Pumpkin + Cream = <3

I’ve really been into side-by-side comparisons lately. I don’t get to do it much, but I always want to. In my head, there’s a party brewing, somehow.

Yesterday we had Dreyer’s, Double Rainbow, and my own home made pumpkin ice cream.

This was the first time my home made ice cream was by far worse than store bought. Granted I didn’t know what I was doing and then I accidentally poured in too much rum, but I think I’ll be shying away from squash ice cream in the future. Mine was a strange texture, I think because I didn’t have a fine enough sieve to strain out the large nutmeg bits. And I don’t think I remembered to use ginger.

Dreyer’s was the winner of the day. I’m not sure why, but it had a better texture than other Dreyer’s flavors, fluffy and smooth. And it’s a really satisfying light orange color (see picture of cone below). It’s just the right amount of sweetness, and spice, and not squashy at all. It has all the standard pumpkin spices but the ginger stands out from the crowd. YUM.

Double Rainbow was quite surprising. As an alternative, super premium, from a brand that cares about cow hormones, and makes a soy ice cream, you’d a expect more of a natural flavor. The first thing both my sister and I tasted was sweet. And it’s a bit overwhelming, because compared to the color of Dreyer’s, it’s darker and more pumpkin pie-like. It’s not usually useful to compare a super-premium with a premium, but for 27g of sugar to Dreyer’s’ 14g, it’s quite a difference. The flavor is good, and the stand out spice is nutmeg. It’s also very unsquash like. I would probably be all over it if i didn't taste it next to the Dreyer's.

I was unable to get my hands on Thrifty's brand pumpkin this year.

As an added bonus, Lydia tipped me off to Noah’s Bagels pumpkin selections. I wasn’t able to get my hands on a pumpkin bagel, but the Pumpkin Cheesecake Shmear is really fantastic. Quite possibly better than pumpkin ice cream. The color is a little darker than I would have liked. But, the flavor is fantastic, I couldn’t imagine it being better. The texture is like any Noah’s Shmear, which I think is a bit too light for the texture of their bagels. But, boy, is it delicious! What a Halloween treat! It's a toss up between the Shmear and ice cream. But I'll go on record saying that it's better than pumpkin pie.