Nancy's Fancy - Chocolate Fondente

Chocolate Fondete - Dark Chocolate Sorbetto with Dark Rum and Valrhona Chocolate Chips

I was Whole Food's last week and was in the mood for a new brand so I picked up a pint of Nancy's Fancy's Chocolate Fondente.  The Nancy of Nancy's Fancy is Nancy Silverton who is a well-known chef in the Los Angeles area.  She runs a couple of Italian restaurants and has a bakery in the La Brea neighborhood and has written several books over the thirty years.  In 2015, she decided to enter the premium frozen dessert market with a line of gelatos and sorbets.  

This flavor intrigued me for a couple of reasons.  First, I didn't know what "fondente" meant -- I guess it is the italian word used to specify that it is dark chocolate.  The second thing is the fact that this is a sorbet and not an ice cream.  "Ice cream" is a dairy product made from milk and cream and contains a lot of milk fat, but a "sorbet" contains no dairy products.  Sorbets are made from water, sugar and flavoring.  (A "sherbet" is in between.  It contains a small amount of cream)  The flavoring of a sorbet is usually a fruit juice giving it a frozen slushy appearance but here the flavoring is dark chocolate.  Anyhow, I usually associate chocolate with milk and cream so I'm curious as to how this will work out.

Opening the pint show a very dark color to the dark chocolate sorbet and you can tell right away that the texture will not be creamy.  Digging my spoon in, there is a little bit of softness.  I checked the ingredient list and it contains cocoa butter which might help.  The taste is a very strong chocolate.  There is a hint of rum which is noticeable but not overly done.  Dispersed through the pint are the Valrhona chocolate chips.  Chocolate within chocolate does not provide much of a contrast in flavor but the chips add a bit of textural variety -- they give you something to chew on.

Overall, the chocolate in sorbet from was interesting.  Each spoonful felt like a chunk of gourmet chocolate candy.  In that regard, I thought this would be one of the most caloric pints that I'd ever had but it turned out to be the opposite.  The full pint contained only 600 calories while most ice creams contain between 1000-1200 calories.  I guess removing the milk fat really does make it 'lighter' even though it doesn't taste that way.  Anyways, a very intriguing pint for chocolate lovers.  You have to love chocolate of course, but if you do, you should try this out.