Whether swirled into a cone, scooped on top of a warm brownie, or sandwiched in between cookies, vanilla ice cream is every dessert’s a la mode companion, the glue of summertime, and statistically, the most popular ice cream flavor in the US. However, as we meander down the frozen aisle and browse our store’s selection of ice cream, we hit a wall – which brand is the best to choose? Before you start worrying, we here did the heavy lifting for you and tested the five top brands to see which vanilla ice cream is the cream of the crop.
What We Looked For In An Ice Cream
. We taste tested five different brands of vanilla ice cream. Here’s what we looked for:
Flavor: The first characteristic is a no-brainer but certainly required – vanilla flavor. How strong is the vanilla? Can the vanilla be tasted easily? Do we taste vanilla, or is it just cold milk flavor?
Texture: You can discern a good quality ice cream based on its texture. Is it smooth and creamy? Or is it brittle and crystallized? Though texture and density can share many traits, texture is a real make or break quality and transforms eating into an experience. Texture can be the tipping point, either making the ice cream a dream or a nightmare to eat.
Richness: The heaviness of an ice cream indicates our ability to eat a lot or a little of it, and depending on the dessert you’re going to make, you may actually want a less dense ice cream. Though we love our food to be decadent and rich, there’s a balance between being dense and feeling like we’re eating straight-up heavy cream that sits like a bag of quarters in our stomachs.
. And here are the results, ranked from worst to best:
