Tag: Little Debbie

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and I will keep reviewing it. That seems to be the unspoken agreement between the folks behind Little Debbie at McKee Foods Co., the Michigan ice cream makers of Hudsonville Ice Cream, and me, the enthusiastic consumer.

Fudge Rounds and Birthday Cakes are the latest additions to the successful and vast Little Debbie Ice Cream pint lineup. I found them in a freezer endcap at a local Walmart, directly across the aisle from a Little Debbie snack cake display. Clever choice.

Fudge Rounds Ice Cream

Fudge Rounds variety swirls together two types of chocolate ice cream to mimic the Fudge Rounds’ chocolate cookie and chocolate cream filling. The two ice creams, one darker chocolate and one closer to milk chocolate, had distinct flavors on their own. Over time, though, the flavor did sort of just mellow out into one “chocolate” note.

There were some hearty chocolate cookie-ish chunks in the base, and. they were tasty, but didn’t quite taste the same as the Fudge Rounds cookie. In general, I tend to prefer more inclusion pieces, so I would’ve liked more. They offered a nice disruption to the heavy chocolate flavor and overall made the Fudge Rounds Ice Cream pretty interesting and a decent match to the bakery confection.

Birthday Cakes Ice Cream

I’d read a few early positive reviews of the Birthday Cake Ice Cream already, and I think the classic imitation vanilla and almond extract flavor of an American confetti birthday cake is fantastic, so my expectations were pretty elevated. This iteration is a reliably delicious vanilla ice cream with somehow still crunchy sprinkle bits and the occasional glob of vanilla cake, but I have to say I was a little underwhelmed. Yes, it was delicious, but the Birthday Cake flavor wasn’t there as much as I wanted. I mean, you wouldn’t catch me turning this down at a bowling alley birthday party. I just think that given the track record of absolutely nailing the Little Debbie flavors on the nose, this one could have been closer.

Overall I am happy to report that I was generally delighted by these latest Little Debbie Ice Cream additions. I like how this line started with the undisputed cult favorites and then have been working down the “Oh, but do you remember THIS one?” list. I would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to see a banana marshmallow pie iteration. Please and thank you!

Purchased Price: $2.50 each
Size: One Pint
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Fudge Rounds), 7 out of 10 (Birthday Cake)
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) Fudge Rounds – 210 calories, 10 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 35 milligrams of cholesterol, 70 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 20 grams of sugar (including 16 grams of added sugar), and 4 grams of protein. Birthday Cakes – 230 calories, 10 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 40 milligrams of cholesterol, 75 milligrams of sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 23 grams of sugar (including 18 grams of added sugar), and 4 grams of protein.

It’s that time of year, folks.

PUMPKINUNDATION: the annual influx of pumpkin-inspired products into our grocery stores, characterized by bright orange packaging and liberal use of spice. Whether Pumpkinundation inspires profound joy or the urge to grumble that maple is the superior fall flavor, we junk foodies know that pumpkin rings the official bell of autumn.

To me, there is no greater harbinger of autumn than Little Debbie Pumpkin Delights. Styled like jack-o’-lantern faces, these seasonal soft spiced cookies are stuffed with pumpkin jam filling. They are chewy, delicious, and easily crushed in your purse when you carry one around as an emergency dessert. (I am speaking from experience.) Pumpkin Delights are Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin in edible form. When they appear on shelves, I am overtaken by a terrible urge to wear heavy wool sweaters and visit a Spirit Halloween store in August. In short, I love them.

Little Debbie and Hudsonville Creamery have granted my autumn wish by adding a Pumpkin Delights variety to their line of ice creams. This Walmart-exclusive line is extensive and has received largely favorable reviews from our contributors. Since this was my first experience with the line, I was eager to evaluate both the product’s overall taste and its similarity to its beloved namesake.

This new variety’s package offers no hint as to its flavor or composition (besides “artificial flavors added”), so I dove spoon first into the mystery. Peeling back the foil lid, I was pumpkin-delighted to see orange: a pumpkin base. Maybe I am just cynical by nature, but I had expected vanilla ice cream, an easy base to carry novel mix-ins. I should have known Little Debbie takes no shortcuts.

