Review: Purely Decadent "Chocolate Obsession" Lactose Free Frozen Dessert

Man, I gotta say... even with Lactaid, dairy is just not my best friend. Which is really unfortunate, since it's in so many things I love. Seriously, how could I go without cheese, or yogurt, or (duh) ice cream?! Thanks goodness this isn't a full-blown allergy, or I would be pulling my hair out! In any case, in order to scale back on my dairy intake a bit I decided to give Purely Decadent's Chocolate Obsession Lactose Free Frozen Dessert a try.

First things first: this name is somewhat misleading. I have had my eyes on Chapman's Lactose-Free line for a while now (only holding off because of the artificial sweeteners), and those products are actual ice cream with lactase enzyme added so that the dairy is digestible. So this is kind of what I was expecting from this Purely Decadent product. But nope. It's soy. It says soy NOWHERE on the front, and while it's true that it is lactose free, to me the labeling implies something different from what it delivers. Then again, my bad for not actually checking the ingredients list before I bought this.

Since we're talking ingredients, it is worth noting that a lot of the ingredients in this product are certified organic, so if that kind of thing is important to you, this might be worth checking out. The company describes this frozen dessert as "chocolate non-dairy frozen dessert with a thick ribbon of chocolate sauce, riddled with crispy chocolate flakes" - again with the avoiding of the word "soy"! Why, guys?! Just say it! Be proud! In any case, I'd have to say that this description is fairly accurate. Though the chocolate sauce kind of showed up in pockets rather than in a true ribbon, it did provide an extra burst of sweetness that set itself apart from the actual frozen dessert base. The chocolate flakes were definitely crispy. And I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of them. Because they were so brittle, as opposed to kind of melt-in-your-mouth, they broke up quite easily and made it feel almost like I was eating dirt at times. Again, this was the texture, not the taste, but it wasn't really the most pleasant experience. I suppose the colour didn't help with this association.

So what is my overall opinion on this product? It's OK. If I were a real chocoholic, I think I would scoff at Purely Decadent's name choice for this, as it doesn't scream "obsession" to me on any level. The "ice cream" base tastes like your typical chocolate soy product, which isn't bad, but it's not fabulous either. The sauce was a nice touch, but it too falls a bit flat. The flakes I could probably do without. This dessert was alright, but it didn't do anything new or progressive and I certainly wouldn't call it "decadent".

Recommend to a friend? This product is OK, but I feel like you could probably do better, especially for the price.
Repurchase? Nah

Review: Mario's Lemon Sorbetto

Being a big fan of citrus flavours, I was excited to try out this lemon sorbet by Mario's, a company that is known for making sorbets and gelatos in the “Italian tradition”. We had already seen some lemon in President's Choice Pink Lemonade ice cream, but this is a chance to try a dairy-free option that is much more juice-based.

The colour of this product is essentially pure white, which suggests an absence of artificial colours. The texture is somewhat similar to the Dorgel gelato we sampled a while back, in that it isn't smooth and creamy but instead more like compacted snow or, more accurately, like a popsicle. Nonetheless, I had little trouble scooping it out for the taste test.

What you will really notice about this flavour is that it is REALLY all about the lemon. It is sweet enough to be enjoyable, but there is a definite tartness and acidity that is ALMOST too much. The flavour is really authentic (as it should be, given the ingredients) and if you like lemon you will appreciate this, but if you don't handle sour things well or you have a sensitive stomach, the acid may be a bit overwhelming. I really enjoyed this flavour, as it was really clean, fresh, and natural, and it had an overall sort of lightness that would make it a great pairing for fruit desserts or to enjoy on its own when you aren't looking for something rich.

Recommend to a friend? If you're a lemon lover, this one will be right up your alley.

Repurchase? Yes

Review: So Delicious “Cookie Dough” Coconut Milk Frozen Dessert

For us lactose intolerant folk, sometimes the options in terms of dairy-free frozen treats feel a bit limited. I love sorbets and dairy-free gelatos, but they tend to be expensive and are often hard to find and limited in flavour variety. Soy or tofu based frozen desserts can be OK, but they can also be absolutely awful, and it's hard to get a texture that isn't rock hard when you're using soy. So I was excited to learn from a friend, who is also lactose intolerant, that there are now ice cream-like frozen desserts made from coconut milk. This is a great option for people, like me, who don't like soy because of how it can affect your body's estrogen production or because of an allergy (although coconut is also a common allergen). I am a big coconut fan to begin with, so I was excited to try these out!

