The King of Ice Cream

When most people talk about their favorite ice cream flavors, the decision often comes down to the battle of the classics: the light, subtle flavor, attributed to vanilla, and the dark, rich, creamy flavor of chocolate. 

While chocolate is a hugely popular flavor in the United States, it appears that more people buy vanilla than chocolate according to Eat This, Not That! Vanilla is the superior flavor for 3 main reasons: the ability to accent flavors more readily, the subtleness of flavor, and the versatility to be a base flavor.

  Vanilla is a preferable flavor for accentuating other desserts. Want to have a nice cold creamy contrast to a warm apple pie or a peach crumble? Vanilla is the go-to ice cream for the job. 

While chocolate ice cream is delicious, and good in a variety of ways, vanilla is a more versatile ice cream flavor. While some people may enjoy a root-beer float with chocolate ice cream, the drink is best served with vanilla as the ice cream component. The subtle flavor of vanilla, opposed to the overpowering flavor of chocolate, helps elevate the flavor while still providing the temperature and taste to heighten the desert. 

Some may describe the taste of vanilla as boring, but that is simply not true. Those who say that vanilla is flavorless are discarding the depth that vanilla produces. Vanilla ice cream tastes best when savored a bit slower than chocolate, so that the flavor of the ice cream is more apparent than it would be if you ate it more quickly. Chocolate has a stronger flavor that is apparent no matter how fast you consume it. 

Vanilla is also a great base when it comes to adding other flavors to ice cream. While the best base for most flavors is sweet cream, vanilla does a significantly better job, making the added flavor the star, where chocolate overpowers the added flavors. In vanilla ice cream with a raspberry swirl, the raspberry flavor is more noticeable. Compared to chocolate ice cream with the same swirl, you cannot taste the raspberry as well. This is why many popular flavors of ice cream are vanilla based with a swirl of a sweet or fruity flavor. 

Recently, there has been an explosion of ice cream innovation and new flavors are entering the collective consciousness of the masses. Flavors like chai, London fog, matcha, Ameri-cone dream, bubblegum, coffee and much more have started gaining popularity quickly. 

These flavors have slowly gained popularity as people have slowly started trying them. Many of these flavors are now being called the “people's favorite ice cream”, instead of the classic flavors vanilla and chocolate. However, it will be a long time before both vanilla and chocolate fall from the pedestal that we have placed them on. 

For now, vanilla and chocolate will be the two ice creams that most people will choose if asked for their favorite flavor. However, vanilla ice cream will continue to be the most versatile and best ice cream flavor for many generations to come.