Breyers Fried Ice Cream

Okay, snackers: what’s your favorite carnival food? Are you drawn to the fleeting, airy sweetness of cotton candy? Does the gums-binding goodness of saltwater taffy call your name? Maybe you flip over funnel cakes.

I’m personally quite a fan of churros. Eggy and rich at their centers, with a perfectly warm, crisp shell rolled in sugar, cinnamon and honey, the long Mexican pastries manage to satisfy several of my cravings at once. They’re probably laden with about 700 calories apiece, but somehow I manage to forgive myself for occasional consumption. After all, they’re doused in cinnamon, and everyone knows that counteracts the negative effects of the sugar, or… something like that.

In any case, thanks to some free ice cream coupons, I’ve managed to find something which, for my fellow churro fans, might approach heaven in a half-gallon tub. Named Breyer’s Overload Fried Ice Cream, this wonderfully creamy treat manages to push all the same snacking buttons as a churro, and at a fraction of the caloric cost… assuming you can limit yourself to a few servings per sitting, that is.

If you’re hungry when you reach this ice cream, that may prove problematic. Breyer’s Overload Fried Ice Cream is incredibly addictive. The box describes the flavor as “Cinnamon Caramel flavored Light Ice Cream with a Honey Caramel Swirl & Cinnamon Sugar Tostada Pieces.”

While that description will be enough to bring this ice cream from the store freezers to those in many homes, the actual taste, consistency, and quality of the product will ensure it doesn’t stay there for long. All flavors described on the box - honey, caramel and cinnamon - are present and pronounced, even when the product is at its closest-to-frozen (a frequent flavor-killer in ice cream). They’re even nicer a few minutes removed from the freezer, as the cream’s consistency begins to soften.

Aside from the unusually accurate and distinctive flavors, the first thing I noticed about Breyer’s Fried Ice Cream was its super-creaminess. This is near the same level found in super-premium brands like Ben & Jerry’s. For a supposed “light ice cream,” this sweet, cinnamon-y blend melts quickly. It seems to lack the gums and thickening agents of so many “light” ice cream options. I can only assume that its 140-per-half-cup calorie count is due to its air content. The stuff’s not ultra-dense, but with the creamy texture and intensity of the flavor, that’s not something most people will notice.

While, to me, the ice cream’s base represents the custard-like interior of a churro, the swirls of honey-caramel throughout remind me of what churros are topped with - or, more accurately, dipped into after removal form the deep-fat fryer but before their final cinnamon-sugar bath. Taken separately from their surroundings, the ribbons are almost too sweet. Thankfully, they’re neither over- nor under-abundant in the mixture, and bring the sugar-level up to the incredibly sweet but not-intolerably-so level of a churro (or, I suppose, of fried ice cream - this flavor’s namesake).

In all honesty, the little cinnamon-sugar tostada pieces strewn throughout this blend add little to the overall flavor. They do, however, provide the necessary textural contrast for something billing itself as “Fried Ice Cream.” Although they aren’t quite reminiscent of a fresh-fried churro’s shell, their crunchiness adds a fun, “snappy” element of unpredictability to each bite.

On my personal ratings scale fro frozen desserts, I’d rank Breyer’s Overload Fried Ice Cream a solid 9. The only ways to improve upon this, in my mind, would be for Ben and Jerry’s or Haagen-Dazs to release a version. Any creamy, intensely-flavored ice cream capable of bringing to mind a sinful pastry treat for only a fraction of the consequence is fine in my book!