Ice-Cream Tasting  Add/Read Comments

A motley bunch of the extended family gathering at the behest of the matriarch; an increase in the number of testing tasters to 12 (over the Ginger Beer tastings 6) All gathering for a sampling of Vanilla Ice-cream.

How many varieties of vanilla ice-cream are their? Dozens. We had five, which, while not a truly in-depth or exhaustive touched on all the various forms - soft scoop, extra-rich clotted cream, a locally made farmhouse and so on.

They were served blind in a random order with each graded from 1 (bad) to 5 (top-notch). Quotes below are lifted at random. The list below is in the order the ice-creams were served.

1. Iceland Vanilla Icecream Score: 19.5 (£1.25 2 ltr)
   "artifical flavour" "watery" "ice crystals" "tastes cheap" "nothing special"


2. Langage Farm Clotted Cream Ice-cream Score: 47 (£4.95 500ml)
   "dense consistency" "more please!" "nice consistency, very creamy" "too creamy for me" "an anytime ice-cream" "quite hard and thick"


3. Beechdean Farmhouse Indulgent Vanilla with Pod Score: 54.5 (£3.25 500ml)
   "smooth" "vanilla seeds!" "lovely and firm, good colour, smell and texture" "good flavour and texture" "light and spotty!"


4. Walls Soft Scoup Vanilla Flavour Icecream Score: 34.5 (£1.99 2ltr)
   "light texture, like whipped cream" "strongly vanilla" "smooth and soft" "I like this one" "unreal flavour"


5. Mackie's of Scotland Traditional Luxury Dairy Icecream Score: 44 (£2.99 1 ltr)
   "very subtle flavour, not awfully creamy" "smooth" "very pale and creamy" "not so vanillary" "a bit dull, subtle flavour" "perfectly smooth, inviting" "good flavour"

Price was not revealed at the time of tasting but the approximate cost is included above for reference. Seems like you get what you pay for!

With thanks to Denise and Roy (that's me mum and dad!), Tessa and Georgia, Liz and Nick, Margaret and Roy (Nicks parents), Catherine and Joshua and Jacob. Grandmother was also present but her main contribution was noting that she received "insufficiently large samples" :-)