanilla ice cream (Ben and Jerry's first flavor) with whole Bing cherries and smaller than usual chunks of chocolate, according to a press release.

Over the years* the base ice cream for this popular flavor became cherry ice cream instead of vanilla, and the pieces of cherry became smaller.

Unfortunately, I found myself comparing today's bar—with a sweet, but somewhat bland cherry ice cream with three different vegetable gums** and a dark "chocolatey" coating—with the original ice cream.

It's challenging to create an ice cream bar without modifying some ingredients. However, some changes are more noticeable than others. For example, for the first few bites, I saw no cherry pieces. Later, I did run into a few. (Note: I've not tried Cherry Garcia Ice Cream in many years, and the whole brand and formula has likely changed in the past decade.)

On the positive side, this tasting experience inspired me to make some homemade ice cream with a great vanilla base, whole bing cherries and small high-quality dark chocolate shavings. Back to the future. Thank you to Ben and Jerry for the original inspiration.

*Ben and Jerry's co-founders, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, opened their business in May 1978 in a renovated gas station in Vermont. In April 2000, Ben and Jerry's was acquired by the Anglo-Dutch food giant, Unilever (London, UK), the company that also owns Breyer's and Good Humor ice cream brands.

**Today's Cherry Garcia Ice Cream bar contained locust bean gum, xanthan gum and guar gum.

Haagen-Dazs - White Chocolate Raspberry Ice Cream Bars - Mar. 20, 2017

Chocolate of the Day: 

Haagen-Dazs
White Chocolate Raspberry Ice Cream Bars
Good - Good +
Weight: 3 fl. oz. (88.6 mL) / 9 fl. oz. (266 mL) in total box of 3 bars
Calories: 280 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $3.99 for 1 box of 3 bars
Purchased from: Safeway, Palo Alto, CA

Welcome to Day #2 of Chocolate and Ice Cream Bar Week.

Today I tried a relatively new Haagen-Dazs ice cream bar. The (box of 3) White Chocolate Raspberry Ice Cream Bars was distributed by Nestle Dreyer's Ice Cream Company (Oakland, CA).

A core of white chocolate ice cream (with embedded raspberry swirls) was dipped in milk chocolate then drizzled in dark chocolate. You experience the chocolate tri-fecta, in a well-designed ice cream bar that also offers layers of flavor.

The first mouthful of this bar revealed what looked like plain ice cream; however, successive bites uncovered the raspberry swirls.

The attractive milk and dark chocolate coating was smooth and natural tasting, with relatively mild chocolate flavor.

Lucerne - Toffee Brittle Ice Cream Bars - Mar. 19, 2017

Chocolate of the Day: 

Lucerne
Toffee Brittle Ice Cream Bars
OK++
Weight: 2.5 fl. oz. (74 mL) / 15 fl. oz. (443 mL) in total box of 6 bars
Calories: 170 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $2.49 in 1 box of 6 bars
Purchased from: Safeway, Palo Alto, CA

Welcome to Day #1 of Ice Cream Bar Theme Week. Yes, it's only March, but it's never too early, or too cold outside, for ice cream here at Chocolate Banquet.

Today's bars were a quick pick from a local Safeway grocery store frozen case: Lucerne Dairy Farms Vanilla Flavored Ice Cream Bars with Almond Toffee Candy Pieces and a Chocolatey Coating (artificial flavor added).

The vanilla ice cream filling was soft, cold and creamy, and the caramel-colored toffee pieces had sort of melted into the ice cream. The "chocolatey" coating served it's purpose as a smooth covering, but I'd call it chocolate "lite" in terms of flavor. (Not everyone is looking for serious dark chocolate, and these were relatively inexpensive.)

The long ingredient list for these bars included milk, cream, sugar, almond toffee candy, coconut oil and chocolate liquor. It also included mono and diglycerides, guar gum, locust bean gum, polysorbate 80, carrageenan, etc.—additives that I'd just as soon leave out of my chocolate items, but these may be OK for some.

Cocoa Parlor - Garden of Eden 100 bar with Zante Currants - Mar. 18, 2017

Chocolate of the Day: 

Cocoa Parlor
Garden of Eden 100 with Zante Currants bar
Good
Weight: 1.41 oz. (40 g.) / 2.82 oz. (80 g.) in total bar
Calories: 232.6 calories (per label) in 1/2 bar
Cost: $4.99 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Country Sun Natural Foods, Palo Alto, CA

Welcome to the last day (Day #8) of Chocolate and STUVWXYZ Theme Week, where we'll finish our chocolate alphabet series.

Very few chocolate-related or inclusion items begin with the letter "z." However, there will be no zebra bacon or zozzle fruit or Zimbabwe cacao to commemorate the last day of the alphabet.

Instead, the featured chocolate is both ordinary and sublime. The Garden of Eden 100 with Zante Currants bar from Cocoa Parlor (Laguna Niguel, CA) offered a unique blend of 100 percent cacao chocolate with tiny bits of concentrated dark fruit sweetness.

Zante currants are not like other currants. They come from small Black Corinth grapes, grown primarily in Greece (country of origin), California, South Africa and Australia. And the occasional sparkles of dried fruit (raisin/currant) sweetness brightened up and helped balance today's 100 percent-er.

This organic, vegan, dark chocolate bar—listed just two ingredients: Organic cacao* and Organic zante currants, that was it. The finished chocolate bar had a delightful aroma, with light floral, light tropical fruit (banana), spice, green jungle notes.

One bite transported us deep into ultra-dark territory, with earthy, nutty, very slightly bitter (due to lack of any sugar) flavors, encased in a thick, almost chewy bar. (The cool morning in my house further firmed up the cocoa solids and cocoa butter.)

*100% Cacao from Fairly Traded Cocoa Beans from the Dominican Republic. (Note: More recent or future bars may be made from cacao from another origin.)