I know people will have some Thoughts on this subject. Let’s remember we’re all friends here and that there are no right or wrong answers. (Okay, there are some wrong answers; liquorice or bubble gum in ice cream is categorically wrong.)
Before we jump into flavours, let’s talk texture and a few ground rules for today’s question.
I looooove a good soft-serve ice cream cone. But, the flavour varieties are limited unless you get mix-ins or sundae toppings and eat it with a spoon. That is no longer ice cream. That is a full-fledged dessert and, while delicious, not quite as fun to eat. Let’s limit our answers today to ice cream that is consumed without cutlery (sorry Blizzard lovers; a topic for another day?).
In terms of what we keep at home, it’s mostly just vanilla to go alongside warm desserts. A tub can last months. This is strategic purchasing; flavoured ice cream is harder for me to resist though, in general, ice cream doesn’t call my name like many other sweet treats. All of the flavours I list below are things I only purchase when we splurge and get ice cream at a local farmer’s market.
TOP FIVE FLAVOURS
- Peanut Butter Fudge Crunch. Really, anything with peanut butter is a winner. But – and I cannot stress the importance of this point enough – peanut butter MUST BE THE DOMINANT FLAVOUR. Nothing raises my dairy ire like getting a flavour of ice cream that lists peanut butter as a main ingredient in the title, but is actually chocolate ice cream with the tiniest hint of peanut butter swirled throughout. Peanut butter deserves top billing and that is a sugar hill I will die on. (Note this particular flavour also has tiny chunks of graham cracker cookie and I’m not mad about it.)
- Mariner’s Sea Salt Caramel. According to the label: Caramel truffles drift in vanilla ice cream with swirls of sea salted caramel. It is delicious, drift or no drift.
- Mint Chocolate Chip. My husband despises mint chocolate anything, so we never have this flavour in the house (good for my blood panel, I’m sure), but every time I order it I’m reminded why it’s such a classic.
- Udderly Divine. A vanilla base with crunchy chocolate fudge and lots of chocolatey peanut butter cups. It doesn’t get top billing because peanut butter isn’t the main ingredient, but you can taste the PB clearly without chocolate overpowering the experience.
- Soft-serve vanilla. Call me plain and ordinary; I’m okay with that. Now that I think of it, soft-serve makes me feel cozy in a way hard ice cream never does…
BOTTOM FIVE
- Grapenut. I have one word – Why?
- Chocolate. Blergh. If I never eat plain chocolate ice cream again in my life that would be wonderful.
- Neapolitan. This trio of flavours is – like coarse, thin blankets – an abomination.
- Coffee. I like it hot in a cup, not cold in a cone.
- Cotton Candy. Why, for the love of all that is good, did someone decide to make ice cream that tastes like the worst candy ever? And why, for the love of all that is good, do so many children like this flavour?
I have more: Birthday Cake (sprinkles in or on my ice cream? hard pass), Bubble Gum, anything with black liquorice (in Canada we have one called Privateer’s Bounty; I’ve never tried it but I already know it’s horrible), Heavenly Hash (the flavour I grew up eating, along with Black Raspberry Cheesecake), pistachio done poorly.
Your turn. Top five/bottom five ice cream flavours. If you ever wind up in Nova Scotia in the summer, ice cream is on me…
Header photo by Rachael Gorjestani on Unsplash
Discover more from The Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
J
Rats, I was 80% finished with my comment, and then I tried to open another page to figure out how to spell spumoni and lost my comment. Sigh. Here we go again.
No ice cream conversation is complete without discussing air. Around here, you can buy ice cream that is whipped full of air, which makes it more icy and less creamy. Edys, Bryers, Dryers, and generic flavors are good examples of this. Why bother? Gross. I prefer the premium, really rich creamy stuff.
OK, top 5/bottom 5 flavors for J.
Top 5:
1. Cherry. Specifically I like Baskin Robbins Cherries Jubilee, which is cherry ice cream with chunks of cherry in it. One of our local grocery stores has a Black Cherry that I would like to try, but it comes in a big tub and no one else would eat it, so I haven’t done so. Also, it looks like it might have too much vanilla. I’m not a fan of cherry vanilla.
