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I am very lucky that part of my job is trying every new ice cream that hits grocery store shelves in 2025. As a judge for The 2026 Freezies and the director of social media for Simply Recipes, eating delicious food is just a regular part of my weekly to-do list.
Post a social media video. Lead a meeting on campaign ideas for the next quarter. Eat 19 pints of ice cream. That’s just a glimpse at what my actual to-do list looked like at one point last year.
As frivolous as that sounds, I had rigorous testing criteria to consider throughout the process. After all, I’m not just eating all of this ice cream for no reason! Simply Recipes tests every new frozen food product at the grocery store so that when we say that this is the best product, we really mean it.
We want what we recommend not only to be delicious (but duh, that is a given), but also to be worth the cost, require minimal effort to serve, and have any cooking/serving instructions on the package be accurate. So, after clearing my freezer and coordinating with my doorman to get 19 boxes of ice cream brought to my door, the testing process began.
The Testing Criteria
The main criteria I focused on as our official ice cream pint tester were a.) Is this delicious enough to spend however much this costs on a pint? b.) If you are someone who looks forward to a little sweet treat at the end of the day, like I am, does that feel luxurious and indulgent?
While I gave every single pint that arrived at my door a fair shot, I’m just going to go ahead and say that the “healthy” pints didn’t really do it for me. A few of them had great flavors, like Halo Top Mix-Ins Chocolate Cherry Chunk. That had a great flavor and some good-sized chunks of cherry and chocolate, and while I gave it a four out of five, I found myself wanting more. More indulgence, more creaminess, more flavor. MORE!
Talenti Bakery Collection Chocolate Chip Cookie Batter
Price: $5.89 for one pint (price may vary by location)
Why I Love It: Only one pint delivered the luxurious and indulgent payoff I was looking for.
The Hands-Down Winner
That’s when the Talenti Bakery Collection Chocolate Chip Cookie Batter flavor stole the show. After taking approximately 30 minutes to open the jar because, for some reason, Talenti pints are always so tightly closed, I tried to fit as many of the five layers of gelato and cookie pieces on my spoon as possible.
The flavor was truly unbelievable, resulting in an audible gasp and some cartoon stars in my eyes. It was rich, chocolatey, and truly tasted like eating cookie dough off the spoon in my grandma’s kitchen in the 90s.
Each layer (chocolate chip cookie gelato, shortbread cookies, gooey cookie batter, vanilla gelato, and chocolate cookies) brought something new to the party happening in my mouth, and I knew that there was no way I was sharing this pint with my boyfriend when he got home. In fact, I ate so much of it so fast that I made the rule that this pint is no longer allowed in my home (except on special occasions) because I cannot be trusted to act responsibly around it. It was that good, and absolutely worth the $5.89 price.
While I loved trying all of the nominees for best pint, I knew the minute I tried that Talenti flavor that it was over for everyone else. My mind was made up. But that doesn’t mean that there weren’t others who deserved a shout-out.
Besides the Talenti Bakery Collection Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and the Halo Top mentioned above, I gave five out of five ratings to two other ice creams. They were the Talenti Bakery Collection Snickerdoodle Cookie and the Lactaid Lactose-Free Chocolate Peanut Butter. Both were decadent, creamy, and packed with flavor. I was actually surprised by how much peanut butter Lactaid put in their ice cream, and I thoroughly enjoyed trying it.
It was an honor to eat 19 pints of ice cream on your behalf, and I will gladly do it again next year. It may take over my entire freezer and give me a stomachache, but it was absolutely worth it.
To learn more about our approach to product recommendations, see HERE.
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Dining and Cooking