Limited Edition, But Enough For Us To Wish It Would Stay: Haagen-Dazs Peppermint Bark Ice Cream!

The Good: Good flavor, Good ingredients, Limited edition nature
The Bad: More expensive than other ice creams, Not terribly healthy! White chocolate flavor is very mild.
The Basics: Haagen-Dazs Peppermint Bark Ice cream is a limited edition flavor that is worth hunting down, even if the white chocolate portion of it is a bit underwhelming.


With the onset of summer, my local grocery store is doing clearance on its winter flavors of ice cream. That has allowed me to pick up some of the premium ice creams I did not have during the winter. So, I picked up the Haagen-Dazs Peppermint Bark ice cream recently and I was pretty psyched to be able to try a new (to me) premium peppermint ice cream. I probably would have loved the ice cream . . . had I only not looked at what it was supposed to be. The peppermint and peppermint bark portions of the ice cream are delightful, but the base flavor is supposed to be white chocolate, but it is not all that potent a flavor.

Unfortunately, for those hoping this limited edition flavor might endure in the standard line-up, this flavor seems to be a seasonal flavor and I found myself wishing it would stick around.

Basics

Haagen-Dazs Ice cream comes in a 14 oz. (almost) pint container. The Peppermint Bark Ice cream is a smooth ice cream with chunks of Peppermint Bark in it. Peppermint Bark is mostly smooth with chunks in every two to three bites. This ice cream has a diverse flavor based on what is in the bites one gets.

At (locally) $5.99 a pint, the Haagen-Dazs Ice cream is an expensive frozen dairy dessert. That I found it on clearance for $2.99 was the primary reason I bought the pint of ice cream, though I am a huge fan of peppermint ice cream.

Ease Of Preparation

The Peppermint Bark Ice Cream is a simple ice cream with only one additive. As an ice cream, preparation is ridiculously simple: one need only open the top of the container, remove the safety seal from the top, scoop out a half cup and consume! There is no trick to preparing or eating the Peppermint Bark Ice Cream!

Taste

Haagen-Dazs Peppermint Bark ice cream has a surprisingly mild scent to it. In fact, for a minty ice cream, this might have one of the least-distinctive aromas to it. The result is no real olfactory foreshadowing of the flavor of the ice cream before one tastes it.

On the tongue, the Peppermint Bark ice cream is exceptionally mild. While the container claims that the ice cream base is white chocolate, it has a generic creamy quality that it almost flavorless. The ice cream itself, in the bites that do not contain the peppermint pieces, has an aftertaste akin to white chocolate, but is mostly a sweet, creamy flavor that is indistinct and more like a bland vanilla flavor than white chocolate. That said, the chunks of peppermint swirled fairly consistently into the ice cream are chocolatey and completely embody the peppermint one would expect of candy canes. That flavor is cooling and delicious, though the pieces are a little chewier than one might think.

The Peppermint Bark Ice Cream leaves a cool, minty flavor in one’s mouth for about five minutes after it is consumed.

This Ice cream has a slight dry aftertaste to it. The aftertaste lasts for about ten minutes.

Nutrition

The Haagen-Dazs Peppermint Bark Ice cream is a comparatively thick ice cream with a firm, obvious additive. The 14 oz. container represents three and a half half-cup servings. In the half-cup serving, there are 280 calories, 140 of which are from fat. The sixteen grams of fat represent 25% of the RDA of fat, with 50% of one’s RDA of saturated fat coming in the 10 grams of saturated fat in this ice cream. One serving has 75 mg of cholesterol (that’s 25% of the RDA!) and 40 mg of Sodium (2% RDA). The only other real nutrients are four grams of protein, 8% of the RDA of Calcium in the Peppermint Bark Ice cream.

Haagen-Dazs has decent ingredients. Made primarily of Cream, skim milk and sugar, Peppermint Bark ice cream is all natural! There is nothing unpronounceable in the ingredients list. The Peppermint Bark Haagen-Dazs is not marked as gluten free or Kosher. There are no allergy warnings on the package. It does, however, contain milk and egg ingredients, so it is very much not Vegan compliant.

Storage/Clean-Up

Haagen-Dazs Ice cream is both a frozen and a dairy product, so it is pretty obvious that it must be kept frozen in order to remain viable. Kept frozen it remains fresh for months (my pint had an expiration date of September 14, 2014).

The Peppermint Bark Ice cream is an entirely white ice cream and it will stain if it melts on dark clothing (and an opaque white dairy stain is more than just a fashion nightmare!). On nonporous surfaces, the ice cream wipes off exceptionally easily.

Overall

The Haagen-Dazs Peppermint Bark Ice cream is a good dessert, but for the price, I would have hoped both flavors would be equally vibrant.

For other Haagen-Dazs reviews, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Vanilla Bean Gelato
Coconut Macaroon Ice Cream
Blueberry Crumble Ice Cream
Black Cherry Amaretto Glato

5/10

For other food reviews, please visit my Food Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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