When J and I made our last venture into Fairway Market and finally found the Island Farms Green Tea flavour, we also found two brands (!) of coconut milk ice cream for sale (OK, it's not really ice cream, but it's a lot easier to type). The first was Luna and Larry's, and the second was So Delicious, a company that is more well known for making soy beverages and soy ice creams. While I'm sure we will go back and review a Luna and Larry's flavour in the future, the So Delicious brand was less expensive at the time of purchase, so we opted for that. There were several flavours available, including a coconut one. While we thought it would probably be safe to go with the coconut flavour, considering what it's made of, we wanted to be able to compare this to a regular dairy-based ice cream, so we chose a common ice cream-like flavour, one that we have already reviewed from different brands: cookie dough. According to the company's website, this flavour is also gluten free.

Apparently this is the "old" packaging, but the product should be the same.

For this review we are joined once again by AG, who was a big help to us in our review of Island Farms Green Tea. This ice cream is coconut milk based with large pieces of cookie dough and chocolate chunks throughout. It was quite easy to scoop out, and we didn't have the frozen solid cookie dough problem that we had with Ben and Jerry's, despite the size of the pieces.

We were impressed by the cookie dough right off the bat. Not only were they in big chunks, but there were little mini chocolate chips in it. This seemed like the kind of stuff you could actually bake cookies out of, and while we debated trying it, by the time we had gotten around to making any kind of decision...we had already finished the ice cream. We also appreciated that the cookie dough wasn't too sweet, letting the chocolate chunks and the ice cream carry the sugar in this dessert. The chocolate was somewhat crispy, sweet but not too sweet, and So Delicious was very generous in the amount of mix-ins they gave us, unlike some of the brands of traditional cookie dough ice cream we tried.

And now the part you are probably wondering about: the ice cream base. Well if you expected that it would taste like coconut....you would be correct. And the coconut and ice cream combination takes some getting used to. At times we were almost getting like a marzipan flavour coming through. When you eat it together with the cookie dough, the coconut flavour becomes a bit less evident, but when you get it on its own you're reminded that, oh yea, you're eating a coconut milk ice cream. The ice cream is also quite sweet, but again this kind of balances with the less sweet cookie dough. AG commented that the ice cream base “tastes more like body lotion than ice cream,” and it does kind of give me flashbacks to The Body Shop's Coconut Body Butter. The coconut milk taste + cookie dough is not a bad combination, it's just kind of weird, and we're not sure that it totally works, at least not in the way we expected it to.

Recommend to a friend? If you're lactose intolerant, you should try this. While the combination is unconventional, it is still enjoyable and a nice alternative to soy-based frozen desserts. We give So Delicious serious props for the quality of the product and their generosity with the mix-ins.

Repurchase? We'd like to try some of the other coconut milk ice cream varieties rather than repurchase this particular one. It was OK, but not really our thing.

Review: Chapman's "Raspberry Sorbet"

 Our third pink ice cream selection in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month: 

Oh my. Where to start. From the time we purchased this product to the time I sat down to make this review, I feel like our experience with Chapman's Raspberry Sorbet has turned into a saga of epic proportions. The highs were high. The lows were low. Words cannot possibly describe the fiasco that is Chapman's Raspberry Sorbet. Well, actually, I suppose they can. Let me tell you the story...

It all started prior to the Thanksgiving weekend. Because the family dinner was going to be held on the Island, B's sister (whose name also starts with B - because our parents are creative - and who will be referred to using the colour green: B) was going to be visiting, and she was excited to help us review an ice cream and thereby make a guest appearance on the blog. When the day finally came to choose an ice cream, we searched high and low for Island Farms green tea flavor, but could not find it anywhere. So instead, B selected what we all thought would be a safe and most likely delicious flavour: Chapman's raspberry sorbet. We were all very excited to take this product home and enjoy it.

The packaging is appealing enough. We certainly appreciated that this sorbet was clearly marked as being fat free, cholesterol free, peanut free, lactose free, and gluten free. If you have allergies, or will be serving something to a large group of people whose allergies may be unknown, like a children's birthday party, this would be a safe bet.

 The first thing I noticed when I took the lid off the container was that I could smell the sorbet. Which is kind of odd, because normally frozen foods tend not to have much of an aroma. But the sorbet in question had a distinctive smell of something akin to koolaid or fruit punch or bubblegum. Something artificial. Hmm. I guess that's OK. And it looks relatively normal. I mean, sure, it is a rather shocking shade of magenta, but rapsberries are quite a colourful fruit. When we scooped it out, it had a relatively soft and "fluffy" consistency, similar to the texture of the other Chapman's flavour we had previously tried, Hokey Pokey. It kind of feels like it has gelatin in it, and after consulting the ingredients, though it did not contain gelatin, it did contain five different types of gums.

So the only thing to do at this point is to taste it. We divided a few scoops among the three of us and took a bite.

