Frozen Friday: Magnum - Mini Gold?! Ice Cream Bars

Magnum Mini Gold (stylized as "Gold?!") ice cream bars are a bit of a gimmick with a golden candy coat that shimmers a little when the right light catches it.

Beyond the gimmick and exclamation marks is a vanilla bean ice cream bar with a sea salt caramel swirl dipped in Belgium milk chocolate and then dipped in a golden chocolaty coating.

A box of six 1.85-fluid-ounce mini bars does not come cheap, with a retail price of $5.99 at my local supermarket. Fortunately, I had a coupon courtesy of Unilever to try these.

The golden shell doesn't taste like much of anything and the bar reminded me a little of a piece of jackfruit. It's a bit off-putting to eat something with a metallic sheen (like those decorative silver candies you put on cupcakes), but I got over it. The bar is small, but not too small. It's a good size for dessert.

Underneath the thin golden shell is a thick, rich, creamy layer of Belgian milk chocolate (like actual milk chocolate, not chocolaty coating, not chocolate-flavored... just chocolate). It was delicious and my favorite part of the bar. It's easy to have pieces fall off when biting into such a thick shell though.

The vanilla ice cream was good as well, but the caramel was a bit weak. In similar bars and ice cream, the caramel is like a liquid river that wends though the mass of ice cream (like, say in the Magnum Double Caramel bar or Haagen-Dazs' similar Salted Caramel Bar), but here it blends in like a face in a crowd. There's not much caramel flavor and none of that salty bite you expect from sea salt caramel. That's not to say the ice cream wasn't good, it just didn't live up to expectations.

Overall, I'd eat Magnum's Mini Gold ice cream bars for the novelty, quality, and portion-control, but not for the lackluster sea salt caramel.

Nutritional Info - Magnum Mini Gold?! ice cream bars
Serving Size - 1 bar (48g)
Calories - 170 (from Fat - 110)
Fat - 12g (Saturated Fat - 8g)
Sodium - 40mg
Carbs - 14g (Sugar - 14g)
Protein - 2g