Marks & Spencer Madagascan Vanilla Iced Dessert

While wondering around the M&S food hall a few weeks ago, I found myself in front of the freezer section. I don’t usually make it this far as I spend so long drooling over the delights in the fridge section.

But here I was and I immediately noticed these tubs of Count on Us Madagascan Vanilla Iced Dessert. Just 85 calories per 1/8th of the tub, which is 63g or about 2 ice cream scoops. After a quick scan of the ingredients, I decided this was worth trying out.
Unfortunately this dessert can’t be called ice cream because the ingredients have to contain at least 10% milk fat. Since this is a low fat dessert, it only has 2.3% fat. I would normally be quite skeptical about an alternative ice cream as they often contain large amounts of dubious sounding ingredients. But the main ingredient in this ‘ice cream’ is milk and it also has double cream and thankfully no vegetable oil.

My youngest loves having a scoop of ice cream for dessert and she was quite excited to see what this new M&S ice cream was like.

To look at, it’s pale white with specks of vanilla throughout and a tempting vanilla smell.
It scoops out easy enough with a regular spoon, so no hammer and chisel needed here.

It’s quite light and icy, and as far as I can tell, manages to closely resemble real ice cream. We wouldn’t have noticed any difference. It has a gorgeous vanilla flavour too. My whole family enjoyed this, so much so that it didn’t last longer than 3 days.

The tub contains 1 litre so there’s enough for about 8 servings.

Available in Marks & Spencer food halls in the freezer section.

Ingredients: skimmed milk, condensed skimmed milk, sugar, glucose syrup, chicory fibre, double cream (milk), emulsifier: E471, stabiliser: locust bean gum, guar gum, pectin (from fruit), lime peel, lemon peel, vanilla flavouring, ground vanilla pod, vanilla extract, dextrose, colour: beetroot red, carotenes. Suitable for vegetarians.

Nutrition information per 100g: 136 calories (85 calories per 1/8th of the tub – 63g), 2.3g fat, 1.5g saturated fat, 24.6g carbohydrate, 22.3g sugars, 0.6g fibre, 4.0g protein, 0.15g salt. 4 Weight Watchers SmartPoints per 63g serving (calculated by M&S for informational purposes only).

© Diets and Calories