Ice Cream Soda - A Bit of Nostalgia

You wouldn't readily think 'lets have an ice cream soda' but back in the day we used to visit a fabulous Italian ice cream parlour, we bought one ice cream soda between us and would always ask for a couple of straws and spoons. This wasn't because we were mean but based on trying to save enough money to get married and buy a house. The courtship was 15 months in total and I hadn't even reached my 21st birthday when we married.......on Cup Final Day! Hence two straws and two spoons.......happy days.

We have always made ice cream soda by placing a scoop of ice cream in the base of a tall glass and pouring over a can of cream soda, the ice cream floats and the cream soda creates a lovely frothy top. The Ben Shaws website recommend using a dash of grenadine syrup but I doubt we had even heard of 'grenadine syrup' in those days. I used Mackie's Traditional Ice Cream but there are lots of fun variations. Further information for ice cream soda and ice cream floats can be found on Wikipedia.

I would be really interested to hear your nostalgic story.

Ben & Jerry's Twitter Moosical

Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Fun!

Posting Courtesy of Kitchen Delights London Reporter

The Ben & Jerry’s Twitter Moosical graced London’s stage a couple of weeks ago, to mark a cool 35 years in the ice cream business.

Improvisational  Group Abandoman

Joining a group of other foodie bloggers, we were treated to lots of ice cream and improvisational group Abandoman, who crafted the worlds first Twitter Moosical based on audience tweets.

The night was really interactive with Tweet Deck projected onto the wall and any way you could milk a pun into a pop song or film – the better, as you might just see it featured in the Moosical.

Which one will you choose?

Now apart from all the yummy flavours they create, one of the things I love most about this brand is that the guys who created Ben & Jerry’s started out having spent just 5 dollars on an ice cream course and secondly, they really do care for their cows. Did you know they get moosoosed (massaged) to keep them happy cows?

As ever, Ben & Jerry's events are a lot of fun, check out the video below of the evening and you will get to see me being interviewed!

A huge thanks to Ben & Jerry's for a fabulous event.

Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Tasting

Posting courtesy of Kitchen Delights London Reporter.

In a crowded ice cream market, the launch of a new ice cream flavour has to be exciting, interesting and crucially have the wow factor.

Last Tuesday night, I was invited along with a hip crowd of food blogger's to the sneak preview of Ben and Jerry’s latest flavours in Central London.

Blondie & Brownie

First up was the ‘Blondie and Brownie’ ice cream. It contains lush brownie pieces in vanilla and chocolate ice cream with a salted caramel core running through it. The sweet and salty pairing worked really well and was much better than I expected. Heaven really!

Peanut Butter Me Up

Second up was the ‘Peanut Butter Me Up’. Inspired by classic peanut butter and jelly (or jam!) sandwiches, it has a raspberry jam core running deep into the ice cream, surrounded by peanut butter ice cream and vanilla ice cream with peanut butter chunks contained in small chocolate cups. This was brought to the UK by pester power alone, coming straight from the States. Worth a try!

Putting the tasting aside, I did learn something quite extraordinary about animal welfare. All Ben and Jerry’s dairy comes from moo-saged (massaged) cows in the Netherlands where the animals even get to choose if they feel like a massage or not. In times when we are questioning where our food comes from, it’s an interesting story with a fun video here:  

http://www.benjerry.co.uk/our-values/inside-the-tub/cow-cam

Thank you Anna for the invitation to 'eat ice cream'.