Aldi is a great store to buy food staples such as bread, milk, eggs, canned goods, and frozen produce. When I want something beyond the basics, I like to shop at Trader Joe’s, which is a distant cousin to Aldi. TJ’s is known to stock both some staples as well as a number of internationally inspired foods. They also stock quite a few unusual or even quirky products.
Aldi routinely surprises me with the non-food products it stocks in its famous middle aisle, but sometimes they also surprise me with their food offerings. I’ve found pickle cheese schupfnudeln, green bean casserole pizza, dill pickle popcorn, and dessert hummus. Most recently, Aldi sold a mashup of two of my favorite treats: ice cream sandwiches and stroopwafels.
Sundae Shoppe Stroopwafel Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwiches cost $4.95 for a 13.52-ounce box at the time of publication. With four sandwiches per box, that comes out to about $1.24 per sandwich. These are a product of Canada.
These are an Aldi Find, so they’re only in stores for a short time. Each store gets one shipment, and after that sells out, they’re gone unless Aldi decides to bring them back at some point. Aldi does not offer online ordering for products that are not in stock at your local store.
The box describes these as “rich creamy vanilla ice cream sandwiched between two soft stroopwafels filled with exquisite dulce de leche.”
If you’re not familiar with stroopwafels, they’re a Dutch treat that translates to “syrup waffle.” They consist of two sweet baked wafers with a thin caramel filling in between. The stroopwafel layers are cooked in a waffle iron, so they have that classic grid pattern. While traditional stroopwafels taste great straight out of the package, they’re often served with coffee or other hot drinks such as hot chocolate or tea. You place the stroopwafel on top of your mug filled with a hot drink, and it warms the stroopwafel and softens the caramel filling.
Aldi is no stranger to stroopwafels. They usually sell them every year for a limited time during the holiday season. Trader Joe’s also sells name-brand Daelmans Stroopwafels.
And Aldi is not the first retailer to get the idea to combine an ice cream sandwich with a stroopwafel. Trader Joe’s has sold such a creation in the past, and so have stores including Costco and Walmart. You can also make your own stroopwafel ice cream sandwiches using just stroopwafels and ice cream.
Nutrition information and ingredients. (Click to enlarge.)
If you’re looking out for allergens, these Aldi stroopwafel ice cream sandwiches contain egg, wheat, milk, and soy. They may also contain almonds.
One box contains four ice cream sandwiches. One sandwich has 170 calories, 8 grams of total fat (10% DV), 4 grams of saturated fat (20% DV), 95 mg of sodium (4% DV), 23 grams of total carbohydrates (8% DV), no dietary fiber, 14 grams of total sugars, and 11 grams of added sugars (22% DV).
As far as how these taste, the ice cream is creamy with plenty of vanilla flavor. The stroopwafels are soft as advertised. While these taste fine, I’m not sure they’re the best way to show off the rich filling inside the stroopwafels. Because they’re frozen, the thin dulce de leche filling is a bit underwhelming, mostly overpowered by the stroopwafel cookie layers. Stroopwafels are so popular served warm with coffee or other drinks, and serving them in the form of ice cream sandwiches seems to be somewhat counterintuitive.
These are good on their own merits, but I’d strongly recommend that you try traditional stroopwafels with a warm drink if you’ve never had them before. It’s quite a different experience from these ice cream sandwiches. I’m not sure if I like these enough to pay more for them instead of buying regular ice cream sandwiches, but they’re not bad and they are fun to try.
The Verdict:
Sundae Shoppe Stroopwafel Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwiches feature creamy vanilla ice cream between two stroopwafels with a dulce de leche filling. This is a mashup of some of our favorite desserts: Dutch stroopwafels and ice cream sandwiches. These are good, although we’re not sure that stroopwafels are at their best when served frozen. We suggest also trying a traditional stroopwafel served with a hot drink such as coffee.
