It's (always) ice cream season ! (Häagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's review)

In honour of Chocolate Week a couple of weeks ago, the lovely people at Häagen-Dazs sent over some vouchers so that we could try out their decadent chocolicious flavours, Belgian Chocolate and Chocolate Salted Caramel. Now, here at The Madhouse, we love chocolate and we love ice cream but we're not always totally convinced by chocolate ice cream, because it's often too rich and usually has a flavour of cocoa rather than real chocolate. This is Häagen-Dazs though, purveyors of decadent ice cream that is too good for children, so they'd get it right, surely?! 

Time to get taste-testing - it's a tough job being a blogger ! The Belgian Chocolate ice cream is made with real Belgian chocolate - you can see flecks of it all the way through the tub - and you can tell the difference because it has a smoother flavour and a darker colour than cheap chocolate ice cream. It's lovely and creamy with a strong chocolate flavour but I must be honest, it's not my favourite Häagen-Dazs variety (which has always been Macadamia Nut Brittle - hmmm !). The Chocolate Salted Caramel got a much warmer reception though, because the nuggets of salted caramel brittle and swirls of salted caramel take the edge off the richness of the chocolate flavour. The sweet-salty combination works really well and the different textures (creamy, crunchy, gooey) complement each other perfectly. Top marks, even from Madhouse Daddy, who usually turns his nose up at chocolate ice cream ! The RRP for both flavours is £4.45 for 500ml.

Our ice-cream scoffing testing wasn't over yet though because Ben & Jerry's also asked us to check out their new flavours, starting off with the rather surprising Pumpkin Cheesecake flavour, with the taste of cinnamon spiced pumpkin and cookie swirl. Now, I'll be honest, my initial reaction when I saw the new flavour was "yuck !" but, after making Pumpkin Pie last week and discovering that it's actually very tasty, I decided that it was worth investigating, especially as it's perfect for Halloween.

That's not the only new flavour on offer though - they have launched two festive flavours, the brand new Cinnamon Buns and back-by-popular-demand Minter Wonderland. Minter Wonderland is a festive concoction of mint ice cream and chocolatey chunks, while Cinnamon Buns offers layers of caramel ice cream with swirls of cinnamon spice and chunks of cinnamon bun dough. Yum !

I set off to the supermarket gaily clutching my vouchers and was gutted to see that none of the new flavours were in stock - but I wasn't going to come home empty handed so we decided to try a tub of New York Super Fudge Chunk instead, as it was a variety that we'd never tried before.

It's a totally decadent mixture of Chocolate Ice Cream with White & Dark Fudge Chunks, Pecans, Walnuts & Fudge Covered Almonds. Look at the size of those chunks ! So, did we like it?

Well, I'll let the picture speak for itself ! I still want to try the Cinnamon Buns one though because that sounds utterly divine ! (RRP for all flavours - £4.99 for 500ml)

Disclosure : We received vouchers for the products in order to write an honest review.