For starters this thing...tastes exactly like it smells. Which is not like raspberry. Which is not a good thing. For something that is based on a tangy fruit, this sorbet displays no tartness whatsoever. In fact, it's incredibly sweet. It has a kind of artificial raspberry taste to it, which is odd because the ingredients say that it contains actual raspberry puree. We found no evidence to support this, though we did find plenty of evidence of "natural flavour" that was added. We don't really understand why, if you are using a fruit that is as flavourful as raspberries, you would be inclined to add chemical flavouring, even if it's "natural." The taste reminded us a lot of bubblegum, or of blue raspberry flavoured candy, like a Ring Pop. Which is fine for candy, where the expectation of realistic flavours is minimal, but when you purchase a sorbet that proclaims to use the actual fruit it's pretty awful.

When we began testing this sorbet, we tried to be open-minded about the product. When we tried to consider the ideal consumer for this sorbet, we kept going back to the idea of kids, as the flavour is very sweet and candy-like. B said that the "flavour is OK - I wouldn't stop eating it, but I wouldn't buy it again." Not long after, however, she had changed her mind: "I retract my previous statement! I want to stop eating this right now!" She followed this comment up by saying "I feel like I'm eating... packs of gum! Bubble tape!" which, considering how many gums are in the thing, isn't a totally unreasonable assessment. We offered a spoonful to my mother to taste, and she was as excited as we initially were to try a raspberry sorbet. Mere seconds later, however, she had spit it in the sink in disgust, proclaiming it to be "slimy" and bad-tasting. 

So far, this flavour was leaving an extremely bad taste, not to mention alarming colour, in our mouths. But the story doesn't end there...

We noticed that on the side of the container there was a "satisfaction guarantee" followed by a hotline number to call. Well, we were extremely dissatisfied with this product, and since we were going to post about our dissatisfaction on the internet, we figured it would be a good idea to give this number a call. This is a brief summary of what transpired:  A very kindly female representative repeatedly assured us that the Raspberry Sorbet is indeed made entirely from natural raspberry puree and that it is one of their top selling items.  She implied something might have been wrong with the container of Sorbet we had purchased as she could not imagine we would have found it as sweet and artificial as we did.  We expressed our extreme dissatisfaction with the product and relayed the spitting of a sample into the sink and were asked to provide our contact information to receive some sort of compensation in the mail.  This compensation has yet to arrive of course, and so we will have to update later regarding the details.

After trying this flavour one more time before writing this review, we found that time had not altered our opinion of it, and so the rest of it was washed down the kitchen sink. Thus concludes the saga of the Chapman's Raspberry Sorbet. Until, of course, we receive some mail from Chapman's.

Recommend to a friend? Like we stated earlier, the only possible market we feel might enjoy this would be children, because of the candy-like taste and the lack of allergens. For anyone who actually enjoys raspberries, however, avoid like the plague.
Repurchase? J + B: you could not pay us enough to eat this again! So awful!

Review: Dorgel "Tangerine Raspberry Mango" Gelato

 Edited to add: Forgot to mention that today marks the one month birthday of Two Girls, One Scoop! Exciting!! In our introductory month of blogging about all things ice cream, we have received over 1,100 page views from web surfers in over 10 different countries! Thank you to everyone who has been reading so far - we hope to keep blogging well into the future! :)


 Our second pink ice cream selection in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month:

 Though not pink in its entirety, Dorgel Tangerine Raspberry Mango Gelato does have a raspberry element, which is a nice colour of pink. Besides, after perusing the frozen foods section of Save-on-Foods, so many of the pink selections were strawberry, and we have already discussed our distaste for this particular flavour. So after much deliberation, we decided to give this one a try. Bonus: it's fat free!

Upon opening the container, we discovered that it looks....extremely unappealing. In terms of aesthetics, the real deal looks nothing like the fun-coloured scoops on the front of the container. It almost looks like a rainbow threw up in there. Once we scooped past the very top layer, it did improve slightly in appearance, but not significantly. The texture is what you might expect from a commercial gelato or sorbet: not crumbly, not creamy, not flaky....just not very cohesive. After all, it's essentially frozen juice with some added gums for stabilization, so it doesn't have the smoothness of a normal ice cream. As J said, it's basically like a "soft popsicle" in a carton.

This flavour is supposed to encompass three different fruits: mango, raspberry, and tangerine. Though we were able to isolate each of the flavours, the mango is definitely dominant. You can easily find the raspberry if you are so inclined, but the tangerine is extremely hard to get on its own. If you're eating the whole thing together, it mostly tastes like a sweet mango. The overall flavour is sweet and fruity, while the texture is very light and refreshing. After a whole slew of dairy-heavy ice creams, this light, fat-free option was a nice change, even if it looks like tie-dye gone wrong.

Recommend to a friend? If you are looking for something light and fruity, and the colouring doesn't put you off, this is a nice, sweet dessert. Especially if you like mango.
Repurchase? J: Perhaps, though I didn't think it was exceptional. It was fine, but not amazing. B: I really enjoyed this gelato, and would purchase again.