2. Vanilla. While I don’t like cherry vanilla, I love a good, rich vanilla. My favorite would be a French vanilla, or a vanilla gelato, or perhaps a vanilla bean. Delicious.
3. Coffee. Sorry, but I adore coffee ice cream. So rich and creamy, and made better with a few additions. I don’t generally like a bunch of stuff in my ice cream, but an exception will be made for coffee ice cream with Heath Bar, chocolate sauce, caramel sauce, and nuts. OMG, so good. Haagen Daz has a coffee ice cream bar with chocolate and almond coating that is amazing as well.
4. Haagen Daz used to have a creamsicle that was amazing. It was orange on the outside and vanilla on the inside. They replace it with a frozen yogurt version that was unpleasant. Bah.
5. Raspberry sorbet. I know, not ice cream. BUT SO GOOD.
Bottom 5:
1. Spumoni. What the even heck? So gross.
2. Chocolate with Peanut Butter in it. Sorry Elisabeth, I’m not a big fan of frozen peanut butter. It’s the texture, not the taste. Peanut butter flavored ice cream perhaps, but not chunks of peanut butter.
3. Chocolate with chunks of brownie. The only chunks of anything that belong in MY ice cream are nuts and perhaps a Heath Bar. I do like plain chocolate, though.
4. Bubble gum. I think this is just something that is fun for kids, not something anyone actually enjoys.
5. Cotton candy. Again, fun for kids, not delicious.
Long ago, the company I worked for was in a business park where every summer, the manager of the park would send the ice cream truck around every Thursday afternoon, and everyone would get free ice cream. It was so fun and delicious. That’s where my knowledge of the Haagen Daz coffee almond bars came from. Yum.
Elisabeth
Spumoni sounds unpleasant; I’ve never had it, but mix ins and all those different flavours sound like it would be a hard pass for me!
Oh, I do NOT like cherry vanilla or cherry-flavoured ice cream. But I love fresh cherries and Cherry Cheesecake is my favourite dessert. My dad absolute adores cherry ice cream, but he’s the only one in my family to eat it. He buys it occasionally and just picks away at it until it’s gone. Zero temptation for anyone else.
I’ll admit that coffee ice cream bar sounds delicious!
I hate creamsicles, so I’m not sure how I’d feel about ice cream of the same ilk…?
Jan Coates
Homemade pistachio on waffle cone, ice cream shop in Lunenburg – try it! Otherwise, anything with chocolate, but orange pineapple is my go-to, I think because it was my mum’s favourite. She also loved Grapenut (which I remember reading was invented at the hotel in Wolfville that’s now Landmark East – random!)
Elisabeth
If I’m in Lunenburg this summer, I will search out that pistachio ice cream (I had pistachio gelato our last day in Spain and it was INCREDIBLE; done right, it’s hard to beat).
Orange pineapple would get a hard pass from me; I did not know that story about Grapenut ice cream!!! How fascinating.
Melissa
Oh, we just came home from Noosa where we made sure to go to our favourite gelato place before we dropped the rental car off.
Top 5: Various salted caramel variations. I had a salted caramel honeycomb one at Noosa this time and it was good. But generally anything salted caramel is good. Good pistachio, this is new one for me and I would only get where I’m sure it’s going to be made from nuts not flavouring. Variations on chocolate and hazelnut. I had a fabulous lemon curd ice cream down in Hobart and last year at Noosa I had a passion fruit curd and meringue. I do love a good chocolate ice cream as well.
Bottom 5: I agree with you on liquorice, bubblegum and I’d include rainbow flavours. Pistachio with imitation flavouring. Rum and Raison.
There used to be a connoisseur flavour you could buy at the supermarket called choc honey nougat and it was very yummy. I was also a bit partial to the chocolate blood orange magnums. I only have ice cream very occasionally now though.
Elisabeth
Salted caramel is good in basically every capacity!
I would never, ever get rum and raisin, but L got something close to this flavour in gelato and he LOVED it and it was delicious! I was shocked because of the heavy spicing, but he was a huge fan!
JMH
I have never heard of Grapenut or Licorice ice cream. Ew.
