New product Wednesday, at Dallas-area Braum’s: Flavors for spring ‘08

by Teresa Gubbins

In the past week, Dallas-area Braum's Ice Cream stores have taken delivery on a slew of new flavors for the spring-summer 2008 season.

This launch is somewhat unusual for Braum's in that there is such a large number being introduced at one time. The company regularly cycles in new flavors here and there, but not previously en masse. Some were in development for more than a year. Some have been available since 2007 to consumers in Braum's home state of Oklahoma; one or two made their way to Dallas last year. But the majority are arriving here for the first time.

And the list is as follows (company descriptions, when available, are in quotes):

Regular premium ice cream

Brownie batter. "Chocolate brownie ice cream with a brownie batter ribbon and pieces of chocolate brownie." Chocolate on top of chocolate on top of chocolate. The ice cream has a deep-chocolatey flavor but the "brownie batter ribbon" has a fakey taste.

Peanut-butter pretzel. "Peanut-butter-flavored ice cream with salty caramel ribbon, peanut butter, pretzels and chocolate pieces." Essentially the same salt-and-caramel profile as the Mediterranean sea salt caramel gelato Paciugo introduced last year, and that Haagen Dazs recently introduced as Fleur de Sel Caramel in its Reserve line. Ice cream flavors with a bunch of junk in them usually seem yucky but this one's good.

Bread pudding. "Custard flavored ice cream with caramel and cinnamon ribbon and chewy soft bread pieces." Hmf. Those chewy soft bread pieces seem more like doughy pecans. The overall flavor is cinnamon-maple. Note: The ingredient list says the caramel ribbon is "whisky-flavored".

Fried ice cream. "Vanilla ice cream with cinnamon, honey, brown sugar, caramel ribbon, and fried cinnamon tostada pieces." Similar to the bread pudding, but with tostada pieces instead, so more crunch.

White chocolate raspberry cheesecake. "White chocolate cheesecake ice cream with a raspberry ribbon and chocolate raspberry flakes." An ultra-creamy ice cream with an overall raspberry undertone but maybe not enough ooey-gooey raspberry ribbon.

Lowfat

Chocolate mojito. Dark, almost bittersweet, chocolate ice cream with green mint chunks and a chocolate swirl that's described on the ingredient list as "chocolate rum variegate". Mmmmm, chocolate rum variegate, mmmm. Basically chocolate-and-mint, but with catchy '08-ish "mojito" handle and not as sweet as the usual choc-&-mints you find.

Yogurt

Coffee bean. "Coffee-flavored ice cream with cinnamon, and flakes of coffee beans." Hnh. Did NOT spot the coffee bean flakes, had to go back and look more carefully, they're pretty random and sparse. There IS Something Different about the flavor, though it just seemed sweet. I.E., that cinnamon's pretty subtle. But cinnamon. Cinnamon is very now.

Sherbet

Sicilian orange. Braum's has a plain orange sherbet but this is Sicilian. It does have an intense, slightly more exotic flavor, but what really sticks out is its Day-Glo color.

Lemon. "Light and refreshing!". Also: very bright.

While Braum's has more than 280 stores in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Missouri, and Arkansas, it's still family-owned and -operated and "vertically integrated", i.e., owns the cows, farms, processing plant, bakery, retail stores, and delivery trucks.

Not all stores have all of the flavors, and there's no guarantee on how long they'll be sold. But if they're going to have them, they probably have them now.

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