"OMG ARE THESE GOOD????" "I NEED TO HAVE THEM!!!" "TAKE MY MONEY NOWWWWW." These and a few others - Instagram comments and messages on the hottest little stroop in town.
Eight ice cream sandwiches for $3.99. Not...cheap but also not expensive. Kinda bougie, no?
As much as I hate on "Instagram hype," I admit that probably half of the Trader Joe things that end up in my cart are there probably because Instagram planted the seed. These stroopwafel ice cream sandwiches are no exception. And I know the packaging says "MINI stroopwafel ice cream sandwiches," but I couldn't help feel a little disappointed to see the actual size of these things. You open them and instead of "OOO EXCITING," my reaction was, "oh...so small." Maybe because last year's stroopwafels were so ginormous, I kinda expected the mini-size here to be like a glamour size - bigger than it actually should be?
Anyway, can't deny that they've been generous with the ice cream. Oh yes.
No stroopwafel review is complete without a reference to the Great British Baking Show (aka Bake Off or GBBO). Since the show moved to a different network, they've replaced the original hosts with two people with far less chemistry and finesse at narrating, commenting on the action, and eliciting the personalities of the contestants. And the baking challenges in the latest season? A lot of it is so extra, maybe focused more so on getting views and hyping up the entertainment factor rather than sticking to straight up baking. But I got used to these adjustments, and I'm still a GBBO fan through and through. On a lesser scale, this is pretty much how I feel about this product. They basically took a fabulous product from last year and morphed it into a different animal. In this case, it's not necessarily a bad thing but not necessarily "OMG THIS IS A MUST-HAVE RUN TO TRADER JOE'S" kind of product.
1) The size - the actual product is smaller than whatever is printed on the box. Fine unless you eat the whole box in a sitting.
2) The salted caramel ice cream filling is a great standalone ice cream. My sister (T) and I agree that the ice cream is a 8/10. I don't normally care much for caramel, but this ice cream had just the right balance of a butterscotch/caramel flavor with a touch of salt. Some people have said that it's too sweet. I disagree; I thought the sweetness was fine, maybe because it was less sweet than what I expected.
3) It's really hard to eat this without losing all the ice cream from the middle after the first bite. Napkin or plate is a must to keep this thing off your clothes. :P
4) The stroopwafels are meh. T gives it a 5/10. They lack the texture of the original one. They are soft yet hard; they've lost the crispness because they are nestled right up against the ice cream and they're hard to chew because they're frozen. The texture improves if you let them sit for five minutes and they become a little easier to eat. Also, since these stroopwafels are smaller, you don't get to appreciate the stretchy caramel (well the caramel doesn't stretch here because of the cold temperature) and the caramel flavor comes mostly from the ice cream, not the cookie (this might be why some people think these are too sweet).
5) Because they are so small, you can't rest them on top of a steaming mug of a hot beverage as recommended for the OG ones- the ice cream will melt!
6) But as ice cream bites, they're pretty satisfying.
If you like salted caramel/caramel-flavored things, you will probably like this. If you like the process of eating a big stroopwafel as much as the cookie itself, you might find these mildly disappointing.
As for me, I say skip these, buy the regular salted caramel gelato and massive stroopwafels and make your ice cream stroopwafich.
TL;DR: Trader Joe's Mini Stroopwafel Ice Cream Sandwiches. Great salted caramel ice cream, smaller less impressive stroopwafel cookies. Go rogue and DIY. 7 out of 10. Mantou Joe Repurchase? I like but don't love it, so I'll pass.
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