Serious Eats: Sweets
Portable Milkshakes! (And Other New Skinny Cow Products)
[Photo: Dave Katz]
Most of you are probably familiar with Skinny Cow's low-fat, low-calorie ice cream sandwiches, but they've come out with a line of so-called "Slimited Edition" snacks—Mmmmocha Truffle Bars, Oh Fudge Nuts! Cones, and Shake-Stirs Shakes.
Mmmmocha Truffle Bar: When we unwrapped this bar from its individual package, we were shocked by how small it was. (It shouldn't have been much of a surprise, since the advertised 100 calories per bar doesn't exactly leave much space to work with.)The treat consists of a solid block of coffee ice cream with chocolate drizzled on the outside. Looking past the general lack of richness and creaminess which is characteristic of all low-fat ice creams, this bar suffered from an overwhelming coffee flavor that totally overwhelmed the taste. Our advice: Skinny Cow bars are not a bad low-fat treat if that's what you're in the market for, but get this bar in another flavor.
Oh Fudge Nuts! Cone: Going into the tasting with expectations of the Drumsticks of our childhoods proved too high of a bar to set for this low-fat cone. The cone is lined with chocolate and filled with vanilla ice cream, pieces of nuts, and more chocolate sauce mixed throughout. We would have gladly welcomed more of the scarce nut pieces to provide relief from the grainy, icy texture of the ice cream. The combination of the ice cream and chocolate was too sugary for our taste, as if the company was attempting to distract our taste buds from the lack of creamy dairy flavor. The crispy cone was easily the best part of the treat, as it managed to avoid the spongy staleness that befalls many of its frozen competitors.
Shake-Stirs Shakes: The most curious yet intriguing concept of the group. A portable milkshake in a cup that you just need to freeze, then add milk and stir? The idea might seem sacrilegious to milkshake purists, but is handy for someone at home who lacks a blender (or is just too lazy to boot up the machinery). We tasted both the Double-Chocolate Crumble and White Mint Cookie flavors. Both types yielded results equivalent to mixing milk with slightly softened ice cream, lacking that indescribable "milkshake" quality. Perhaps due to the involvement of low-fat ice cream or the suggested 1/3 cup of milk overpowering the cup's components, the texture was grainy with an empty, sugary taste. Between the two, we preferred the mint in comparison to the chocolate's slightly burnt aftertaste. All in all, these instant shakes would be best enjoyed purely out of convenience. And make sure to pay attention to the added amount of milk to keep the final product as thick as possible.