My favs:
1) Grassshoper Pie – mint chocolate chip with fudge chunks. The best ever.
2) Strawberry – a verrrry close second. With or without strawberry chunks is fine but it has to have a bold fresh strawberry flavor.
3) Pistachio gelato – high quality only, but nothing compares
4) Sea salt caramel gelato – this is good no matter the quality haha
5) Any fresh fruit sorbetto – I will always get this while traveling because dairy isn’t my best friend. So refreshing on a hot day!
I steer clear of any ice cream geared at kids that’s super sweet – you listed some good baddies above.
Elisabeth
Grasshopper pie; what a hilarious name for mint chocolate chip but I can see it fitting well!
High-quality for pistachio is a must! Bad pistachio is about the worst flavour possible; excellent is mind-blowing.
Lisa’s Yarns
What in the world is grapenut? Does it what bits of the cereal? I need more info – this is not a thing in the states!
Top 5:
1. Moose tracks – I cannot resist this so it lasts a very short amount of time when we have it in our freezer. It has fudge and caramel swirls and peanut butter cups.
2. Salted caramel
3. Chocolate (can we still be friends?)
4. Very high quality vanilla
5. Mint chocolate chip (we never buy this so I only get it from an ice cream shop)
Bottom 5:
1. Bubblegum – gross. I think no adult eats this.
2. Neapolitan
3. Strawberry or other fruit flavors. The exception is a really good raspberry chocolate chip that our local ice cream shop makes. Otherwise – no thank you!!
I can’t think of any other flavors I don’t like!
Elisabeth
Yes, it was made by adding GrapeNuts cereal in to ice cream. It’s just…ugh. I don’t know if they sell it anymore, but as a kid we would occasionally have it at home.
Plain chocolate (or triple chocolate, or chocolate with more chocolate chunks) is just…too much. But we’re agreed on having peanut butter cups in ice cream. So amazing, right?
Nicole MacPherson
Whomp whomp, I can’t eat regular ice cream, so my choices in the extremely rare circumstance in which I am in an ice cream shop are sorbet, which I do like a lot, particularly raspberry. There are some really good non-dairy ones now, the best are made of coconut or cashew milk.
Elisabeth
Being vegan or having a dairy allergy or intolerance make this an unfair question. But I’ve also had some non-dairy ice creams and they are getting much better (just so darn expensive; sigh).
Marcia from OrganisingQueen
My absolute favourite is vanilla…… yum yum – and then I do like a nice lemon or orange or pineapple (all things I love in desserts so no surprise).
I do not like chocolate either but…. I hate peanut butter ice-cream 😉
Elisabeth
You hate peanut butter ice cream??! (Do you like peanut butter in other contexts, I wonder?)
I’m a pass on fruit flavours in ice cream, but they are very popular with adults! Maybe I have a rather infantile palate?!
I love vanilla with someone else, but would never, ever get hard ice cream in plain vanilla. But soft-serve vanilla is one of my favourites. Weird, right?
Birchie
I’m with you that plain vanilla ice cream just isn’t interesting enough to splurge on. My husband doesn’t like “fancy” ice cream so plain vanilla is all that we keep in the house on a regular basis.
My all time favorite ice cream dates back to childhood: Baskin Robbins pralines & cream. I hardly ever have it and it’s probably not even that good, but it was the best ice cream around when I was a kid. I also have a soft spot for spumoni. From there we’re looking at something caramel.
My bottoms are fruit flavors…I like fruit and I like ice cream but I don’t care for the two together.
Elisabeth
Plain vanilla at home is ONLY for “adding-to”: either a homemade chocolate sauce and crushed up cookies or, more likely, with something like cake. Though I don’t seem to make a lot of desserts these days so a tub lasts a long time! If it was flavoured ice cream, I suspect that would be a different story.
I also like fruit and ice cream, but not together!
