I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For...

As I began to contemplate what food I wanted to compare, I decided that what a better excuse to eat three different types of ice cream than for homework! The reason for choosing ice cream seemed simple to me. We buy all kinds of ice cream all the time but I have never noticed any of it tasting different given the brand. I went to the store to find three of the same flavors, which is a difficult task to start with. Besides the basic vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, every brand had different flavors they appeared to specialize in, but I was determined to find something more exciting than an ordinary flavor. After searching for several minutes, I located cookie dough ice cream in three different brands; I quickly swiped them up and was anxious to experiment with the different options. To be honest, I was not expecting any huge differences. I was thinking, “It’s all cookie dough, so has to be pretty much the same.” However, my palate was pleasantly surprised.

               
               Upon getting home from the store, I had Haagen Dazs, Ben & Jerry’s, and Dreyers all in cookie dough flavor. After dinner, I nominated my mom to help me with the task, which she happily agreed to! We sat down with two spoons, a glass of tea, and the three ice creams. Firstly, she tested them blind, taking a sip of tea between each followed by me in the same manner. We each gave our opinions of each before knowing the brands to avoid any bias for one specific brand. After we had our say, we revealed ice cream number one, two and three to each other. Not ever having a bad type ice cream, I was mainly looking for which one spiked more taste buds than the others did. Focusing on finding a brand that went above the average ice cream expectations, I gave each ice cream a fair chance to win me over.

                Since we tasted each blindly, we had no expectation by appearance. All three containers had a specific design, Ben & Jerry’s being the most colorful to the eye. Once we were aware of the brands of our preferred ice cream, the consensus was that Haagen Dazs won the overall vote for both of us. All three brands were made with vanilla ice cream, chocolate chunks, and cookie dough balls. However, the Ben & Jerry’s had a richer flavor of vanilla in the actual ice cream giving it a thick consistency with appropriate amounts of chocolate throughout, but was lacking in the cookie dough department. The cookie dough was very small and hardly noticeable due to the heavy vanilla. Although delicious, Ben & Jerry’s was missing the main part; the cookie dough in cookie dough ice cream. Next, Dreyers was a much thinner ice cream, but with bigger pieces of cookie dough and just small bits of chocolate. Due to its watery taste and overall lack of richness, Dreyers sadly came in far behind the others. Lastly was the Haagen Dazs, which was perfectly balanced. While the actual ice cream was not as flavorful as the Ben & Jerry’s, when combined with the buttery and rich cookie dough and not too overwhelming chocolate bits, it created a wonderful balance of ice cream to goodies. In the end, Haagen Dazs won. Taking my opinion of cookie dough ice cream and delivering a spectacular product that had me enjoying each bite and definitely wanting to try other flavors in addition to adding their cookie dough ice cream to my favorite deserts list.