The ice cream is creamy, delicious, and nicely rich. Unlike other pumpkin snacks, it doesn’t rely too heavily on spice for flavor. It reminds me of a pumpkin cheesecake ice cream: a bit of tang and a bit of spice that enhance an authentic pumpkin taste.

Within the base is a graham cookie swirl that basically tastes like a mashed up Pumpkin Delight cookie. Its flavor is wonderful: a combination of pumpkin, molasses, and brown sugar. A hint of grittiness through the cookie crumbs adds a pleasant texture — a welcome departure from the Pumpkin Delight’s softness. My major gripe is that there isn’t nearly enough swirl. I found one good hunk of the stuff in my serving, and as I dug through the remnants of the container, I excavated mere additional scraps.

Although stingy — no, miserly — with its cookie swirl, Little Debbie’s Pumpkin Delights Ice Cream is a delicious fall treat for pumpkin lovers and a satisfying counterpart to its cookie inspiration. It is high quality ice cream — not “frozen dairy dessert” — and certainly the best I’ve tried at this price point. For $2.50 per pint, I might pick up another container and go excavating for more cookie swirls. Digging for sugar, after all, is the most time-honored tradition of Pumpkinundation.

Purchased Price: $2.50
Size: One pint
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (per 2/3 cup) 240 calories, 12 grams of total fat, 35 milligrams of cholesterol, 85 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of total carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 23 grams of sugar including 17 grams of added sugar, and 4 grams of protein.

A few months ago, I reviewed a seven-flavor lineup of Little Debbie-themed ice creams exclusively available at Walmart. Despite a few instances of bare shelves, the original seven can now regularly be found at my local Wally World just in time for Miss Deborah and Hudsonville Creamery to grace us with two more line extensions: Star Crunch Ice Cream and Sparkling Strawberry Unicorn Cake Ice Cream.

I had high hopes for these two additions because they both contain a textural element (the crunchy rice puffs in Star Crunch and the candy sprinkles in the Unicorn Cakes).

The Star Crunch Ice Cream has a chocolate ribbon swirl and chocolate-coated puffed rice. There was also, I’ll call it, an adjacent swirl that was very similar to the chocolate but tasted a bit more like the center of the Star Crunch. That amalgam of cookie and caramel wasn’t super strong, and it didn’t hit me over the head with caramel flavor, but I liked that it didn’t seem like there was one single chocolate swirl. The chocolate-coated puffed rice pieces were crunchy, and the chocolate flavor was well balanced against the vanilla ice cream. The Star Crunch itself is a tricky flavor to make stand out in ice cream, but I think the puffed rice pieces helped elevate this without a doubt.

Next up was Unicorn Cakes, and, gosh, did it have several wow factors. Upon opening, WOW that looks like psychedelic chicken pox! Bright blue sprinkles were EVERYWHERE and stood out against a pink strawberry-flavored ice cream base. The candies were crunchy and super sweet, and I think the candy made the ice cream overwhelmingly sweet, but the crunch was an impressive texture variant.

Like the Zebra Cake, Swiss Roll, and Strawberry Shortcake Roll ice cream flavors, this one also had little vanilla cake pieces. I found them to be a little saturated but authentic.

The final wow factor in this ice cream was the bright blue swirl, representing the icing design of its cake counterpart. My inner child was delighted by the vibrant colors. The adult in me was instantly concerned for the rest of my day after realizing I was eating something that tasted remarkably like strawberry cotton candy made into ice cream. What a trip.

Overall, I think these two are welcome and unique additions to the Little Debbie ice cream lineup. I preferred the balance and texture of the Star Crunch, but I can see how Unicorn Cake could delight the masses the way only something with crazy colors and candy can.

Purchased Price: $2.50 each
Size: One pint
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 8 out of 10 (Star Crunch), 6 out of 10 (Unicorn Cakes)
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) Star Crunch – 250 calories, 13 grams of total fat, 35 milligrams of cholesterol, 95 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of total carbohydrates, 1 grams of dietary fiber, 25 grams of total sugars, 19 grams of added sugars, and 4 gram of protein.

Unicorn Cakes – 240 calories, 12 grams of total fat, 40 milligrams of cholesterol, 75 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of total carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 23 grams of total sugars, 18 grams of added sugars, and 4 gram of protein.