Nestlé’s Granoleda Yogurt Sandwich

גלידות נסטלה גרנולידה

On the same day that the local meteorologists were predicting a major winter storm with strong winds, lots of rain and possible snow in many parts of Israel both Nestlé Ice Cream and Strauss Ice Cream thought it would be the perfect day to announce their new summer of 2012 lines of ice cream. Not all of them will be in the stores right away, some will only be available after Pesach, but I’m from the school of thought that any day of the year, no matter how cold and wintery it may be outside, is still the perfect day for ice cream, so I was more than excited to read about the products that I have to look forward to as we get closer to spring and summer.

Still, I chose to post about the first Nestlé ice cream product as we are having a nice mini spring time heat wave (what a difference a week can make).  I do plan on trying something from the Strauss line as well but today I will tell you about Nestlé's Granoleda Ice Cream Sandwich.

Even though Nestlé seems to be mostly focusing on and playing up their Angry Birds inspired ice cream pops I personally have never played Angry Birds and have no interest in the millions of Angry Bird calibration products that are popping up all over the supermarkets these days. I really don’t care that they are trying to make a few more Shekels off the game that I know almost nothing about. I have no intention of buying something just because it has Angry Birds on the label or product. For me the Nestlé Ice Cream product that was most intriguing from the 2012 line was the Granoleda, so I was really happy to find it in my local kiosk. 

The name Granoleda is a combination of two words; Granola and Gleidah. Gleidah is the Hebrew word for ice cream so seeing as it's made of vanilla blueberry swirl yogurt sandwiched between two granola cookies you have both the granola and the "ice cream". Although this is technically a yogurt product and not ice cream per se, I still think it’s a cute name for this sandwich given that many people seem to include yogurt products in the broader "gleidah" category.

I mentioned in my review of Skinny Cow's ice creams that I really enjoy ice cream sandwiches. One of my favorite ice cream sandwiches on the market here is Nestlé's Cookieleda, this new sandwich seems to be the "healthier" versions of that sandwich.

I really liked that the granola cookie part is just as soft and chewy as the chocolate nut cookie you get in the cookieleda one. But I did think the granola cookie was slightly too sweet. It wasn’t a huge issue but I would not have minded if it was slightly less sweet.

The yogurt center was OK. I could tell I wasn't ice cream but yogurt; it was slightly more sour than ice cream would be but that's what I expected so I wasn't disappointed. What did disappoint me somewhat was the hint of artificial flavoring I picked up in the blueberry swirl. Then again it wasn’t too overpowering, and to start with there wasn’t that much of the blueberry swirls for it to really bother me.

I was impressed to read that Nestlé added vitamin D and calcium to this sandwich to make me feel a bit better about indulging in this treat.

Bottom Line: Nestlé's Granoleda sandwich lived up to my expectations. I liked the soft chewy cookie and thought the flavors of the granola cookies and yogurt worked well together. I could have done without the artificial blueberry taste I picked up on but all in all it wasn’t too bad. At 253 calories for a 85 gram sandwich I'd say it might be an OK alternative for when I'm craving the higher calorie Cookieleda.

85 gram sandwich -9.50 NIS

Kosher Dairy Badatz

PS. I think it’s always good to hear more than one opinion when it comes to a new product so I thought I’d add what I read in a Hebrew online review for this Nestlé ice cream sandwich. The writer didn’t really love this Granoleda Ice Cream Sandwich. He thought the cookie was too thick and didn’t have enough granola in it. He also thought there were not enough blueberry ripples in the yogurt. I actually liked that it was such a thick cookie so I didn’t agree with him on that note. Given that I didn’t love the artificial blueberry flavor I didn’t want more of it in the yogurt so I disagreed there too, but I would not have minded if they had added some more granola to the cookie. Still, as is, I thought the cookie was fine, a little too sweet, like I said earlier, but just fine.        

       

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me.  No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own