Great Nosh, Little Dosh - Vanilla ice cream
Vanilla ice cream
Did you hear the news? The annual ice cream awards were on a week or two ago. The winner was an ice cream I don’t think I’ve ever seen in the freezer at New World or Countdown – a Little ‘Lato Speculoos Gelato. Wow – I wonder what that tastes like. Kapiti Fig & Manuka Honey was the other supreme award winner - that’s one I have tried and it’s nice.
Our very own, much-loved Boysenberry Trumpet was the winner of the novelty ice cream award. A box of good ol’ trumpets is often to be found in my freezer – usually an empty box with nobody owning up to taking the last one.
Today the panel is road-testing vanilla ice cream. Not the most glamourous of ice cream flavours but a solid and reliable workhorse. Chuck some into a milkshake, make an ice cream soda, add strong coffee and crushed ice or shoot the sugar levels through the roof with your favourite chocolate biscuit to make an ice cream sandwich. Endless options!
Tip Top, Deep South, Pams and Much Moore were on offer in the $7 and under vanilla ice cream range; all two litre tubs containing 20 servings. The members of the tasting panel were issued with teaspoons and a bowl with multiple scoops of each ice cream was put in the centre of the dining table. After a quick once through to get the taste buds working it only took one more sample of each for the order of preferred flavours to be agreed.
We all thought the Pams had an artificial background flavour, quickly relegating it to 4th place. The Much Moore, Deep South and Tip Top were evaluated again. The room was silent while the judges pondered. There was unanimous agreement that the Much Moore was the winner. However, opinions differed around which was better between the Tip Top and the Deep South. As a reward for participating, I brought out a tub of Killinchy Vanilla Bean. At $10 on special, it was almost twice the price of the winner. Twice as nice? Definitely not was the unanimous view. We all thought it was very sweet and with a pleasant vanilla bean flavour.
I was interested to work out how much ice cream I’d usually scoop for a satisfyingly sized ice cream. 100g proved to be just a little more than a decent tablespoon. I’m more of a 2 ½ - 3 tbsp gal.
On to the nutritional fine print. Energy per 100g for the four ranged between 790 and 840 kJ. Killinchy at 957 explains why it tasted so much sweeter. The recommended daily intake is 50g, or around 12 teaspoons per day. So if 100g of Much Moore has 20.8g of sugar, then my 2½ tbsp of ice cream is my total recommended daily intake. A quick Google of “ice cream diet” brings up a few hits including Ice Cream Diet: Weight Loss Fact or Fiction. Apparently, ice cream doesn’t contain any magic weight loss powers and this diet is basically a calorie-controlled diet. Well fancy that!
I didn’t explore where other elements of ice cream’s nutritional value sit against other levels of recommended daily intakes. We all know it’s best as an occasional treat not an every-day staple. So enjoy your vanilla ice cream or whatever flavour you go for. This sampling proved you can buy great ice cream at the lower end of the price range.
Deep South $7.49, Much Moore Marvels $5.49, Pams $5.79, Tip Top $5.99* (* On special)