Update Review, 2021 - 2026
Several years passed since my run-in with the adorable baby loaf bus slinging free ice cream. And during those years, Tillamook productionized their ice cream, and found widespread distribution channels (and offer frozen custards and ice cream sandwiches now too!)
It was time for me to try Tillamook again, this time, purchased from the local grocery store. I first went online to learn about available flavors, and I grew quite excited. Tillamook has a lot of flavors these days, including 3 (yes, three!) kinds of vanilla (old-fashioned, made with a blend of vanillas, vanilla bean with crushed vanilla bean seeds, and french vanilla, which uses a custard base). But it wasn't the vanillas I sought out. If I was feeling fruity, there were many many options, such as the interesting sounding peaches & cream, Oregon dark cherry, mountain huckleberry, white chocolate raspberry, and classic strawberry. Speaking of classics, of course there is standard chocolate (or chocolate mudslide, udderly chocolate, or chocolate peanut butter), chocolate chip (or mint chocolate chip), cookies & cream, and rocky road. And then there are spins on classics, like caramel butter pecan, oregon hazelnut and salted caramel, waffle cone swirl, and banana split (yes, with vanilla, strawberry, and banana ice creams, with walnuts, cherries, and fudge too!). The list goes on and on. Of particular interest to me was the "Monster Cookie" flavor - not because I like monster cookies in cookie form, but the flavor promised a cookie dough base, with salted peanut butter swirl, crispy oats, chocolate flakes, and sweet candies! The marionberry pie flavor also called out, with hunks of pie crust within, along with the marionberries.
I wasn't able to find the more interesting flavors, alas, limited shelf space at downtown SF location, but I still was able to try a few flavors.
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| Vanilla Bean. |
Tillamook makes a bunch of different vanilla ice cream. French vanilla. Old fashioned vanilla. And this, vanilla bean. From the ingredient list, they all use the old-fashioned vanilla as the base, as it has the fewest ingredients. That one is described as "Rich vanilla ice cream made with our special blend of the very best vanillas", and has a relatively short ingredient list: cream/skim milk/milk/sugar/egg yolks, then the vanilla extract, and a few gums (tara, guar). Oh, and "Natural flavor" of course. The vanilla bean has all of the above, plus vanilla bean. French vanilla is where the ingredient list starts to get lengthy. Again, all of the base of old fashioned vanilla, no vanilla bean, and then more "stuff": citric acid, annatto (for color), and more gums (xanthan, locust bean). Curious why those are needed to create this "silky smooth French custard ice cream"? It is a big higher cal and fat as well, so I assume it has more egg yolk than the others. Anyway. 3 vanillas, this was the most interesting sounding to me.
The vanilla bean specs were evident. The color was very white, in a way that came across as quite pure. It looked really quite appealing and high quality. It also melted remarkably well, soo creamy and smooth. The flavor was good, but not as intensely vanilla as I was hoping. Häagen-Dazs® really is my benchmark for vanilla bean ice cream, and theirs has more vanilla going on.
Overall, a good quality vanilla bean ice cream that I'd be happy to eat anytime, but I wouldn't go out of my way to purchase it. 3.5/5.
"Simply smooth, rich, chocolate ice cream."
Another simple flavor: chocolate. This one looks to be the same base as the vanilla flavors, just with cocoa powder instead of vanilla extract.
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| Chocolate. |
Another simple flavor: chocolate. This one looks to be the same base as the vanilla flavors, just with cocoa powder instead of vanilla extract.
It too melted beautifully, and was quite creamy. Excellent consistency. The flavor was fairly mild milk chocolate. Chocolate ice cream is never my flavor of choice, so I found this a bit boring, but it was fine chocolate ice cream. 3/5.
"Sweet cake batter ice cream with pieces of delicious yellow cake and rainbow sprinkles."
"Cookie dough ice cream with delicious chocolaty bits and cookie dough bites."
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| Birthday Cake. |
I had high high hopes for this flavor, the first interesting one I purchased. I had been craving cake in particular, so this sounded perfect (as I always pair my cake with ice cream).
My first bite and I was ... more than disappointed. Almost ... repulsed. It was cloying. It tasted fake. It tasted like packaged snack cakes, in a plastic way. It was everything that gives "cake batter" flavored things an eye roll. I was so sad.
