ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM (Nestle Smarties Ice Cream)

Member Name: stuleg

Product:	Nestle Smarties Ice Cream
Date:	31/03/05 (295 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap if you shop around

Disadvantages: An awful lot of "E" numbers

Gone are the days when buying a tub of Ice Cream meant a straight choice between Vanilla, or if you where feeling exceedingly daring, Raspberry Ripple.
Nowadays, virtually every Chocolate bar, Dessert or drink has been chopped up or dried and turned into the latest must try frozen dessert. Most of the time the results are pleasant enough, although I once saw a Garlic flavoured offering that I steered well clear of – Garlic is lovely with pasta or Garlic bread, but ice cream? Come on.

So the theory was seemingly straight forward when I saw tubs of Nestle Smarties Ice Cream in my local ASDA; I like Ice cream and I like Smarties; ergo, I must like the Ice cream. The Ice Cream comes in a 1 Litre round plastic tub which is decorated mostly in blue with Smarties flying in all directions. A small part of the tub is opaque so you can see the ice cream inside. The Nutritional Information and Ingredients could do with being larger and in a different colour, Dark blue on a light blue background being difficult to read. But read them I did, and here is what I found:-

Nutritional Information per 1 Litre Container:-
Energy 6080 kj - 1450 kcal
Protein 21 grams, Carbohydrate 187 grams, 171 grams of which are sugars, Fat 69 grams, 42 grams of which are saturates, Fibre 1 gram, Sodium 1 gram.

In ASDA, Nestle Smarties Ice Cream costs £1.98. I have also seen it for £2.49 in Tesco, but as this was on a “Buy One Get One Free offer” in reality it was £1.25 a tub. The secret, as always is to shop around. £1.98 poorer, I left ASDA and travelled home with my new found dessert. This took about 15 minutes which should render the Ice Cream nicely softened by the time I got home, and it did.

On breaking the seal and pulling the tab, I lifted the lid and found an almost white ice cream in a large swirl with different coloured smarties nestling throughout. Some of the colours of the smarties had bled a little as should be expected but the ice cream still looked enticing. The 15 minutes drive home had left the ice cream at the perfect consistency for instant eating which I did with aplomb.

The ice cream had a fairly creamy texture and taste although I found it a little too sweet. The mini Smarties where a nice contrast to the soft ice cream in that I had to bite them, thus releasing a nice chocolate flavour which complimented the ice cream well. I think the inclusion of normal sized Smarties rather than the mini variety would have given a chunkier texture and therefore a more rounded product.

Also, if the Vanilla ice cream was slightly less sweet, the chocolate and the candy shells of the Smarties would give an even nicer contrast. As it was there was slightly too much sweetness which is fine if you have a sweet tooth, but not if you don’t. The ice cream was not at all granular, but when it started to melt where I was holding the tub it did taste a little frothy.

On completing the Ice Cream I had a slightly sour after taste in my mouth, but not much different than when eating other dairy products. All in all it was a satisfying experience, there was just the right ratio of Smarties to ice cream and the flavour was good. Maybe a few swirls of plain chocolate sauce would have been nice to counteract the Sweetness of the ice cream but that would have pushed the 1450 kcal content even higher. Perhaps my next Op should be about Salads or Slim Fast milkshakes.

Summary: