Honeymoon - Brown Butter Plum

Brown Butter Plum - Sweet Cream with a Plum Jam Swirl and a Brown Butter-Roasted Oat Crumble

Scanning freezer cases across southern California, I occasionally come across the Honeymoon brand of premium ice cream where the pints come in these glass jars.  I decided to finally give it a try and picked up a pint.  This brand seems to have some interesting flavor combinations.  For my first pint, I went with the Brown Butter Plum flavor.

Honeymoon Ice Cream was founded in 2013 in the San Rafael, California by David Young.  A typical premium brand with locally-sourced ingredients and interesting flavor combinations, Honeymoon does a few things differently than others.  First, it gets its dairy products from Jersey cows in nearby Sonoma County.  I guess most dairy products come from Holstein cows, second of course are these glass jars with the metal screw-top lid.  This does give you a peek inside before you dive in.

Unscrewing the lid shows that the pint shows a gob of plum jam visible on the very top with little specks of what is probably the oat crumble.  Eating my way into the pint, the oat crumble is quite tasty.  There are whole bits of toasted oatmeal flakes within the crumble which are crunchy and a bit sweet at the same time.  The plum jam is not always visible but it is always noticeable.  As noted in the past, a little bit of jam can go a long way and this pint is no exception.  

This was a very interesting pint.  I've never had plum in an ice cream before and the crumble simulated the effect of eating plum pie with ice cream.  Of course, if you like plum, you should check this out. 

 

McConnell's - Dark Chocolate Chips & Nibs

Dark Chocolate Chips & Nibs - Dark Chocolate Ice Cream wtih Bittersweet Chocolate Chips and Roasted Cocoa Nibs

We return to the Santa Barbara-based McConnell's brand this week.  I always check their section of the freezer case whenever I go to the grocery store but I usually only see flavors that I have already reviewed or for homogenous flavors like or vanilla or chocolate.  Last week, I was at a butcher shop of all places and came across a pint of Dark Chocolate Chips & Nibs.  I didn't get any meat on this visit, but I got a cool pint of ice cream. I have note yet reviewed a pint with cocoa nibs before, so I was eager to check it out.

Removing the lid shows a very dark dark-chocolate base with some darker specs visible.  Eating my way in, it is very chocolatey!  One of the more chocolatey chocolate bases that I've had.  The chips were small and added a little bit more flavor but not much more than what is already in the base.  The nibs were quite interesting.  They were small and crunchy (I have an extra picture of them below) and they added a bit of a bitter kick to the pint.  They reminded me of roasted coffee bean pieces.  The more I think about it, the more I like that analogy.  A crunchy nib of a cocoa bean is not as delicious as a chunk of processed chocolate but you feel like you're eating the chocolate in its pure unprocessed form.

A very interesting pint.  This is certainly a chocolate-lovers pint.  As I said above, the cocoa nib is not the yummiest form of chocolate but there is something very hardcore about eating them.    I'm surprised more brands do not have flavors which include cocoa nibs.  If you're a serious chocoholic, then you should check this flavor out.

Jeni's - Salted Peanut Butter with Chocolate Flecks

Salted Peanut Butter with Chocolate Flecks Ice Cream

We return to the Columbus Ohio-based Jeni's brand for their Salted Peanut Butter with Chocolate Flecks flavor.  I have been reviewing a lot of eclectic flavors of late and was in the mood for something more standard.  The classic combination of peanut butter and chocolate fits that bill.

Removing the lid shows the light beige color of the peanut butter base with lots of chocolate flecks visible on top.   In the first spoonful, the salty peanut flavor is noticeable right away.  It is not so salty as to make you thirsty but it is noticeable.  The dark chocolate flecks are hard and crunchy and are quite numerous.  The provide a bit of chocolate flavor into the mix, though perhaps not as much as if they had been softer.  As I ate further down into the pint, the peanut butter did not get too heavy or too salty.

Quite a successful pint.  Peanut Butter and Chocolate are a classic combination for a reason.  There's several ways to mix those two and as simple as this implementation is, I don't think I've quite seen it this way before.  It reminded me of recent flavors like Double Peanut Butter Chip and Midnight Snack but those had chunks of peanut butter instead of a simple peanut butter base.  The old Peanut Butter Cup flavor had a peanut butter base but with peanut butter cup mix-ins instead of chocolate flecks.

  

Yeti - Blueberry Pancake

Blueberry Pancake - Blueberry Ice Cream infused with Maple Syrup

People who know me in real life know that in addition to loving ice cream, I also love pancakes.  So when I saw a Blueberry Pancake flavor, I had to give it a try.  The brand is Yeti Frozen Custard.  Yeti was started by Andy Ramos and Brad Hardin in Austin, Texas.  Originally, Yeti was a food truck, but in 2014 they started focusing on distribution to retain stores. I found my pint at Sprouts.  It is frozen custard instead of ice cream.  As mentioned in previous reviews, that means there is higher percentage of egg yolk solids in the mix.


Removing the lid shows an light purplish blue of the blueberry base with some small dark blue flecks visible.    Eating my way into the pint, the ice cream has a cool blueberry flavor which was delicious.  It turns out the flecks are small pieces of blueberry peel.  These pieces do not provide much taste or texture but it is a nice bit of authenticity to the flavor.  As I continued eating, I got a bit puzzled because I did not find anything added which was pancake-related.  I checked the list of ingredients to see what I should be expecting.  Maple syrup is indeed listed as an ingredient fairly high up on the list but its flavor did not stick out.  I did some further research online and came across this promotional video which appears to show a maple-flavored ice base with much darker blueberry swirls.  Also, although I normally don't read other reviews before writing my own, I checked a few of them just for screen shots.  Their images match the video -- maple base and blueberry swirl.  I wonder if something happened to the batch that was used to make my pint.  Perhaps, the blueberry swirl was fully blended into the base to make one homogeneous blueberry-maple flavor.   I'm not sure.  If you've had this flavor before, then let me know.

Overall, this pint tasted good enough -- it had a nice blueberry flavor -- but the pancake lover in me was a bit disappointed by how it all got mixed together.  Maple syrup is a flavor I might have noticed alone but when completed blended with the blueberry, it just tasted like blueberry.  One day, maybe I'll try this again to see if I get a different mix.

  

Tillamook - California Peach Cobbler

California Peach Cobbler - Vanilla Frozen Custard with pieces of California Peaches and cinnamon-toasted oats

We return to the Oregon-based Tillamook brand for its California Peach Cobbler flavor.   I've never reviewed a peach flavor before, so I picked it up.  I see from the label that this is labeled as a 'frozen custard'.  From previous reviews, I think that means that there is a higher concentration of egg yolks in the mix.  I glanced at the ingredient list and saw the egg yolks.  I also see tapioca syrup in the mix which is something that the Jeni's brand also uses to produce a thicker base.

Removing the lid shows the white color of the vanilla base.  There was a little bit of air on the top.  At first glance, the ice cream looks too cold and I decided to let it sit out for a couple of minutes before digging in.  The first scoop is very thick and soft.  I noticed the peach flavor right away.  On closer inspection, the peach pieces are not very large but a little bit of peach goes a long way.  I encountered the oat pieces on the second spoonful.  These oat pieces are good!  They are crunchy.  The cinnamon flavoring is not too strong but there is something sweet about them.  Checking the ingredient list there some rice crisp included in these pieces as well.  That must be it.

This pint was much better than I expected.  I'm not really a peach person -- a piece of peach pie is often too much peach -- but here the smaller peach pieces were perfectly balanced by the thick and creamy vanilla base.   If you actually are a peach person, you'll likely like it even better than I did.