I don’t know why I am eating an ice cream in the middle of the English winter, but I just had such a craving! In particular, a magnum type ice cream. With the frozen chocolate on the outside of it. I still believe that nothing beats that type of ice cream. There is just something about a super hard chocolate covering, with the soft ice cream inside, that just…it really does just hit a part of my soul if I am being honest. Best ice cream design.
Now I wouldn’t say that Magnum as a brand are necessarily the best. I, personally, am not really that much of a snob when it comes to my ice cream. It also probably doesn’t help that Magnum have until recently only really had two options for vegan ice creams – plain and salted caramel – which are both not very inspired flavours. But I had a craving and I also spotted that Magnum now do a raspberry ripple version of their traditional ice creams, so I decided to give it a go.
Now before we start…please don’t judge me, but I am one of those people that needs to eat the chocolate off of the ice cream first, and then eat the ice cream. Quite honestly I don’t think I will ever be someone who can just bite into an ice cream. But either way…I have to eat these types of ice creams in two parts and that is how I have ranked them. Although with all that I say below, I don’t think it makes any difference to the flavour whether you eat the ice cream with the chocolate or eat them both separately.
Needless the say the chocolate covering is exactly what you would expect. It’s a thin layer of frozen chocolate. It is creamy and satisfyingly crunchy to eat, so if you have ever had any type of magnum-like ice cream, you know what to expect. Personally, I can’t really tell any difference between different brands and the chocolate they may use as coating, so I wouldn’t say that Magnum really knocks it out of the park with this. It is exactly what you would expect, and is very nice indeed.
The ice cream itself I have to admit I was a little disappointed in. It was very creamy, but it didn’t overly taste of raspberry. Perhaps this was because the ice cream itself was more vanilla heavy, with the raspberry mainly concentrated to the ‘ripple’ lines that are throughout the ice cream. I found the flavour to be very subtle, when I had expected the ice cream to be quite punchy with the raspberry Raspberry is also quite a sharp and tart fruit anyway, so had really expected the ice cream to reflect that, even if it had been slightly diluted by the vanilla ice cream base. For me, it was tasty enough, but was definitely a very subtle raspberry flavour rather than the powerful fruity flavour I had been expecting. I also have to add that the raspberry ripple tasted more like the raspberry flavoured sauces you can get for ice cream – very sweet but also very synthetic, so very much lacking that natural kick that raspberries have. Again it was tasty enough and helped to change up the rather plain flavour of the ice cream, but not quite in the way I had hoped.
Now I have to admit though that these were surprisingly cheap. I got a pack of 3 for £3 in my local Tesco, which works out to be £1 an ice cream. Which when I think of it that way, would I really be expecting anything super from a £1 ice cream? I suppose I made the mistake of comparing it to other very flavourful ice creams I have had before, such as Ben & Jerry’s, but then again Ben & Jerry’s are at least £5 a tub. So not sure that is a great comparison in hindsight. I think £3 for the pack of 3 is very reasonable. The ice cream does still taste nice and if you ever fancied a little ice cream treat that wasn’t your standard vegan vanilla, then I would definitely recommend this. Just maybe not the best choice to go for if you are wanting a real flavour experience.
Taylor Talks Vegan 