What is Halo Top Chocolate Cake Batter Light Ice Cream?
The gold standard of diet ice cream is doubling up on the dessert by infusing (Kind of? Theoretically?) its light ice cream with chocolate cake batter. Or, you know, at least some candy sprinkles. Because those are on cakes. Sometimes.
How is it?
Thoroughly unnecessary. See, the ice cream is fine. It’s creamy and surprisingly rich for healthy ice cream. Halo Top’s chocolate base is a good one, and the different-than-normal-ice-cream texture almost makes it reminiscent of a frozen chocolate malt concoction you’d get at a baseball game. (Have you ever had one of those things? Comes with a wooden spoon? Those things.)
So, ice cream = good. But for the life of me, I can’t tell what makes this “Chocolate Cake Batter.” Except for the aforementioned sprinkles. And here’s the thing about the sprinkles: there are a lot of them. And they’re, you know, sprinkles. Just little crunchy bits of mostly tasteless confection. They don’t really add anything, unless you’re four years old. In which case, how’d you end up on this website, anyway? That’s pretty weird.
Anything else you need to know?
Probably not surprising, but Wikipedia has a wildly robust page on sprinkles. I was Googling to find out where they are called “jimmies” (it’s a northeast United States thing, and it always makes me laugh), but I also learned that in England — and Australia and New Zealand — they are also popularly referred to as “hundreds and thousands.” I love it, but it’s so wordy! When you go to the ice cream shop, do they actually ask, “An’ would you like ta’ top off yeh Sundae with some ‘undrets an’ thousands, guvnah?” That’s wild!
Conclusion:
Regular Halo Top chocolate ice cream is a nice, comparatively healthy frozen dessert treat, and I’d recommend it to just about anyone. I’d only suggest getting the kind with HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS if regular chocolate is out, though. Or you’re four. In which case, again, I ask, “What are you doing here? How are you reading this?”
Purchased Price: $5.99
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Hy-Vee
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (86 grams) 110 calories, 2.5 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 95 milligrams of sodium, 22 grams of carbohydrates, 6 grams of dietary fiber, 9 grams of sugar, and 6 grams of protein.
So…when thinking about it…why do sprinkles really have a place here at all? When you’re making a typical chocolate cake you don’t add sprinkles into the batter…I mean, maybe they should have just billed this as some sort of chocolate frosted chocolate cake? At least then you could say “Well, yeah! That kinda makes sense because a lot of frosted cakes are adorned with sprinkles.”
Sigh, that ice cream certainly looks depressing. 🙁
Agreed! I don’t understand Halo Top, and I wish it didn’t exist. It doesn’t satisfy someone like normal ice cream, or they wouldn’t advertise the calories for the whole pint. I’ve also heard negative things about the texture. Ick! It also just totally glorifies diet culture, which is already bad enough.
Ouch! The chocolate fudge bars are really good. I was eating them daily for awhile to add a bit more protein to my lunch until I decided this habit was too expensive. It’s nice to have these types of options available.
Wow, you’re rather off base in your thinking.
I’d love to know why. I’ve struggled with an eating disorder for 15 years, and I know many people I’ve met with EDs that loved this because it was “healthier” or lower calorie. I have an issue with all types of food that has value labels (i.e. reduced guilt, “halo” top, no bad fats, etc.). Maybe you’ve never experienced the hell that is an eating disorder (if not, count yourself lucky). A lot of products like to appeal to our sense of what is healthy vs. unhealthy, which is a loaded term anyway. After struggling so long with an ED, I’ve realized that food is to be enjoyed, not evaluated on its macros, calories, etc.
Elizabeth-
As the parent of someone with an ED I agree with you completely.
I would think that food can be enjoyed as a “package,” enjoyed as a whole but also considered in view of its macros, calories, etc. At the very least, different people may approach matters differently, like so much in life.
I used to eat Halo Top & Enlightened a lot when I was losing weight a few years ago, but it was mostly cause I wanted to eat a whole pint of ice cream as a treat & still have enough calories for regular meals. I still love Ben & Jerry’s but when you want to eat a whole pint as a treat 300-600 calories is a lot more doable than 1,000-1,300. My favorite Halo flavor was their Gingerbread.
Why are companies so afraid of “confetti cake”? That is what cake with sprinkles in it is called (or Funfetti, but that’s trademarked…). Yet white confetti cake flavored stuff is called “birthday cake” and now chocolate confetti cake is just chocolate cake?
BTW I just tried this Halo Top flavor today and it was pretty good! I am 40 years old and not ashamed to love sprinkles.
I am a fan of both Halo and sprinkles. We certainly could use more sprinkles in the world.
Seems like we have plenty, hehe. It’d be interesting to take stock at the grocery store next time and truly take note of the abundance of sprinkle filled items…
Firstly, your review made me chuckle, Brandon; particularly the part about “hundreds and thousands”, and the subsequent “accent” (I guess that putting that word in quotes is apropos, here, since it’s not heard, but read; I could be wrong, however).
Secondly, even as a kid, I’ve always thought that sprinkles were useless and stupid. So, yeah, zero interest in this product. Feh, as my mom would say, growing up. haha
The only place that I have felt sprinkles had/have are putting nonpareils on top of chocolate pudding, lol. That’s how we always had pudding as a kid when my mum made it for us and I’d be lying if I said I don’t do that every now and then as an adult. Oh yeah, and on spritz Christmas cookies.
I came across some real chocolate sprinkles at Home Goods awhile back, they were pretty awesome sprinkled atop ice cream… or just eaten by the spoonful
Safeway used to make a knock off Halo Top birthday cake ice cream that had flakes of colorful fake-chocolate instead of sprinkles and it was really good!
What is it about this type of product that always makes it shrink down into its container like it’s ashamed of itself?
I love the one option for ice cream that doesn’t feel like you’ve blown your whole days worth of calories on one thing. Maybe I’ll pass on the sprinkles kind too though. Thanks for trying this for us!
When my mom passed we went through her stuff and back in the bowels of the kitchen cabinets were ‘sprinkles’ from when I was a kid. One bottle in particular contained small silver round balls and I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had been colored using mercury (that’s how old they were). Just goes to show you, like Twinkies, Sprinkles never go bad.
Oh, my gosh…YES! You suddenly brought back wonderful memories of being a kid, and baking cookies with my mom. We *totally* had those very same silver, round-ball sprinkles. IIRC, we reserved them for the plethora of different Christmas cookie batches that we made, as they were very festive and, well, “special”. 😀