Jenny
Grapenut ice cream? Ew!!! Well, I have a few opinions, but the truth is I hardly eat ice cream anymore (I know- so sad.) There are LOTS of vegan flavors now, and depending on where you go, there are even vegan options in ice cream places (not just in the grocery store.) But then I stopped eating sugar (SIGH.) There is a brand of vegan ice cream that has no sugar, and I eat it every once in a while. But it has erythritol, which sometimes upsets my stomach. I know- by this point, you’re feeling very, very sorry for me. On the occasions when I do eat the sugar free ice cream, I always exclaim “Why is ice cream SO GOOD??!!!” One of the things I love in an ice cream flavor is something crunchy- so your top pick of the peanut butter fudge CRUNCH sounds delicious.
Elisabeth
Yes! Crunch in just about everything is a must (salad, ice cream, etc). Anything that involves peanut butter – as long as it’s done “well” – gets automatic bonus points from me!
J
I recently tried pistachio gelato, and I THINK it was a good store brand, and it was nice, but not amazing. What would have made it better to me is if they had crunchy pistachios in it, so I will try that next time. When I was in Nice a couple of years ago, I ALMOST bought a scoop of pistachio gelato, but I was tempted by some fruit flavor or another. I loved what I got, but I kind of wish I had tried the pistachio, because that seems like such a perfect place to try it, being so close to Italy.
Elisabeth
The pistachio gelato I had in Spain was AMAZING, but didn’t actually have any chunks. It was just such an authentic pistachio flavour. I read a whole bunch of Google Reviews about this particular place and pistachio so I had to go for it; under normal circumstances, I would avoid the flavour completely because most pistachio things I’ve had (aside from good ol’ nuts) have been a letdown.
This just gives you an excuse to go back to Europe 🙂
Michelle G.
Ice cream is a good topic!! I’m mainly a vanilla fan – good quality vanilla please. It’s smooth, it’s comforting, it’s perfection. My sister-in-law makes homemade vanilla ice cream, and there’s nothing better in the world! And soft serve vanilla is wonderful too! I’m with you on bubblegum, licorice, cotton candy flavors. Ugh. I do love cookies & cream though. That’s pretty much the only flavored ice cream I enjoy.
Elisabeth
Homemade ice cream! Wow. Gold stars to her!!
Cookies and cream is a classic. I would never go out of my way to have it, but it’s almost as good as vanilla with things like chocolate cake.
Years ago we had someone visiting from a foreign country and she LOVED the Cookies and Cream ice cream we had so much she went to the store to buy more for our freezer and had a large bowl every evening while she was visiting.
Joy
I think we’re ice cream twins, except I like the occasional coffee ice cream – have you ever had an affogato? Um…yum. Also, if you haven’t already you should try Breyers mint chip.
Elisabeth
I haven’t had – or heard of – an affogato.
I think I’ve had Breyers mint chip…but John is so anti-mint chip I’d never get a whole tub of it. Let me know next time you have some and I’ll swing by for a taste 🙂
mbmom11
Top 5 : chocolate chip, chocolate chip cookie dough, vanilla, fudge ripple, and the occasional chocolate soft serve cone.
Bottom >5: cake batter ( so cloyingly awful), anything with nuts, anything with fruit, green tea ( looked unpleasant, tasted worse), and mint chocolate chip.
Yes, I have the palate of a picky toddler.
Elisabeth
Chocolate chip cookie dough was one of my FAVS from childhood.
Cake batter sounds promising, but I can also imagine it going wrong.
I don’t think you have a picky palate at all! Some things just taste better than others in ice cream flavours!
Sophie
Ooh this is a good topic.
Top 5:
1. Some kind of butterscotch toffee crunch combo
2. Sea salt caramel
3. Boysenberry vanilla swirl (not sure if this is in North America, but it is SO good. Superior to every other berry flavour!)
4. Chocolate chip Cookie dough
5. Can I say lemon gelato (for something fresh?? Haha). If not then peppermint chocolate chip,
Bottom 5:
1. Pistachio (I know, but I don’t like the nut!)
2. Anything Cherry
3. Plain chocolate
4/5 Any of those other bubblegum/licorice, neopolitana flavours you mentioned! I’m with you on those.
Elisabeth
Toffee crunch – yum!
I’ve never heard of boysenberry here in North America, but I’ll be sure to try it the next time I’m in Australia…might be a while?
