Butter pecan ice cream, in these days of Fancy This and Schmancy That, has all the marketing appeal of a pair of brown lace-up dress shoes. But statistics bear out that when it comes to ice cream, even ordinarily daredevil Americans don’t like to gamble. Butter pecan remains the No. 3 flavor in U.S. supermarkets, after vanilla and chocolate, according to the International Dairy Foods Association. (OK, OK, the association puts Neapolitan No. 3, but we think that vanilla-strawberry-chocolate arrangement is a style, not a flavor.)
We persuaded our crew of Good Eating taste-testers to take a chance on nine brands of butter pecan. Tasters were looking for smooth, not gummy, textures and flavors and colors that weren’t too artificial. Most of the base ice creams were van-illa-flavored, but a couple ran to maple or caramel flavorings.
In another demonstration of the “it takes all kinds” truism of tastings, the top three cartons, though quite different from one another, lined up in a virtual photo finish.
An aside: Remember when that tall cylinder of cardboard held a half-gallon of ice cream? Well, some of those containers have shrunk. They still look like half-gallons, or 64 ounces, but manufacturers have reduced the contents to 56 ounces. Harumph. (We won’t even go into the topic of whether ice cream makers are whipping more air into their products these days.)
Products were tasted blind and were scored on a nine-point scale, with nine being best. Prices are what we paid for them and may reflect frequent-shopper discounts. Tasters’ comments follow the top three winners; remaining brands are listed in order of finish.
And the winners are…
1. Edy’s Grand (6.6 points. $5.79 for 56 ounces; 10 cents per ounce). “Maple extract flavor.” “White and natural; like homemade.” “Salty but nice pecan flavor.”
2. Haagen-Dazs (6.4 points. $3.89 for 16 ounces; 24 cents per ounce). “Very dense and smooth.” “Deep vanilla flavor.” “Pecan flavor tastes a bit off.”
.3. Safeway Select (6.3 points. $5 for 64 ounces; 8 cents per ounce). “Smooth and airy.” “Pecans star in this, as they should.” “Buttery, intense.”
Others tasted
4. Edy’s No Sugar Added (5.6 points). 5. Breyers (5.4). 6. Ben & Jerry’s (5.2). 7. Schoep’s (5.1). 8. Breyers Homemade (4.8). 9. Dean’s (4.7).
