When’s the last time you bought a Butterfinger? How about a Baby Ruth or 100 Grand? I love all of the above, but my consumption is pretty much limited to fun-size bars at Halloween. Same goes for my Sporked colleagues. But these new Baby Ruth, 100 Grand, and Butterfinger ice cream bars might change that.
These aren’t like a lot of other candy bar-inspired ice cream bars. There’s no stick. They look like slightly oversized candy bars. And, hot damn, are they good—but one of them really blew us away.
Pros: Nestle used to make a Butterfinger ice cream bar that consisted of peanut butter ice cream in a chocolatey coating embedded with little crunchy Butterfinger bits (and it came on a stick). I’m sure it was great, but I doubt it was better than what they’ve done with this updated version. We all FREAKED for this Butterfinger ice cream bar. It combines Butterfinger flavored ice cream and a crispety-crunchety-peanut buttery layer of actual Butterfinger innards—but not the Butterfinger innards that are crunchy and get jammed in your molars. This is a much softer, more tender version. I’m telling you: This Butterfinger ice cream bar is legitimately better than a Butterfinger.
Cons: No notes! If you don’t like peanut butter, you won’t like this—but even if you don’t necessarily love Butterfinger, you could plausibly still enjoy this creamy confection.
Pros: If you love caramel, you’re gonna love this 100 Grand ice cream bar. It consists of caramel ice cream and a drippy caramel filling, all in a chocolatey coating studded with crispy rice. It’s messy, but it tastes great.
Cons: Crispy rice aside, the most important component of a 100 Grand bar is the chewy caramel inside. Because the caramel in this 100 Grand ice cream bar is liquidy rather than solid, it just doesn’t really duplicate the 100 Grand experience. And since it’s caramel on caramel, it’s a touch one-note.
Pros: The Baby Ruth ice cream bar is made with liquidy caramel, nougat-flavored ice cream and a chocolatey coating embedded with roasty peanuts. The peanuts actually retain some crunch, and even though the nougat-flavored ice cream is sort of hard to pin down, it contributes a lot of good, roasty flavor. It really winds up tasting like a Baby Ruth.
Cons: Again, since this is made with a liquidy caramel, we miss the chew of a genuine Baby Ruth—it’s kind of the best part.
Howdy! I’m Gwynedd, Sporked’s managing editor. I live in Los Angeles and have access to the best tacos the U.S. has to offer—but I’m a sucker for a crunchy Old El Paso taco night every now and then. I’ve been at Sporked since 2022 and I’m still searching frozen mozzarella sticks that can hold a candle to restaurant sticks.
Why you should trust me: I’ve been a journalist for 20 years (yikes), a consumer of food for 40-plus years, and I’m truly hard pressed to think of foods I don’t like (or that I can’t tolerate at the very least). Oh and one time I cooked my way through Guy Fieri’s cookbook and wrote about the journey through Flavortown.
What I buy every week: Trader Joe’s Original Savory Thins. Fat free plain yogurt (usually Fage or Nancy’s). Honeycrisp apples. Sweet cream coffee creamer for my at-home Americanos. A frozen cauliflower crust pizza and some jarred mushrooms to top it with. Old El Paso Stand ‘N Stuff taco shells and Gardein Ground Be’f, even though I think “be’f” is a nightmarish contraction.
Favorite ranking: Stouffer’s frozen dinners. I don’t own a microwave (I get my cancers the old fashioned way!), so I love taste testing things that I don’t really buy to eat at home.
Least favorite ranking: Soy sauce. Don’t get me wrong, I love soy sauce—but consuming that much sodium in one sitting is probably illegal in some countries. Our frozen enchilada taste test was a close second; the smell of microwaved corn tortillas still haunts me.
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Gwynedd Stuart
Ariana Losch