San
Controversial topic indeed… and I think I am an outlier over all. I am NOT in the fancy new flavors at all, I am a ‘traditional’ kinda gal. I prefer the straightforward simple ice cream flavors. If a vanilla ice cream tastes good, you know it’s quality.
My top five:
– chocolate chip
– mint chocolate chip
– vanilla bean
– yogurt (plain, tart)
– lemon (although that might count as sorbet)
Bottom five:
– strawberry (although I love strawberries)
– coffee
– cookie dough
– anything with too much stuff in it (when I can’t decipher what all the flavors are)
-… anything ‘weird’ LOL (like grapenut or licorice.. what in the world?)
Elisabeth
Good point on the vanilla – good vanilla is delicious, it’s just never something I would order out. But maybe I should!
I also agree that some ice cream has too many things – textures/flavours – which end up “competing” with each other!
SHU
You had me until coffee being on the bad list. Love coffee ice cream! Esp with chocolate chips. Yummmmm. But I am sooo with you on peanut butter needing to be front and center if on the labels. So disappointing otherwise!!
Elisabeth
To be fair I’ve never had coffee with chocolate chips; maybe that would change my mind?
Shelly
1. Chocolate and peanut butter
2. Chocolate chip cookie dough
3. Chocolate gelato (done right chocolate by itself is glorious)
4. Getting a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of boysenberry gelato. I have only ever seen boysenberry in my part of Canada at a gelato shop.
5. Chocolate and vanilla soft serve twist.
I may have a chocolate problem.
I had a great Aunt who stocked Spumoni – so gross. I also agree with the bubble gum, cotton candy and birthday cake ice creams (which my daughter loves) are all out.
And I’m hoping I don’t get blocked for saying no to mint chocolate chip.
I find mint overpowers the flavours too much.
Elisabeth
My husband is THERE WITH YOU on the mint chocolate chip. He despises it.
I’m sensing a theme in your answers. I know so many people who love chocolate ice cream it just…doesn’t do it for me. I think I find it a bit too intense?
I had chocolate and vanilla twist last week and I was remarking to John after how I don’t like chocolate ice cream and he was like: THEN WHY DID YOU GET THE TWIST? Fair point…why did I?
My kids went through a short but very intense either bubble gum OR birthday cake phase. They’ve moved on, but the Bubble Gum was especially gross because they’d have a wad of nasty gum afterward. But, I don’t think I made comments – ice cream is meant to be enjoyed and part of the joy is getting to pick your flavour – but I definitely died a little on the inside.
Joy
You have the best lists, Elisabeth!
Top 5:
Black raspberry chocolate
Coffee with chocolate chips
Heath crunch
Creamsicle
Pistachio with pistachio nuts (pure nostalgia for the really good stuff Friendly’s made back in the day and never to be seen again. Sob…)
Bottom 5:
Plain vanilla
Cookie dough
Neapolitan
Peanut butter
Bubblegum
Elisabeth
Thank you! Glad you enjoy these little roundups. They’re silly and meaningless…but fun. So I guess that makes them meaningful since we could all use more fun in our lives, right?!
I think I would love Heath crunch (which is like Skor here in Canada, I think?), but I suspect I would have a very, very hard time getting being Creamsicle flavour.
Agreed on the Neapolitan. Yuck (to me; I know it’s someone else’s yum).
Stephany
I am very weird about ice cream – like you, it’s the one thing I can keep in my house that I’m not super tempted by! I can keep a half-gallon in my freezer for a really long time. Favorite flavors include this Publix-specific flavor called chocolate trinity (chocolate ice cream with fudge swirls and fudge chips; SO good), chocolate chip cookie dough, and double fudge brownie. I like my ice cream with a little something in it, I guess. Plain chocolate or vanilla are too boring for me, lol.
Elisabeth
Plain chocolate would NEVER tempt me. I could seriously have a tub in my freezer for years and never look at it twice.
I love sweets (and salty things), but for some reason plain ice cream just holds zero appeal. To be honest, even a really nice ice cream in my freezer isn’t overly tempting unless someone else wants it. But if I was home alone and wanted to indulge, I would never go for ice cream. I think, for me, ice cream is all about the ambience? So either getting it “out” somewhere as a treat OR having it alongside something special (like a warm dessert).
