Snack Review: New Zealand Natural Ice Cream

I’m kind of a strange choice when it comes to reviewing ice cream. You see, after jaw surgery in my teens, I was left with two small metal plates in my upper jaw. You know how painful metal can be to touch when it’s cold outside? That’s kind of how my jaw starts to feel after too much ice cream. So, I eat it sparingly, and when I do eat it, I want it to be good.

Now we come to the question of what exactly entails good ice cream. If you were to set a dish of Häagen-Dazs ice cream next to a dish of generic grocery store brand ice cream, I will inevitably choose the generic brand. I can’t explain it, but I like cheap stuff. New Zealand Natural Ice Cream is NOT cheap. With that in mind, how would this premium ice cream fare in my freezer?

Turns out, it’s pretty darn good! I got five flavors to review, including Vanilla, Cookies & Cream, Chocolate Ecstasy, Hokey Pokey, and Mango Sorbet. Here’s the rundown:

Chocolate Ecstasy: Delicious chocolate flavored ice cream with a river of rich chocolate fudge. Dude, can they make this sound any better? When I first open the cup, I can see the swirls of fudge going through the lighter-colored ice cream. Tasting reveals a very, very rich chocolate flavor, and the bites that include the fudge river are definitely richer than the others. Yum!

Hokey Pokey: Crunchy butterscotch pieces hiding in creamy butterscotch flavored ice cream. When it comes to butterscotch, I tend to prefer it in syrup rather than crunchy pieces form. But, I’m willing to try almost any ice cream, so I dove right in. The ice cream itself isn’t the orange that it appears on the label; it’s actually white with melty bits of butterscotch hiding throughout. The flavor isn’t at all overpowering, which was one of my concerns with this variety. In fact, I think this one may be my favorite of all. The “crunchy” pieces of butterscotch seem to actually be little wells of melted butterscotch, but that’s absolutely fine by me - nothing to get stuck in my teeth!

Cookies & Cream: Chunks of dark chocolate cookies in a classic creamy vanilla flavored ice cream. Cookies & Cream is another of those flavors I never think I’ll like that much, but it always turns out I do. This is no exception. Despite having dark chocolate (which I’ve never really liked), this has an excellent cookies & cream flavor. The cookie pieces are mostly tiny and soft, and they pervade the entire container. In fact, the vanilla ice cream is nearly brown from the amount of cookies it contains.

Vanilla Classic: Creamy and dreamy vanilla flavored ice cream. A true classic. This was the only real disappointment of the bunch. For some reason, there was almost a floral taste to this, and I didn’t love it. I suppose it’s possible this is a more accurate vanilla flavor compared to my beloved generic store brand, but either way it’s not my cup of tea. For someone who loves premium/gourmet ice cream, though, I bet this would be a hit.

Mango Sorbet: Made from the finest mangoes. Fat free & delicious. This is another one that came completely out of left field. I normally find sorbets to be way too sweet and didn’t think that I’d like this one at all. Boy, was I wrong! I love it! To qualify this, I have to admit that I have never, ever tasted a real mango. I have no idea if this tastes like mango or not, but whatever it tastes like, it’s darn good. The second ingredient is mango puree, so I’m willing to bet it’s a close match. I will say that it is sweet (certainly sweeter than the regular ice creams), but it’s still really good and a nice alternative to full-fat ice cream.

New Zealand Natural has two stores in California with more on the way. It seems that they may have stopped their shipping service, so you may be out of luck if you aren’t in the California area (a shame - dry ice is fun to play with!), but if you are, you should go check them out. They have lots of other flavors I didn’t get a chance to try!

• New Zealand Natural Website

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