Name: M&S Food Birthday Cake Mini Bites
Description: Vanilla ice cream coated in a gluten free almond cookie crumb with an oat based dusting with sugar sprinkles
Made in: UK
Bought in: UK
Cost: £4.50 for 6

The “ice cream ball” seems to be a bit of a trend this year, mainly of the mochi kind. In my opinion they’re overpriced for what they are, and I’m not a big mochi fan. But these aren’t just any overpriced ice cream balls, these are M&S overpriced ice cream balls.

So what do we get for our 75p per ball? Well these are cookie dough coated vanilla ice cream balls, then with a layer of pretty standard hundreds and thousands on top. The colours are standard “no artifical colour” fare and therefore disappointing.

So, what does it taste like? To be perfectly honest with you – soggy cookie dough with vanilla ice cream inside. The cookie dough layer has a big effect on the taste, and it tastes uncooked – not in a particularly good way. I think this is also an effect of the sogginess though.

Now the back of the packet says to take them out of the freezer one minute before serving. This is curious because one minute is both very precise and very short. If they wanted me to eat them immediately (so they didn’t go soggy, for example), then surely it would say that. And if it’s because they’re quite an awkward shape to eat and therefore a bit of softening up might help, one minute seems too short.

Either way, it didn’t seem to make much difference how quickly or slowly I ate them, so I’m intrigued what they’re getting at.

There’s no birthday cake flavour here at all by the way – just overpowering cookie dough. They get a star for the sprinkles, but that’s it unfortunately. I suspect other flavours would be better, but at £4.50 a packet, I don’t think I will.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Cake-o-meter: 🎂