Coconut Bliss Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream
May 26, 2011
Taste Tester and I just returned home from a lovely long weekend spent with family and friends in Omaha, NE. If you haven’t been, it’s a nice city packed with a lot of good eats. What made our dining experiences throughout the weekend interesting was that our foodie family is made up of gluten-free, vegan and/or nut-allergic members. As you might imagine, eating together was a curious meeting of tastes and dietary minefields.
The youngest member of the family is a chocolate peanut butter-loving vegan who told me that I absolutely had to try Coconut Bliss Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream. This was not the first time the brand had been recommended to me, so upon returning home, I immediately ran to our nearest health food store and grabbed a pint. Aside from satisfying a craving, it served as a convenient means to procrastinate on unpacking. Score!
This was my first experience with non-dairy ice cream and despite the contradiction of that description, it’s surprisingly good. Considering the heavy flavors that are involved, it’s also surprisingly light. As a coconut lover, I liked the added addition of coconut to my usual chocolate and peanut butter-preferred combo. Turns out, they are very complimentary. The chocolate could have been a bit more rich, but where it lacked, the tasty peanut butter picked up the slack. There were healthy chunks of nutty, not-too-sweet, natural pb throughout each spoonful.
The texture of the ice cream was pretty normal for the most part, but certain bites could be described as maybe a little “foamy” to the tongue? I liked it a lot, but it’s not a normal characteristic of ice cream and might annoy a die-hard ice cream eater. I live with one, so I know you’re out there. [I’m making a Clint Eastwood-inspired glare at the computer screen right now.]
The side of the container advises you to let it sit for 5-10 minutes before serving. Common sense perhaps, but for impatient types like me, this is a difficult and often-ignored step. Luckily, that’s about how long it takes to do a little blog photo-shoot, so by the time I was done, it was at optimal semi-melty ice cream-enjoying temperature. Mmmm.
I think it’s safe to say that Operation Non-Dairy Ice Cream was a success! This ice cream pretty much satisfies any of the latest dietary restrictions / trends (gluten-free, soy-free, vegan, organic, non-dairy, low glycemic) - barring a peanut allergy of course - and yet it’s still good enough to satisfy your average “eater of anything” (that term sounded nicer than “garbage disposal”), like myself. So pick up a pint of Coconut Bliss Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream and grab a spoon. If you like it, the Cappuccino also came highly recommended.
Guess I’ll go unpack now. Or maybe have a second helping…