ComScore

Carvel Has a New Lemonberry Crumble Menu—Here’s a Food Editor’s Review of It All

Sweet, sour, summery

carvel lemonberry crumble menu review: carvel lemonberry crumble menu items
Carvel

Carvel is the East Coast darling of ice cream spots. Beloved for its iconic ice cream cakes, ever-rotating soft serve selections—the creamy delicacy was invented by Tom Carvel in 1936, BTW—and nostalgic novelty treats (I’m a Chipsters girl myself), the chain doesn’t need to innovate much to draw a crowd. However, that doesn’t stop the frozen treat masterminds from dreaming up new confections for its fans.

Enter the new Lemonberry Crumble menu, which will be available at select stores through August 3 while supplies last. Its featured items range from bright, lilac-hued soft serve to a decadent sundae that any fruit dessert stan will go gaga for. Below, you’ll find my honest reviews, original photos and overall ranking of the entire menu.

(Note: Pricing and item availability may vary by location.)

Cinnabon & Carvel Are Launching a New Store, Cinnabon Swirl—Here's Your Sneak Peek of the Menu


4. Lemonberry Crumble Soft Serve

  • What It Is: lemon-blueberry soft serve
  • Price (small): $5

Fun fact: Carvel’s soft serve is creamier, richer and fluffier than most others you’ve likely had due to its higher fat content. So, its rich, luscious consistency was no surprise for this brand vet. The flavor fell a bit flat for me, though. While it was very balanced between sweet and citrusy, both fruity notes were very subtle, neither truly trumping the vanilla base. That said, the soft serve had a pretty pastel color, and I liked that it was visibly speckled with what I assume was bits of blueberry.

3. Lemonberry Crumble Sundae Dasher

  • What It Is: lemon-blueberry soft serve, layered with blueberry sauce, vanilla crunchies, lemon cookie pieces and whipped cream
  • Price (small): $7

This masterpiece was giving blueberry-lemon meringue pie. It offered the most intense fruit flavor of the entire menu. While it was bright, tart-sweet and photogenic, my biggest bone to pick with this sundae was its layered assembly. I found it difficult to scoop the perfect spoonful; you need to maneuver past a lot of sauce and whipped cream to reach the soft serve.

2. Lemonberry Crumble Scooped

  • What It Is: lemon-blueberry hard ice cream with lemon cookie pieces and vanilla crunchies
  • Price (small): $5

Texturally, this item from the Carvel Lemonberry Crumble menu was flawless. With not one, but two types of cookie pieces, the ice cream was full of crispy, crunchy splendor and had a salty edge that complemented its sweet-and-sour flavor beautifully. I especially liked the texture of the lemony pieces, which seemed to be coated in some sort of semihard frosting.

1. Lemonberry Crumble Pop

  • What It Is: lemon-blueberry hard ice cream coated in a white hard shell and rolled in vanilla crunchies
  • Price: $3.50/each

I didn’t expect the novelty pick to be my top choice, but it’s *that* good, friends. Between the crisp, salty vanilla crunchies and the thick, crunchy white chocolate coating, the Lemonberry core simply soared. The blueberry-citrus flavor was still more muted than in the Dasher, but the salt in the cookie coating intensified its flavor anyway. In terms of texture, taste, aesthetics and ease of consumption, the pop checked every box.



taryn pire

Food Editor

  • Spearheads PureWow's food vertical
  • Manages PureWow's recipe vertical and newsletter
  • Studied English and writing at Ithaca College