Braums and Blue Bell introduced several new flavors this summer. Two really stood out, and are fighting for top place in my personal ice-cream ranking system. Braums Circus Animal Cookie ice cream, and Blue Bell’s Ice Cream Cone flavor. Both carry a large dose of nostalgia, and I’ve been fighting the urge to toss the meats and veggies now filling the freezer and instead cram it with as many cartons of these two flavors as I can wedge in there. Yes, they are good.
The Braums Circus Animal Cookie is pink and white and has Mothers™ Circus Animal cookies in it. The cream part has a different texture than most ice-creams, a little closer to whipped soft-serve, but still firm and quite creamy. The base flavor is vanilla with a little strawberry and cream, at least to my taste buds. The cookies are frosted in white and pink and have colored sprinkles. You can get the cookies by the bag from various stores (Wal-Mart, several grocery chains, Amazon).
Just skip the marshmallow fluff-sauce and go straight for the ice cream.
And then Blue Bell’s Ice Cream Cone is a pean to the wonderful ice cream in a cone I used to get as a treat from convenience stores. Remember the soft vanilla ice cream with chocolate and minced peanuts on top, in a chewy sugar cone with chocolate in the tip to keep it from dripping? This is that, in a large carton.
This is it.
It is pure nostalgia for me. There’s lots of bits in it, with a thick swirl of the chocolate, chunks of cone, the minced peanuts… It takes me straight back to summer days as a kid, and the wonderful treat that was the convenience store cone-in-a-bag. It was released earlier this year, but the new flavors take a while to get this far north.
At the moment, my favorite readily accessible flavors are 1. Blue Bell Ice Cream Cone, 2. Braums Circus Animal Cookie, 3. Blue Bunny’s Bunny Tracks (Original version), 4. Cookies-n-Cream (any maker, although the creamier the better), 5. Mint Chocolate Chip, 6. Blue Bell Key Lime Pie (only available in summer, and not every summer). Alas, the little shop here that had flavors like Minnesota Pothole (dark chocolate [asphalt] with chocolate ribbon [road repair tar] chocolate chunks and nuts [potholes]) closed down. 😦
FTC Notice: I purchased these ice creams on my own and received no remuneration from the makers.
Cat Rotator's Quarterly 
Bunny Tracks about top my list, with one of the other “Track” ice creams, either Moose or Bear (I can’t remember which, would have to see the carton to recognize) vying with it. right behind that would be plain old Darigold strawberry ice cream, because they put lots of big chunks of real berries in it. Personally I believe mint and chocolate are two flavors that should never be allowed to have a long distance relationship, much less be allowed in the same carton.
And I never really cared for cones, they were an edible dish so you didn’t have wash a bowl or throw anything away when you were done, but I never liked the flavor of them, so I think I’ll pass on the ice cream with chunks of them blended in.
Minnesota Pothole (dark chocolate [asphalt] with chocolate ribbon [road repair tar] chocolate chunks and nuts [potholes])
Zarquon!! And I’ve been IN Minnesota for a couple decades now and have not seen such. I will disagree with bearcat on mint & chocolate… they go well together (for me, anyway.. yes, Andes, etc. are dangerous.) though one might argue as to ratio. As for the cones? I can see the issue of “edible ice cream containment system” rather than a genuinely pleasing experience – though I am a bit more neutral on that. That is, I would not seek such out, but it would not really put me off.
“…the wonderful ice cream in a cone I used to get as a treat from convenience stores. Remember the soft vanilla ice cream …”
I hadn’t thought about that in years. Decades really. In the little southern Indiana town near where I grew up there was a Western Auto store, just a flat square cinderblock building, with a closet-sized cinderblock room tacked on the end containing a soft-serve ice cream machine and a hot, bored attendant (very few stores had air conditioning then). I first discovered this riding into town with Dad to get some part at the Western Auto. Later — after Dad bought me a bicycle at that same Western Auto — It was a summertime errand/treat/adventure to ride my bike into town to buy one of those soft-serve ice cream cones. I don’t remember how old I was when I first started riding into town on my own, 10? My parents would probably be jailed today for letting me do that.
And yes I had to ride my bike uphill both directions! There was a creek in between, my home sat on one ridge, the town on another. So any trip to town and back was a down-up-down-up affair.
p.s. Will take a might fine flavor to knock off Butter Pecan as my personal favorite.
Peach and homemade vanilla by Blue Bell is my favorite Flavor. Alas it is a discontinued flavor.
I know this is heresy, but years ago Baskin Robbins had a black cherry ice cream, that is my all time favorite. Second is, peach and homemade vanilla… sadly, discontinued, so I’m 0 for 2… sighhh…
“I’ve been fighting the urge to toss the meats and veggies now filling the freezer and instead cram it with as many cartons of these two flavors as I can wedge in there.”
So compromise and toss the veggies.
I’m partial to tin roof, but mint chocolate chip will always be a winner for me.
I should not have taken time off from making a grocery list to read this! Retro me, glacies!
I’m evil that way 😀 “Leadeth me not into temptation… for I can find it myself.”