Tag: Blizzard

Oreo is ostensibly milk’s favorite cookie, but it is an unrequited love. Especially of late, Oreo is swiping right on everything from chocolate bars to Android operating systems. Selfishly, I was happy to hear its latest dairy dalliance is with Dairy Queen as a new treat, the Oreo Hot Cocoa Blizzard. Oreo cookie pieces and cocoa fudge are blended with vanilla soft serve and topped with whipped cream.

With a classic whipped spiral atop a dark brown base, the Hot Cocoa Blizzard certainly dons the appearance of its namesake. Digging in, it definitely presents as a chocolate dessert, but I did not find it to be overwhelmingly so. It’s easy to see why the Oreo cookie chunks never spend a night alone; they add a pleasant crunch and are predictably tasty despite their flavor being a bit masked by the fudge.

Speaking of the headlining “hot cocoa” flavor, it appears to have a bit of stage fright. If I closed my eyes, I could almost convince myself I was detecting a slight cocoa powder like aftertaste, but it is very mild and instead reminds me mostly of cold, hot fudge topping.

A bit of needed creaminess is added by the whipped topping, but there isn’t enough to provide a consistent or remarkable flavor combination on the whole. Perhaps I would have an easier time buying into the hot cocoa moniker if marshmallow bits or a swirl had been included; alas, no marshmallows were harmed in the making of this Blizzard.

I love the idea of an Oreo fling with the oxymoronic hot chocolate flavored ice cream. Unfortunately despite being a respectable chocolate and Oreo Blizzard, I find little in the way of hot cocoa in it beyond the name.

Purchased Price: $3.59
Size: Small
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Small) 790 calories, 34 grams of fat, 16 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 460 milligrams of sodium, 111 grams of carbohydrates, -1 gram of dietary fiber* 83 grams of sugar, and 15 grams of protein.

*Dairy Queen lists fiber incorrectly as a negative value

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I have an odd relationship with candy canes. They are undeniably a minty herald of the holidays. Still, something about food that sharpens to a point while being eaten makes me uneasy. I can’t help but think that a partially consumed candy cane would be the improvised weapon of choice for elves doing time in Santa’s Secret Gulag.

Fortunately, Dairy Queen has come to my rescue with the returning favorite Candy Cane Chill Blizzard. Vanilla soft serve is mixed with choco chunks and peppermint candy cane pieces, no soap on a licorice rope required.

I had never tried the chocolate chunk version before; my experience had been solely with its sibling, the excellent Oreo Candy Cane Blizzard. This version of the treat greets you with colorful red specs nestled between chocolate chunks that paint a pleasing festive picture.

Chocolate pieces in vanilla ice cream are nothing new to Dairy Queen fans, so it’s left to the candy cane bits to differentiate this offering from the standard fare. They are more than up to the task, imparting a refreshing and enjoyable peppermint taste that is powerful but not overbearing.

The mix-ins are prominent and plentiful with the hard candy providing a pleasant crunch that never fades while the chocolate pieces linger and melt pleasantly in your mouth. I don’t feel overly hyperbolic when I say that this tastes like Christmas.

This is some of Dairy Queen’s best work, both in taste and as a balanced representation of the Christmas season. It is distinctly different but equally as enjoyable as its fraternal Oreo twin. Bribing Santa with a Candy Cane Chill on Christmas Eve may move you off the naughty list, or, at the least, keep you beyond the reach of the striped shanks of North Pole gen pop.

Purchased Price: $3.59
Size: Small
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Small) 630 calories, 17 grams of fat, 170 milligrams of sodium, 109 grams of carbohydrates, and 11 grams of protein.

Click here to read our other DQ Blizzard reviews

In the interest of full disclosure:

• The true answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is not 42, it is in fact, peanut butter.
• Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are the George Washington of the Candy Mount Rushmore.
• Brownies make cake their bitch.

That should put in perspective how excited I was for the latest Royal Blizzard, and why I hope you heed my warning. Dairy Queen took the awesome Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard, tossed in average brownie pieces, and added a glob of what I can only imagine Mr. Peanut’s excrement must taste like — an incredibly cheap, artificial tasting peanut butter that is salty enough to make a 60’s Star Trek salt vampire reach for a glass of water.

The Blizzard certainly makes a good first impression with both peanut butter cups and brownie pieces giving you their best come hither from the top of the vanilla soft serve. When isolated, the brownie has a slight fudgy quality but is unremarkable in every way.

The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are perfection incarnate as always, but the peanut butter core is nothing like the uniform comet shape shown online. Instead, a glob of the creamed legume rested just beneath the surface. This ended up being a blessing in disguise as, to put it bluntly, the poor distribution prevented it from entirely ruining the rest of the treat. A Reese’s-only bite is outstanding, but that entirely defeats the purpose of this Royal Blizzard.

Be aware that while this is the October 2017 Blizzard of The Month, it has been consistently on the menu for a few months now. Regardless, don’t waste your time or extra pocket change on this one, just go with the classic Reese’s only Blizzard and BYOPB (and who doesn’t?) if you really want to add a core.

Purchased Price: $3.79
Size: Small
Rating: 4 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Small) 850 calories, 370 calories from fat, 41 grams of fat, 17 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 65 milligrams of cholesterol, 560 milligrams of sodium, 105 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 83 grams of sugar, and 19 grams of protein.

Chocolate. Ice cream. Cake.

I’m not going out on much of a limb in declaring these to be some of the best things in life. Dairy Queen apparently agrees as they have dubbed September’s Blizzard of the Month, Best Chocolate Cake. The not so humbly named treat combines chocolate cake pieces with white icing and chocolate chunks nestled inside of cocoa fudge blended vanilla soft serve.

The site of chocolate islands awash in a turbulent sea of fudge-tinged ice cream invited me to become a willing castaway. Diving in, the cocoa fudge and chocolate chunks melded into a divine experience rich enough to make Count Chocula blush. Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse as soon as my spoon included one of the titular cake pieces. See, the thing about a Blizzard unabashedly named Best Chocolate Cake is that it needs to wow you with, you guessed it, the chocolate cake.

Instead of the promised white icing rich chocolate cake, my taste buds were met with a dull, lifeless dry husk. While providing a coarser texture than the smooth chocolate chunks and creamy base, it failed to deliver on any semblance of the word “best.” Instead, I found myself wishing that they were left out entirely. They felt like speed bumps in the middle of a chocolatey superhighway.

If the white icing exists then it lends nothing to the cake as it is completely overwhelmed by the, admittedly fantastic, chocolate flavor from the other elements. Worse yet, the cake pieces seemed to sink to the bottom and hamper the delayed gratification of the last mix-in laden bites that are typically my favorite part.

Cake misstep aside, I very much enjoyed the Blizzard overall. If you can look past the ill-chosen moniker, the chocolate highs were more than enough to offset the dry cake lows. I hope to see the cocoa fudge and chocolate chunks play a role in future offerings sans cake pieces which are, in fact, not the best.

Purchased Price: $3.59
Size: Small
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Small) 830 calories, 350 calories from fat, 39 grams of fat, 18 grams of saturated fat, 1 grams of trans fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 310 milligrams of sodium, 111 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 89 grams of sugar, and 15 grams of protein.