Five ingredients: Skim milk, cream, brown sugar (molasses, sugar), sugar, egg yolks. That is the complete ingredient list for Haagen-Dazs' "Brown Sugar" ice cream. With such a short list of ingredients, I was quickly interested in finding out how this flavor of Haagen-Dazs' new line-up of "Five" ice cream stacked up to other ice creams with a far more extensive ingredient list.
There is little argument that Haagen-Dazs has some of the best packaging in the industry and their "Five" ice cream is no exception. A clean, white container without a lot of text and decoration and a simple picture of a lump of brown sugar works well with the idea of an ice cream with a limited ingredient list. The gold-rimmed lid gives just the right touch of class that is associated with the Haagen-Dazs brand.
We opened the container and removed the safety seal and the ice cream inside looked pretty much like what I expected "Brown Sugar" ice cream to look like. Lighter in color than the lump of brown sugar pictured on the container, the ice cream looked similar to cinnamon ice creams I've seen from other companies.
The first taste of Haagen-Dazs' "Brown Sugar" ice cream was eye-opening. It tasted like straight-up, cold brown sugar. The second taste and all subsequent tastes had the same impact, which was a bit of a shock to my tastebuds. One thing I noticed was that the molasses of the brown sugar seemed to come out a lot and it made me think of ginger snap cookies.
After three to four tastes of this ice cream, I was done. Unfortunately, the taste is more overwhelming than it is good. And while it's a smooth ice cream, I found myself getting a bit of a dry mouth, like eating fiber cereal.
Overall, the presentation is much better than the product. I can only imagine that you have to be the kind of person that will reach into the bag of brown sugar and grab a chunk to eat straight-up with nothing else in order to like Haagen-Dazs' "Brown Sugar" ice cream.
- Fred