But ... I kept trying. Maybe the "delicious yellow cake" pieces would win me over? So I dug for a few of them, finally figuring out that the strange bright yellow-orange tiny pieces must be the cake. The color was unnatural, and they were barely bigger than the equally colorful sprinkles. And, um, delicious yellow cake they were not, but I did almost sorta like the texture.
Speaking of the colorful sprinkles, I adore sprinkles, and appreciated the colorful pops, but, they didn't actually add anything to the taste of the ice cream.
So, sprinkles? Lost. Cake? Pretty much lost, slight texture. But the real issue was the base flavor, the "cake batter", that was just fake-cloying-plastic.
Sadness.
2.5/5.
Update: But ... I had a half gallon of this ice cream, and I'm not really capable of letting ice cream go to waste, no matter how mediocre it seems to be. While I never wanted to just dig into a scoop of this, I did find that it paired well with cake. Warm cake (best with a funfetti cake, but any kind seemed to work) with a scoop of this, and some extra sprinkles, worked well enough. 3/5.
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| Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. |
Next I went for a classic crowd pleaser: cookie dough. I hoped that the hunks of dough would be far better than the hunks of cake in the cake batter.
The base ice cream was good enough vanilla ice cream, nicely creamy. Nothing revolutionary, but, good. I appreciated how generously studded with mini chips it was, nearly every bite had several. The bits of cookie dough were considerably fewer, and frequently took some digging to find a couple. They were the small square type that you find at self-serve froyo places as a generic cookie dough topping, just slightly bigger. They didn't taste particularly better than those, but weren't bad. Basically, fine, but not noteworthy in any way.
So, good quality base ice cream, good amount of nice quality little chips, average cookie dough. 3.5/5, a gallon I easily finished, but wouldn't buy again.
Original Review, 2016
About year or two ago, I became aware of the Tillamook brand due to their catchy "baby loaf bus" commercials, and the ensuing drama when someone stole a bunch of them (yes, for real ... go read about it). But, I thought they just made cheese. I like cheese, don't get me wrong, but, cheese is cheese (unless it is Brillat-Savarin of course, swoon), and not something I get THAT excited about.
But, it turns out Tillamook makes more than just cheese. They also make yogurt, sour cream, butter, and ... ice cream. Now we are talking. They've even made it since 1947. They sell standard cartons of ice cream at the supermarket (1.75 qt size), plus "Tillamookies" (ice cream sandwiches with wafer cookies like waffle cones as the cookies), and "Tillabars" (chocolate coated ice cream bars on sticks).
But this isn't a story about any of those products. In February 2016, they are launching a new product line of ultra premium ice cream, gelato, and custard, available in pint sizes too. And, to promote their new products, they sent out ... the baby loaf bus!
I was walking past The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen, when I spied ... yes, a baby loaf bus parked out front.
It was a cold, almost rainy day, and totally not ice cream weather, but, that didn't stop me. Luckily for me, it seemed to stop everyone else, and there was literally no line. No line, and free ice cream? WHAT?!
On offer were four of the soon-to-be-released flavors:
I stepped right up and ordered the one that sounded most interesting to me, the Marionberry Cheesecake Custard. After dishing out a full scoop, not just a tiny sample as I expected, the friendly Tillamook staff member said, "and what else?" I was shocked, not only were they giving me a full scoop, they wanted to know what other flavors I wanted? I hesitated a moment, knowing it was late in the day so I didn't want caffeine, so I ruled out the obviously caffeinated coffee flavor and the dark chocolate, and settled on the hazelnut chocolate gelato. The server asked if I wanted any others, and I said no at this point, quite happy with my two scoops. Amusingly, the guy who strode up to line after me, did opt to get a scoop of all 4 flavors!
Marrionberry Cheesecake Custard
"Sweet mascarpone frozen custard swirled with an Oregon marionberry ripple and pieces of graham cracker crust."
I started with the Marrionberry Cheesecake Custard. It had lovely swirls of marionberry jam, and bits of graham cracker crumble. I didn't really taste cheesecake, but the texture was very smooth in the base custard, it melted perfectly, and I liked the bits of crust for crunch and the fruity swirls. The distribution of ingredients was great. I wasn't in love with the flavor though. 3/5.
Hazelnut Chocolate.
"Creamy hazelnut gelato and thick chocolate fudge, topped with morsels of roasted Oregon hazelnuts."
