When the Ice Cream Informant recently announced the release of Blue Bell's new Marbled Cream Cheese Brownie flavor, well, I couldn't make the rounds of my local supermarkets fast enough to find a tub. After all, what's not to like about a flavor described as "a flavorful combination of milk chocolate ice cream and cream cheese ice cream loaded with tasty chocolate brownies and a chocolate sundae sauce swirl"? This sounded delicious, so I just had to try some and after a few days of looking found a tub at Walmart.
Popping off the lid, I was met with a pleasing sight: A marbled swirl of milk chocolate and white, presumably cream cheese ice cream, with a swirl of chocolate sauce mixed in. Plunging in the spoon, I remembered that Blue Bell's milk chocolate base is absolutely nothing special, rather bland and lacking in chocolaty richness. So I figured this flavor would rise or fall on the other ingredients, and that turned out to be correct. The quantity and quality of the cream cheese ice cream, chocolate sauce, and brownie mix-ins complement the milk chocolate base splendidly, adding up to an excellent ice cream flavor. The cream cheese base is perhaps the most important element. It has a mildly tangy cheese flavor that is more than welcome, and its cheesy denseness provides some much-needed heft when marbled with the milk chocolate. The two bases, provided in roughly equal quantity, have excellent synergy. The brownies are dense chocolate squares. Chewy and moist, these brownies appear in large numbers top to bottom. Most of the time a spoonful of this flavor will contain a brownie. Rounding out this flavor is the chocolate sundae swirl sauce. To my pleasant surprise, this was not a thick, viscous fudge-like sauce of the kind found in I ♥ Chocolate, rather it is a runny chocolate syrup, the same syrup that does so much good for flavors like Tin Roof and Chocolate Covered Cherries. This syrup oozes through the proceedings, adding a nice dollop of pure chocolate flavor.
Overall, I found Marbled Cream Cheese Brownie to be a very good ice cream. If allowed to, I'd rate it as an A-minus, as it doesn't quite rise to the exquisite level of taste as Blue Bell's best, such as Caramel Turtle Cheesecake or Dessert Trio. But that's no shame, as Marbled Cream Cheese Brownie packs plenty of delightful flavors, particularly if one is in a mood for chocolate.
Where Steve Found It: Walmart
Steve's Grade: A
