Dreyer's - Rolo

Rolo - Vanilla Ice Cream with a Caramel Swirl and Mini-Rolo Candy Pieces

 

Today I return to Dreyer's for another one of their convenience-store line of flavors.  Flavors that couple with a popular name brand item such as a candy bar or a cereal.  These are discount flavors but I have had luck with these before (see my reviews for Twinkies and Cinnamon Toast Crunch).  Today's flavor is Rolo -- the caramel-filled frustum-shaped chocolates that come in a roll.  I bought today's flavor at a local Speedway station.  Rolo candy was popular enough in my youth to have a TV jingle associated with it. that were more popular in my youth.  It seems like an ideal mix-in.  I've seen in used before in a Trick or Treat Halloween flavor from Izzy's scoop shop days.  Other brands also use a Rolo-like mix-ins which is like a mini-peanut butter cup with caramel inside instead of peanut butter.  So, let's check it out!

Removing the lid, I see the white color of the vanilla base along with one of the caramel swirls and a hint of one of the Rolo pieces.  Digging in, the vanilla ice cream is a bit mediocre.  The texture is a bit icy.  The caramel swirl I see on the top is not as prevalent as I did further below.  The Rolo pieces are mini in size.  Refer to the photos below, a few of them can fit inside a single spoonful.  These are quite good as expected.  Quite chocolatey and delivers tasty caramel when you bit into them.

I think my luck may have run out with my convenience-store brand discount ice cream.  The Twinkies and Cinnamon Toast Crunch flavors were much better than I expected, but today's flavor reminded me that convenience store lines might often have convenience store quality.  The rolo mix-ins were quite good, but the base ice cream is where I noticed the lower quality.  It was a little on the icy side.  I think they used a lower butterfat mixture for this.  Still, it is cheap and if you really love Rolo, you may still enjoy it.

Dreyers - Cinnamon Toast Crunch

Cinnamon Toast Crunch - Cinnamon Light Ice Cream with a Cinnamon Graham Swirl and Cereal Pieces

I was at the local Speedway gas station the other day and found some fun novelty flavors using name-brand mix-ins in the freezer case.  I looked at the label and Dreyer's is the one making the ice cream.  I had done a similar pint before with their collaboration with Hostess a few years ago so I figured I would try a try a couple of more of these.  Today's flavor is Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  So, an ice cream based on the cereal from General Mills.  I always liked this flavor when I was a kid.  Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Honey Nut Cheerios were the most sugary of the cereals that my parents would buy when I was a kid, so it was always a treat having it.  Here, the base ice cream is a "light" cinnamon ice cream and there is a swirl of cinnamon graham cracker and some cereal pieces.  I did not realize that this would be a 'light' ice cream.  Checking the container, there are only 450 calories in the entire pint. Interesting!  Well, let's check it out.

Opening the lid, I see the 14-ounce container has some air pockets on top -- that's one way to keep the calorie count down -- and I see some of the graham swirls right away.  Digging in, the cinnamon is good.  It is not a strong or hot cinnamon, but it matches the flavor of the cereal quite well.  The fact that it is light does not bother me at all.  It is not at all thick, but it is quite reminiscent of cereal milk.  The cinnamon graham swirl tastes quite good and provides a bit of gritty texture into the mix.  The cereal pieces were not that distinct from the swirl which is fine because it was all quite delicious.

This was a fun and surprisingly good light ice cream based on Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal from Dreyer's.  I don't usually survey all the light-ice-cream offerings in the freezer case so I don't know how this compares to other brands but this tasted quite good.  It's kind of weird thinking of this as a light ice cream because this cereal was the most sugary that my parents would buy, but I guess breakfast and dessert have different healthiness scales.  This is cheap convenience store ice cream, but it is quite good for that.  Check it out.

Dreyer's - Hostess Twinkies Ice Cream

Twinkies Ice Cream - Sweet Butter Cream Ice Cream with Sponge Cake Pieces and a Frosting Swirl

Today we try something different.  I always check the freezer case whenever I visit any store.  That includes 7-11 where lately pints of Twinkies Ice Cream has been catching my eye.  Normally, I do not review all the novelty ice creams with brand tie-ins -- there seems to be one associated with every candy bar -- but Twinkies occupy a very fun, nostalgic and kitschy part of my memory banks.  As a kid, we often had a box of Twinkies in the freezer.  My mother used to keep the box in the freezer to make them last longer -- which didn't make much sense because with four of us kids, the box never last longer than a couple of days.  It does mean that I am used to eating them frozen. 

Twinkies were first created in the 1930s by the Continental Baking Company -- the makers "Wonder Bread".  Continental already made a cream-filled strawberry shortcake product.  One of Continental's, James Dewar, noticed that the machinery used for making that product sat idle when strawberries were not in season, so he came up with product which used a banana filling and called it the "Twinkie" and they were sold under Continental's Hostess Brand which also included the famous CupCake.  Banana rations during WWII forced them to switch to vanilla cream -- a switch that was so popular that they did not switch back.  It become one of the most popular snack cakes of the post-war era.  The original company went bankrupt in 2012 but a product as iconic as the Twinkie could not be kept away from the American public.  It lives on as as a brand and the company which manages this brand trades on the stock market under the ticker symbol TWNK.  Here, they have partnered with Nestle Dreyer's (Edy's) Ice Cream to convert the Twinkie into an ice cream flavor.

On to the ice cream!  Before I even opened the pint, I notice that it is quite light.  They do use a "14-ounce pint" to cut costs like Baskin-Robbins and Häagen-Dazs do, but it seems even lighter than that.  I examined the packaging and there are only 160 calories per 4-ounce (quarter-pint) serving.  The ice creams I normally eat are usually around 250 calories, sometimes as high as 300.  Then I checked the ingredient list and they use skim milk.  Could Twinkies Ice Cream be healthy?  They still label it as ice cream, though.  The FDA requires a certain milkfat content for that, otherwise you have to call it 'frozen dessert'.  Opening the lid, the top of the pint is yellow -- Twinkie colored, so far so good.  Digging my spoon in, the ice cream is quite sweet.  There are yellow cake pieces generously distributed throughout the pint which stayed soft in the frozen ice cream.  The frosting swirl simulated the creme filling and was also quite good.  It did indeed taste like a Twinkie!

I was expecting this pint to be a total disaster which I would ironically enjoy anyways, but it was actually pretty good.   The one thing to look out for is the sweetness.  It did build up over the course of the pint and left me with a bit of a headache for a while afterwards.  I have eaten a lot of pints of ice cream in the past couple of years and that normally does not happen.  It reminded me of eating cupcakes.  Fun while you are eating them, but don't overdo it.  Maybe Twinkies snack cakes are the same way.