I moved on to my second choice, the hazelnut chocolate. I ended up loving this one, which is interesting, as I don't actually really care much for hazelnut. The base of the gelato was again great, a rich, creamy texture, that melted really nicely. It was loaded with quite a lot of hazelnut. The pieces of nut were the perfect size too, adding plenty of texture and crunch, without being too big and hard to eat. The real winning element for me however was the chocolate fudge swirl. Just like the marionberry jam swirl, it was a generous swirl, this time of rich chocolate. I loved it. 4/5.
I really enjoyed both flavors, and the care that went into crafting the ingredient mix was obvious. Each bite left you wanting more, another bite with crunch, another bite with a fruit or jam swirl. Maybe, just maybe, I really could have tried all 4!
"Creamy, nutty, and truly indulgent pistachio gelato with the perfect hint of sea salt."
And ... the baby loaf bus came back! A few months later, during the actual summer. It was perfect ice cream weather, and I was thrilled to see the bus.
They had three choices this time, the same Stumptown coffee and Marionberry cheesecake as before, but this time, no hazelnut chocolate (darn! That is what I wanted again!), so, I went for the pistachio, made with California pistachios.
It was perfectly melty, and had a slight pistachio taste, but, there was something about it I didn't care for. I'm really not sure what it was, but it had a bit of a funk to it. Still, very creamy, nicely made gelato, just, not in a flavor I wanted. 3/5.
But, it turns out Tillamook makes more than just cheese. They also make yogurt, sour cream, butter, and ... ice cream. Now we are talking. They've even made it since 1947. They sell standard cartons of ice cream at the supermarket (1.75 qt size), plus "Tillamookies" (ice cream sandwiches with wafer cookies like waffle cones as the cookies), and "Tillabars" (chocolate coated ice cream bars on sticks).
But this isn't a story about any of those products. In February 2016, they are launching a new product line of ultra premium ice cream, gelato, and custard, available in pint sizes too. And, to promote their new products, they sent out ... the baby loaf bus!
 |
| Baby Loaf Bus! |
It was a cold, almost rainy day, and totally not ice cream weather, but, that didn't stop me. Luckily for me, it seemed to stop everyone else, and there was literally no line. No line, and free ice cream? WHAT?!
On offer were four of the soon-to-be-released flavors:
- Dark Chocolate Gelato
- Stumptown Cold Brew Coffee Ice Cream
- Oregon Hazelnut Chocolate Gelato
- Marionberry Cheesecake Custard
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| Marionberry Cheesecake Custard, Oregon Hazelnut Chocolate Gelato. 2016 |
Marrionberry Cheesecake Custard
"Sweet mascarpone frozen custard swirled with an Oregon marionberry ripple and pieces of graham cracker crust."
I started with the Marrionberry Cheesecake Custard. It had lovely swirls of marionberry jam, and bits of graham cracker crumble. I didn't really taste cheesecake, but the texture was very smooth in the base custard, it melted perfectly, and I liked the bits of crust for crunch and the fruity swirls. The distribution of ingredients was great. I wasn't in love with the flavor though. 3/5.
Hazelnut Chocolate.
"Creamy hazelnut gelato and thick chocolate fudge, topped with morsels of roasted Oregon hazelnuts."
I moved on to my second choice, the hazelnut chocolate. I ended up loving this one, which is interesting, as I don't actually really care much for hazelnut. The base of the gelato was again great, a rich, creamy texture, that melted really nicely. It was loaded with quite a lot of hazelnut. The pieces of nut were the perfect size too, adding plenty of texture and crunch, without being too big and hard to eat. The real winning element for me however was the chocolate fudge swirl. Just like the marionberry jam swirl, it was a generous swirl, this time of rich chocolate. I loved it. 4/5.
I really enjoyed both flavors, and the care that went into crafting the ingredient mix was obvious. Each bite left you wanting more, another bite with crunch, another bite with a fruit or jam swirl. Maybe, just maybe, I really could have tried all 4!
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| California Pistachio Farmhouse Gelato. June 2016. |
And ... the baby loaf bus came back! A few months later, during the actual summer. It was perfect ice cream weather, and I was thrilled to see the bus.
They had three choices this time, the same Stumptown coffee and Marionberry cheesecake as before, but this time, no hazelnut chocolate (darn! That is what I wanted again!), so, I went for the pistachio, made with California pistachios.
It was perfectly melty, and had a slight pistachio taste, but, there was something about it I didn't care for. I'm really not sure what it was, but it had a bit of a funk to it. Still, very creamy, nicely made gelato, just, not in a flavor I wanted. 3/5.
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