When Tim Hortons announced a brand new line of ice creams inspired by their most beloved flavours, we knew we had to get our hands on some. Made in Canada with 100% Canadian dairy in partnership with the Tillsonburg, Ontario-based ice cream producer Shaw’s, the Tim Hortons Ice Cream lineup includes Salted Caramel Iced Capp, Double Chocolate Donut, Birthday Cake Timbits, Apple Fritter and Fruit Explosion with each retailing for around $5.99 per pint, depending on your province.
It’s worth noting that upon taste-testing each flavour, we found that the ice creams are more inspired by Tims flavours than actual ice cream recreations of the beloved flavours. Read on for our honest review and ranking.
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1. Birthday Cake Timbits
This ice cream is instantly inviting, with colourful sprinkles and donut-style pieces sprinkled throughout the birthday cake ice cream base. And it tastes just as good as it looks, arguably tasting the closest to its namesake. While Tim Hortons Birthday Cake Timbits can sometimes err on the side of too sweet, this ice cream is just right, capturing that classic birthday cake funfetti flavour without being overpowering, and the donut-style pieces are a delightful combination of donut-meets-cookie dough. We definitely recommend picking up a pint.
2. Double Chocolate Donut
We hoped this ice cream would taste exactly like the much-loved double chocolate donut, but it tastes more like a classic triple chocolate ice cream. However, what this ice cream lacks in originality, it makes up for in flavour, with the chocolate donut-style pieces and fudge ripple being a real stand-out. It’s rich, chocolatey and similar to a darkly fudgy brownie in all the best ways. This is a seriously solid ice cream and offers stiff competition to other premium-quality grocery store chocolate ice creams.
3. Apple Fritter
This was by far the most unexpectedly-unique flavour. With thick, luscious swirls of brown sugar cinnamon ripple, this ice cream felt the most expensive and luxurious. The cinnamon is quite strong (borderline overpowering), but if you’re a cinnamon lover this could be your new go-to. While it doesn’t necessarily taste exactly like an apple fritter, we’d say it’s more akin to apple pie a la mode – an ice cream flavour that’s surprisingly lacking in freezer aisles!
4. Salted Caramel Iced Capp
Iced Capps have a special place in our Canadian hearts, so we had high hopes for this ice cream. But with salted caramel flakes and ripple, the caramel element overtakes the Iced Capp ice cream and doesn’t quite deliver on that signature Iced Capp flavour we were anticipating. Texturally though, the salted caramel flakes are quite interesting and something we haven’t tried in a pint of ice cream before – they closely emulate the mouthfeel of a dipped cone in a way that’s both novel and delightful.
5. Fruit Explosion
Advertised as ice cream with muffin-style pieces and fruit explosion ripple, this ice cream is most comparable to a berry cheesecake ice cream, and tastes uncannily like a Mixed-Berry Nutri-Grain bar in ice cream form. It was our least favourite of the bunch, but it’s still a perfectly fine ice cream, it just wasn’t particularly special. Of all the tasty Tim Hortons flavours available, we’re a little surprised they opted for this as one of their five exclusive flavours (Boston cream or maple glaze would have been our votes!).
Tim Hortons Ice Cream is available at grocery stores across Canada, including at Co-Op, Loblaws (Maxi, No-Frills, Real Canadian Super Store, Provigo, Loblaws Great Food, Fortinos and Your Independent Grocery), Longo’s, Metro (Ontario), Sobeys/Safeway and Walmart.