Way back when I first started blogging one of the recurring memes was called the Friday Five. Every Friday, if you wanted, you answered five relatively trivial question about yourself and linked to whomever wrote the originating post.

It was fun and helped me find a few blogs I still read today. I suppose it's entirely possible that one of the few times I participated I was discovered by one of my six regular readers. Who knows?

I don't even know if the Friday Five still exists. It's OK if it doesn't. For me it has been replaced by another five.

Hagen Daz Five.

I have to say this right up front: Ice Cream is one of my favorite things on the planet.

I also like good basic food. I prefer real butter to some processed gunk who's ingredients I can't pronounce. I prefer actual sugar to some laboratory concocted substitute. Even if it means I have to enjoy them in smaller amounts and less often, I'd rather have real stuff.

Hagen Daz Five achieves near perfection. Ice cream made from five basic ingredients. Cream, skim milk, sugar, egg yolks and a flavor. It comes in seven flavors: Vanilla Bean, Milk Chocolate, Coffee, Mint, Ginger, Brown Sugar, Passion Fruit. I have tried four of them so far.

The first one I had was the Ginger. I was hooked. From the first spoonful Ben and Jerry were dead to me. The flavor is wonderful and the ice cream is smooth, clean and delicious.

The second one I tried was Brown Sugar. This is now officially one my favorite things in the universe. Take all of the good things I wrote about the ginger and multiply them with the goodness of brown sugar.

The third one I tried I was a little disappointed with. I thought the flavor of the Mint was a little to subtle. I may have judged it unfairly though. I think I was judging it through the prism of hyper-sweet peppermint. It was much more of clean mint leaf taste. I am going to try this one again soon to re-evaluate it. I don't expect it to rival the Brown Sugar, but I think I will find it better than my original judgement.

The fourth one I sampled (meaning I sat down and ate a pint) was the Coffee. I'm a big coffee drinker I'd say I average 6 - 8 cups a day. I thought the Coffee ice cream was OK. The ice cream was flawless but the whole thing tasted like a cup of coffee with cream and sugar. I prefer my coffee black. If you like coffee ice cream though, you will love this flavor.

I have held off buying the Milk Chocolate flavor because I prefer dark chocolate and putting milk chocolate in ice cream seems kind of redundant. But the flavor ingredient is listed only as cacao, so it may turn out to be much much better that I expect.

I love vanilla and I am looking forward to trying the Vanilla Bean soon. I know it will be fantastic - but not a threat to Brown Sugar.

I strongly suspect that I will never try the Passion Fruit. It has precisely zero appeal to me. Your milage may vary.

I would be remiss if I did not note that they did a really nice job with the packaging as well. Simple, clean and still maintains enough of the art from the original packaging that you know instantly that this is Hagen Daz.

Great job Hagen Daz and Thanks.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 06:28 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment