Where Can I Buy Cheese Cake Flavored Ice Cream
We tried all 7 of The Cheesecake Factory's new ice cream flavors and ranked them
- The Cheesecake Factory recently launched cheesecake-flavored ice cream as part of its "At Home" line of treats that can be purchased at grocery stores around the US.
- The 14-ounce cartons are available for $4.99 each and come in seven flavors: Strawberry, Key Lime, Original, Chocolate, Cookies & Cream, Salted Caramel, and Birthday Cake.
- Insider's lifestyle reporter and food reporter put all seven of the cheesecake-flavored, frozen treats to the test.
- The Salted Caramel and Cookies & Cream flavors came out on top, while the Birthday Cake and Strawberry flavors are best suited for ice cream fans with a major sweet tooth.
- Editor's note: The Cheesecake Factory provided Insider with free samples of the ice cream, which cost $4.99 per 14-ounce carton, to review.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
The Cheesecake Factory is arguably best known for selling more than 30 flavors of cheesecake.
Cheesecake devotees and fans of the beloved American restaurant chain alike will be excited to know that Cheesecake Factory ice cream now exists, and it combines the refreshing frozen treat with the classic, cheesy dessert.
As part of the restaurant chain's "At Home" collection, The Cheesecake Factory partnered with Wells Enterprises, Inc., to create seven flavors of cheesecake ice cream that can be purchased at grocery stores around America for $4.99 each.
I enlisted the help of Insider's food reporter, Rachel Askinasi, to join me in trying and rating all of the new Cheesecake Factory ice creams: Strawberry, Key Lime, Original, Chocolate, Cookies & Cream, Salted Caramel, and Birthday Cake. Here's what we thought of each flavor.
Editor's note: The Cheesecake Factory provided Insider with free samples of the ice cream, which cost $4.99 per 14-ounce carton, to review.
The Cheesecake Factory's At Home line includes seven ice cream flavors. Our favorites were Cookies & Cream and Salted Caramel, and Birthday Cake was at the bottom of our list.
Based on the flavors and eating experience of each ice cream, we found that Cookies & Cream and Salted Caramel came out on top. Chocolate, Original, and Key Lime followed closely behind, but Strawberry and Birthday Cake fell short.
Keep reading for a breakdown of each flavor.
The Birthday Cake ice cream was our least favorite of the bunch because of its sickly sweet taste, but fans of the festive treat might like the flavor.
I followed the shipment's instructions to allow the ice creams to thaw for an hour after they had been sitting in a bucket of dry ice. However, when I opened the Birthday Cake flavor, it had a thick, melted layer on top. Beneath the watery layer, though, the ice cream was more firm.
The ice cream contained chunks of cake, which was a sugary but whimsical touch.
The Birthday Cake ice cream itself had the most liquid-like consistency of the seven flavors, in my experience.
We thought the flavor was overly sweet and was reminiscent of store-bought sugar cookies. While sugar cookie-enthusiasts might enjoy this, it wasn't our favorite, and it left a toothache-inducing after-taste.
We thought the Strawberry flavor also had an overwhelming, lingering sweetness, but we liked the fruity flavor and appreciated the real strawberry chunks.
Fresh Strawberry is apparently one of The Cheesecake Factory's most popular varieties of cheesecake, so perhaps that was the inspiration for this ice cream flavor.
A downside was that the ice cream's strawberry pieces were still frozen and slightly hard to eat, despite the ice cream being fully thawed.
In my experience, while the ice cream itself was thawed, the strawberry mix-ins were still frozen and semi-icy.
The brand's Key Lime ice cream had a strong citrus taste that combined cheesecake with the classic tart dessert.
Similarly to the Birthday Cake flavor, the Key Lime ice cream was fairly melted on top, but toward the middle of the container, the texture was solid and easier to enjoy.
We thought the highlight of the Key Lime flavor was that it contained graham-cracker bites, which became slightly melty and swirled nicely into the ice cream.
Insider's food reporter, Rachel, noted that the flavor of the Key Lime ice cream tasted more artificial than fresh, and I agreed — but I also think that's the nature of a frozen dessert opposed to a freshly baked slice of cheesecake.
However, the graham crackers balanced out the strong citrus taste, making this flavor a large step up from the Strawberry and Birthday Cake options.
The brand also has an Original flavor, which is meant to mimic the taste of plain cheesecake.
The Original flavor was the blank canvas of the seven flavors. Aside from its graham-cracker bits, the main notes present in a spoonful of the Original ice cream were sour cream and cream cheese. There wasn't anything unexpected with the Original flavor, which was a positive thing.
Visually, there wasn't much to see with the Original flavor, but taste-wise, the flavor was spot-on. It tasted strongly of plain cheesecake, but with a sweeter twist.
There were strong notes of sour cream, which is what set this ice cream apart from other plain- or vanilla-flavored frozen desserts.
As a devout chocolate dessert lover, I had high hopes for the Chocolate cheesecake ice cream. I thought it delivered on taste, with its chocolate swirls giving off a hot chocolate-like flavor.
The Chocolate cheesecake ice cream flavor had a firm but smooth consistency. It didn't contain pieces of graham cracker or anything crunchy; its main mix-in was chocolate fudge syrup.
The Chocolate ice cream was one of the more decadent-tasting treats of the seven flavors, as it contained pools of chocolate syrup that added a rich bite.
Our food reporter, Rachel, noted that the swirls of chocolate syrup present in the ice cream had a gritty texture, which was reminiscent of hot chocolate powder or chocolate pudding.
"I'm not mad about it, though," she said.
The Salted Caramel cheesecake ice cream had rich caramel swirls that tasted notably salty, which felt semi-sophisticated — not sickly sweet.
After a couple of small bites, it was clear the Salted Caramel flavor was one of our favorites.
The Salted Caramel flavor also included bits of graham cracker — a nod to its cheesecake base — which was a nice addition to the caramel syrup.
The ice cream's swirls of caramel mixed perfectly with the tangier, sour cream base.
Every spoonful was teeming with a distinct caramel flavor and was balanced out by the hint of salt.
We were impressed with the amount of caramel present throughout the carton of ice cream, not just on the top layer.
The Cookies & Cream flavor tied with the Salted Caramel ice cream for our top choice.
Ice cream brands and shops often put their own twist on the classic cookies and cream combination, but what made The Cheesecake Factory's take stand out was that the "cream" aspect was heavy on the cheesecake flavor, instead of plain vanilla.
The ice cream was everything one would expect from a traditional Cookies & Cream blend, but with a cheesecake undertone.
We thought this ice cream was reminiscent of a cheesecake-flavored milkshake ... if that even exists.
The ice cream was perfectly dotted with bits of cookies and also included larger cookie chunks, which added a delightful crunch.
Unlike the bits of fruit in the Strawberry flavor, which were frozen during our tasting experience, the cookie pieces were thawed and easy to eat, adding a pleasant crunchy contrast to the creamy dessert.
While this flavor seemed to melt especially quickly, that didn't deter from its decadent taste.
This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author(s).
Where Can I Buy Cheese Cake Flavored Ice Cream
Source: https://www.insider.com/cheesecake-factory-ice-cream-review-2020-3