The University of Wisconsin’s Babcock Hall Dairy Plant announced Monday that “175 S’more Years” will be the commemorative ice cream flavor for UW’s 175th anniversary celebration.
Babcock’s newest flavor features a rich, chocolate ice cream with a marshmallow swirl and graham cracker crunch. It was first available on campus Monday and will be available through June 2024 — the last month of UW’s 175th anniversary celebration.
The flavor was chosen with the help of the UW community and the public. A poll was sent out with four flavor options, and after nearly 8,500 votes were cast, “175 S’more Years” was declared the official ice cream flavor of UW’s 175th anniversary celebration.
Though the weather is getting colder outside, you can never say no to Babcock ice cream. We tasted the new flavor, and we’ve got some things to say about it.
Right away, we noticed Babcock’s s’more ice cream was notably different from other s’more ice cream flavors we’ve had in the past. The ice cream base was made up of a chocolate and marshmallow swirl — as opposed to the vanilla or marshmallow ice cream base we were expecting. Cinnamon graham cracker crumbs were mixed into the chocolatey base.
The chocolate heavy base, though unconventional, was balanced quite well with the marshmallow swirl. We expected the chocolate to overpower the other flavors, but the balance was executed to perfection — it really tasted like a s’more.
One unexpected highlight of the flavor was the graham cracker. The cinnamon flavoring made the crunchy bits reminiscent of a Biscoff cookie, which offered a nice balance to the rest of the dish.
On the other hand, the s’more flavor had a lot more marshmallow than we were expecting. With the swirled ice cream base, there was a strong marshmallow presence throughout. Toward the bottom of the dish, it got a little too rich. It tasted like we were eating spoonfuls of Marshmallow Fluff straight from the jar.
In the end, we couldn’t finish a scoop of “175 S’more Years.” The chocolatey, marshmallow ice cream was balanced well with crispy graham cracker crumbs, but as more than just a sample, a full scoop was a bit too decadent.
But considering the s’more flavor will only be available for seven more months, we recommend you give it a try — maybe it would complement a scoop of plain vanilla nicely. Though a bit rich for our liking, the novelty and uniqueness of the flavor is too good to miss out on.
