As the weather begins warming up (it’s still very much springtime as we’re writing this), we’re finding our relationship with ice cream to be growing stronger. Yes, we’ve been indulging a bit more than we probably should be, but we find the stuff to be so dang satisfying that it’s hard to stop.
With the Archer Farms Non-Dairy Mocha Almond Fudge Frozen Dessert, we can get our ice cream fix while not actually eating any ice cream. See, this is an almond-milk spinoff of ice cream, so it’s not a true ice cream. It makes us feel less guilty about eating it, while also not having to worry about consuming all that lactose!
Wait a minute! What’s up with the Archer Farms brand? Even though Target has been replacing Archer Farms products with a new store brand called Good & Gather, there are still some Archer Farms products lingering behind. We’re not sure if these are products that Target just hasn’t phased out yet, or if the ice cream selection is just staying under the Archer Farms umbrella for the time being. Either way, we’re checking out this dessert today, and no one can stop us!
This dessert is mostly made up of a mocha-flavored ice-cream substitute. The texture is where this really fails to live up to its real-ice-cream counterparts. This is a little bit gravelly rather than having that smooth, creamy texture you’d get from a true ice cream. It has a decent flavor, though we find it to be a little bit too bitter. Archer Farms leaned really hard into the coffee side of the equation, and not so hard into the chocolate side.
Then again, this also comes with chocolate flakes and a fudge swirl. The sweetness of those portions does a lot to offset the bitterness of the ice-cream substitute, and if you can get a bite that mixes all three components, the flavor is dang near perfect. Of course, you’re going to have a lot more bites that are mostly ice-cream substitute, meaning the true joy of this dessert is in the occasional high points rather than consistently enjoyed throughout.
This also contains almonds, and we don’t really like that part. We imagine that someone in the development process figured that since this was made with almond milk, they might as well seal the deal with real almonds. The problem is we don’t think they necessarily work here. Almonds have a tendency to break into jagged pieces, which can be fine if mixed with something creamy to offset that. Here, the jagged almond chunks only emphasize the non-creamy texture rather than complementing it. Flavor-wise, there were actually some moments when the almonds did provide a little extra something that we quite enjoyed, but this was somewhat rare. We were more concerned about what they do to the texture than we were about the flavor, to be honest.
One serving of this stuff (about one third of the carton) contains 280 calories and 140 mg of sodium. Neither of those numbers scares us too much. We weren’t expecting this to be a calorie-less experience, and even with that in mind, we don’t think this is going to be a diet-killer (like one particularly naughty ice cream that we tried very recently).
The Archer Farms Non-Dairy Mocha Almond Fudge Frozen Dessert is a pretty good substitute for real ice cream, though it’s not quite perfect. The flavor is just a little too bitter, and we think the texture is what really separates this from a true ice cream. We appreciate the almonds too, though we don’t think they’re the right fit for this meal.
Still, though, despite any nitpicks we have, we found ourselves eating more of this than we planned to for this review.
To learn more about the nutrition content or ingredients for this frozen dessert, check out our package scans below.
