Halo Top is the new ice-cream of the moment and I needed to try it. When I heard about Halo Top being a guilt free ice-cream I was intrigued as I can easily eat a tub of ice-cream on my own. I know I shouldn’t but it’s ice cream right, there are certain brands you can’t help but finish. Ben and Jerry’s is my favourite but I still wanted to see if there would be a lighter option that would be just as tasty and be a bit more guilt free.
At first it was a little hard to find as it kept selling out and all I found was empty shelves. Finally I found the vanilla, one of seven flavours the UK currently has available. On my first try of the vanilla, I didn’t like it, it tasted like a cheap ice-cream and the texture was like it had crystallised. However I knew I was going to give the brand another shot as I really wanted to try the cinnamon roll flavour.
Over the last couple months I tried more flavours including the cinnamon roll and I am now a fan of Halo Top.
The cinnamon roll was amazing. I ate the entire contents of this tub so quickly. The ice-cream itself was creamy and the cinnamon flavour was throughout the whole tub. It is not a light flavour, you know straight away you are eating cinnamon but it is not overwhelming. It adds a lovely spicy sweetness to the ice-cream. There are also small bits of cookie dough throughout the tub with added cinnamon to it. These bits of dough add an enjoyable extra element of chew which helps break up the creamy taste with extra texture.
After the cinnamon tub and the different texture I paid more attention to the tub and it does say that if the ice-cream is a little hard at first just give it a few minutes and it will soften up fine. I think this may have been the issue with the vanilla tub or maybe it was just a bad batch but the rest of the tubs tried since have all been soft and creamy straight out the freezer.
Onto the Other Flavours
The chocolate cookie dough tastes just like the vanilla but with a few extra bits in it. The cookie dough is throughout the tub but it’s small pieces. If you are a lover of Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough you may want to stick with that. When I want cookie dough I would rather extra calories for bigger cookie dough pieces.
The salted caramel flavour was similar to the cookie dough with the vanilla base and then added swirls of caramel. Like the cookie dough there is more ice-cream than caramel, the caramel almost disappears into the ice-cream, but the flavour is still there and it’s a lovely sweet caramel that the salt benefits rather than hinders.
The mint chip has a gentle mint flavour which builds up the more you eat. The flavour after awhile reminds me of after eights mints which are popular here in the UK at Christmas time. There seems to be a good spread of chips throughout but I am not a fan of mint ice-cream so I gave the tub to my boyfriend and he’s still to finish it.
There are also chocolate and a peanut butter cup flavours which I haven’t tried. I will try the chocolate at some point but I still have some mini tubs of another brand I am trying in the freezer, when these are done I’ll try the Halo Top. If you want a review of the peanut flavour you will be waiting quite a while as I hate peanut butter so I can’t bring myself to try it. Maybe one day but I know I won’t like it.
I will commend Halo Top on the textures. Having the ice-cream so creamy straight out the freezer is great, especially for someone with an ice-cream craving. The flavours are also very good but if you like your extras in ice-cream this isn’t your brand. I can understand that there will be less additions to keep the calories lower but the vanilla, cookie dough and caramel all tasted similar. Go for the flavour that calls out to you, you don’t need all of these in your freezer.
Each tub ranges between 280 and 360 calories which is great compared to some competitors as some tubs can be over 500 calories. They are priced the same as other brands at £5 each but if your paying the same do you want less calories?
For more information check out https://www.halotop.uk/
Just tried the peanut butter cup. It is disgusting! Firstly the texture is not that of ice cream and it tastes quite insipid. I can only assume all their flavours are like this, as this was the first flavour I have tried. But, perhaps worst of all, there was hardly any peanut butter cup in it, just a few little shards. A huge disappointment, and, at £5 in Iceland, very expensive. Unsure with how they get away with calling it icecream