For almost ten years, my main choice for an ice cream-like dessert has been CarbSmart from Breyers Ice Cream. Unfortunately, my local grocers only stock vanilla and the chocolate covered ice cream bars although Breyers makes a chocolate and a peanut butter ice cream as well. And they make a frozen mint bar. I must work on persuading our grocers to stock them.
On a search for information about other low-carb, sugar-free ice cream alternatives, I found several, one of which was Wink Frozen Dessertstm that offered frozen treats so low in carbs that they seemed like a miracle. Made from plant products and completely natural, they sounded like a dream come true. And the choices were amazing. Wink had all the usual flavors plus strawberry cheesecake, pumpkin spice latte, and S’mores. In my enthusiasm and desire to try a few to review, I ordered seven varieties. The price per pint was about the same as buying an equivalent amount of Baskin-Robbins ice cream. Unfortunately, the similarities end there.
When the package arrived, beautifully packed with dry ice and a plant-based dissolvable sponge-like packing around the frozen pints, I popped them into the freezer and that night, PK and I had a scoop of the strawberry cheesecake. Saying it was disappointing is an understatement. The taste was bland, the dessert somewhat like a sorbet and lacking completely in strawberry or cream cheese flavor. In fact, I can’t even say what kind of flavor it had.
What was evident was the bitter aftertaste that followed each spoonful. The principal sweeteners used are Stevia and monk fruit. I have tried other things sweetened with monk fruit and haven’t experienced any bitterness. On the other hand, I am not a big fan of Stevia for precisely the reason that I can usually detect a bit of bitterness from it. This exceeded any I had experienced before and was even so pronounced that Sweet ‘n Low, which I had thought was the worst until now, was eclipsed by it.
After tasting this, I went back to my computer to look for reviews on Wink’s product. Sadly, I found that the vast majority of reviews were very negative, usually one to two stars for precisely those reasons. Lack of flavor and bitter aftertaste.
At this point, I still have six untried pints of this frozen dessert in my freezer, but I haven’t been eager to try another one. Even if the flavoring pops in the Pumpkin Spice Latte, the aftertaste from the sweetener is likely to be the same.
Now, if you don’t notice any bitterness from Stevia or your taste buds read it differently, then you might enjoy this product. I can’t personally recommend it, but a few reviews did declare it excellent. I would advise that you don’t order more than the minimum order of 4 pints until you decide for yourself. These are sold in many groceries across the country, so you might find one locally to buy one pint to try. A store locator is on the Wink website.
If you try it, let me know how it tasted to you.
The snacking cake bakes up well, but I found it a little dry and thick. Oddly, with all that butter and eggs, you would expect it to be more moist. It did taste okay, but I’ve eaten better ones. I added a sugar-free powdered sugar icing with a touch of vanilla added that helped. But I warm it up to serve and still add more butter.
I recently bought a package of Dixie Carb Counters (DCC) Double Fudge Brownie mix to give it a try. First, it is a snap to get this ready to go in the oven. The easy to follow recipe walks you right through it. Before you begin, grease an 8″x8″ pan.
