 |
| Pralines & Cream - Vanilla Ice Cream with Praline Pecans and a Caramel Ribbon |
A little over a year ago, I reviewed Baskin-Robbins' Pralines N' Cream flavor which is one of their signature flavors dating back over fifty years. In that review, I noted that they had sued Häagen-Dazs in 1984 for infringing on their trademark with their Pralines & Cream flavor. Häagen-Dazs only changed the 'N' to '&', so they were obviously copying Baskin-Robbins. I looked right away for the Häagen-Dazs flavor but I had trouble finding it -- tor some reason, none of my usual stores carries it. Well, last week I was at a non-chain convenience store outside of my usual stomping grounds and I took a peek into their freezer case to see what they had for ice cream (something you should do no matter where you are) and there it was! I finally get to compare the two flavors. Here we go.
Opening the pint shows a lot of dark caramel visible right away on the top. I was expecting this! Digging in, the caramel swirl is quite good. It almost made me forget about the vanilla base. The vanilla was not bad but I think its purpose was only to prevent the caramel from reaching overdose levels. The mix was good. Next I encountered the praline pecans. They were crunchy and tasty and the praline coating was noticeable but not too thick. Some pralines overdo it on the coating, but not here. There was not as many pecans in the mix as I was expecting.
This was a very good flavor. The comparison with Baskin-Robbins reminds me of the comparison between Caramel Cone and Americone Dream flavors. There, I enjoyed the Häagen-Dazs pint better despite the fact that the Ben & Jerry's cone mix-in was better simply because of all the extra caramel. The same thing happened here. I think Baskin-Robbins' had better praline mix-ins but I enjoyed Häagen-Dazs more because they had extra caramel. I'm glad that the two implementations are different so one can decide which one they are more in the mood for on a particular day.
No comments:
Post a Comment