Tobia | craftaliciousme
I had to google Grapenut and spumoni. I still am not sure what it is. But I probably don’t eat it.
Top 5
– ben & Jerry peanutbutter or my homemade version
– hagendasz salted carmel
– coconut
– dark, rich chocolate (best combined with above coconut)
– mint ice cream current discovery alternatively lemon basil
– bonus: matcha
Worst ever
– banana
– stawberry
– rasperry
– melon
– vanilla
Elisabeth
Wait, you make homemade ice cream?!
Kyria @ Travel Spot
So I am way, WAAY behind and I am scrolling through your posts on my feed and I see….ICE CREAM! So I had to get on board, even though I am so, SO late. First of all, Grape Nut? My Dad used to buy that cereal and I hated it as a kid (only good if you put a bunch of sugar and then let it soak/soften in the milk for a while.) It reminds me of bowel movements, as in if you want a BM, you eat grape nuts. TMI? Sorry!
I will eat any ice cream; however, I am not really into ones with lots of different weird chunks of things. I prefer the classics, maybe ONE add in max, and a solid basic flavor. Vanilla is still my most chosen flavor, and usually just plain, but maybe with slivered almonds or chocolate chips if an add in is necessary. So that brings me to my second favorites (a tie), chocolate chip and mint chocolate chip. I think Canadians like mint chocolate chip more than Americans, as it is always the flavor that is sold out when there is a sale at Sav-On. Fourth would be coconut, but only from a real creamery/dairy; I have never had it from a box. Also, the local ice cream shop in San Francisco used to do seasonal flavors which were great and included Egg Nog, Thai Tea, Pumpkin and Ube (a root vegetable). All were delicious.
My least favorite would be soft serve – sorry, that is not ice cream in my book and reminds me of McDonalds to be honest, and anything with lots of swirls and chunks and lumps. So I am with you re bubble gum, but could also add Neapolitan and Spumoni to the list, or any that are multiple flavors in one box. That is just weird. A caveat to the chunks is when it is homemade and the chunks are fresh fruit. We used to make homemade strawberry (churned by hand) and it was divine!
There is one here that I have never seen before, Tiger Tail, which looks kind of gross. Do you like it?
Elisabeth
I am laughing over the TMI; I’ve never had the cereal and only had the ice cream a handful of times until I realized it’s like the worst thing ever. Ugh.
I haven’t had homemade ice cream in a while, but there is a place on my radar en route to/from my parents that makes artisanal ice cream. I took the kids last year and it was DIVINE.
I do not like Tiger Tail (I haven’t had it but I can already tell you I’d hate it).
Anne
Elisabeth, ice cream is a year-round endeavor. This is why we have heat! And magic bags! And blankets! I love ice cream so, so much. Must be growing up in PA and living in WI. 😉
Some agreement, some vehement disagreement… here we go:
Top 5
1. Vanilla peanut butter ripple. Far superior to chocolate peanut butter ripple, and to anything that randomly throws in other stuff. Alas, it is absent from all creameries and ice cream shops in WI. I’ve checked. 🙁
2. Plain hard-pack vanilla, not soft-serve. Better if it’s vanilla bean, more common on the east coast.
3. I am with you on mint-chocolate BUT prefer it with chocolate *cookies* not chips. That said, I’ll still eat it with chips.
4. Coffee. Again, we diverge. A good, smooth coffee ice cream is *chef’s kiss*. No add-in’s please. (Are you sensing a theme?)
5. Hm. Um. I think I’d have to go with plain chocolate here. I Am Boring, apparently. But I OWN my boring-ness!
Bottom 5
1. Bubble gum
2. Blue moon, an incomprehensible combination that no one in the midwest understands and everyone eats. Why? It’s BRIGHT BLUE. Like, fluorescent.
3. Licorice would be awful, so though I’ve never encountered it, no, just no.
4. Anything with nuts. No butter pecan or (shudder) maple walnut. Just, no.
I don’t think I have a 5th? Because if a place doesn’t have a plain vanilla, then, it’s not an ice cream place. 😉 (In that situation, I’d probably go for soft-serve or sorbet, if available.)