Sweet Science - Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookie

Peanut Butter Ice Cream with Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cookie Swirls

Today is another Sweet Science pint from their January tasting event.  This is Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookie.  It is a classical peanut-butter-and-chocolate flavor combination.  As we've seen many times before, there are many ways to combine these flavors.  Here the base ice cream is peanut butter and the mix-ins are peanut butter and chocolate cookies. 

The top of the pint shows a lot of mix-ins.  So many mix-ins that you almost cannot see the ice cream.  Digging in, I could taste the peanut butter in the base ice cream but it not too heavy.  The purpose here is to serve as a vehicle for all of the mix-ins.  The ribbons of peanut butter provided the thick peanut butter flavor one expects.  It was like eating small bits of thick peanut butter right out of the jar.  Then the chocolate cookies provides some crunchy chocolate flavor.  These are gluten-free cookies made with rice flour so they were chocolatey without being too rich.

I enjoyed this pint.  It is a straight forward implementation peanut butter and chocolate but it was done well.  It is the type of pint which is overflowing with mix-ins.  It is like your favorite crunchy chocolate peanut butter candy bar stuffed into a pint of ice cream.

Häagen-Dazs - White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle

White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle - White Chocolate Ice Cream with a Raspberry Swirl and Fudge Truffles 

It is the beginning of the year and I am waiting for new flavors that have recently been announced by a couple of brands to show up in local grocery store freezer cases.  Ben & Jerry's has three new "truffles" flavors and if you look close on Haagen-Dazs' flavor page, you'll find three new flavors in what appears to be called a "decadent collection".  Both of these lines of flavors look good but none of them have made it to my local grocery store or scoop shop yet.  So, while I wait, I decided to try an already-existing Häagen-Dazs truffle flavor: White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle.  Raspberry and chocolate in a white chocolate base.  Looks good.

After removing the lid, the top of the pint is mostly white.  Some faint pink swirls of raspberry are also visible as well as a few of the fudge pieces.  Digging in, I taste the raspberry right away.  A little bit goes a long way.  As mentioned in previous reviews, white chocolate is only a neutral flavor for me.  Here, it appears to mute the raspberry.  Sometimes, raspberry can be a very strong and tart flavor, but neither of those things happened here.  The white chocolate/raspberry blend here is quite flavorful.  The fudge truffles were basically chewy fudge chunks.  When I hear 'truffle', I often expect the mix-in to be filled somehow.  Here, it just meant that the chunks were chewy instead of crunchy.  They were quite good and provided a lot of chocolatey flavor.

I really enjoyed this pint.  There are quite a few raspberry chocolate chip implementations out there.  Often it is black raspberry as with the justifiably famous Graeters and not-as-famous but still quite good Talenti.  Graeter's is probably the gold standard here but this Häagen-Dazs pint is a slightly different flavor.  It is a lighter raspberry flavor and the fudge chunks were quite good, too.  It is a well-crafted flavor.  If you're in the mood for good raspberry but not too strong, this is a good alternative to try.

  

Sweet Science - Dynamo Fudge Swirl

 Dynamo Fudge Swirl - Vanilla Malt Ice Cream with a Fudge Swirl

Today's flavor comes from the January tasting for the Sweet Science brand based in Saint Paul.  It is called Dynamo Fudge Swirl.  The tasting was held at a local craft beer place called Tin Whiskers.  The flavor gets its name from that brewery's Dynamo Imperial Stout.  This is not a beer-based flavor, but what Sweet Science did was to take the chocolate used to make that craft beer and create a fudge sauce out of it to use as a swirl against a malted vanilla base.  Looks like a nice way to create a connection with the establishment that is hosting many of their ice cream tastings.

Opening the pint, the malted vanilla as a slightly yellowish tint to it and quite a lot of fudge swirl can be seen marbling the pint.  As I eat my way down, I can taste the malt flavor in the base.  Sometimes malt is included to mute a strong base flavor but here I can taste the malt.  The fudge swirl is thick and tasty.  It reminded me quite a bit of the swirl in the Vanilla Mint Fudge flavor.  It tasted like a fudge topping that would be put on a sundae made in an ice cream parlor.  Thick, chocolatey and not at all sour like chocolate syrup.  Like the Vanilla Mint Fudge swirl, it also tended to stick to the sides of the container.  With a small pint container, I just dragged each spoonful against the edges of the container to add more fudge.  Worked great for me, but it might become an issue in larger batches.  It would be the perfect sauce to have at a scoop shop, though.

This was a good pint of ice cream.  I think I would have preferred it without malt, but that is a personal preference.  I know a lot of people who really like malt flavor.  If you like malted vanilla then this is a good chocolate-sundae version of that base in pint form.

Graeter's - Mocha Chocolate Chip

Mocha Chocolate Chip - Coffee Ice Cream with Chocolate Chips

We return to Graeter's for another pint from their signature chip line:  Mocha Chocolate Chip.  I was very happy to see this pint.  The grocery stores near me do not carry a lot of different Graeter's flavors so I am always happy when a pint I have not tried gets cycled into one of their freezer cases.  A coffee/mocha flavor is a natural choice for their signature chip line because as mentioned in previous reviews the active chemicals in coffee (caffeine) and chocolate (theobromine) are so similar.  I am looking forward to checking this out.

 The coffee base is sort of a burnt beige in color and many of the chocolate chips are visible right away.  With the first spoonful, the coffee flavor is fairly strong right away.  It has a dark-roast flavor not unlike when you start chewing on a roasted coffee bean.  I shared a spoonful with someone who is a bit more coffee-knowledgeable and they said that it tasted like a dark Sumatra roast and sure enough the side of the pint said that they used Columbian and Sumatran Arabica beans.  The chips were excellent as usual.  I will never tire of these Graeter's chips.  They are chewy and chocolatey and of variable sizes (though I did not get any ridiculously large ones in this particular pint).  As I continued eating the pint, the dark-roasted coffee flavor stayed sharp but it was not so strong as to give me a headache.  An ideal combination for me.

This was an excellent pint of ice cream.  Graeter's chocolate chips get top billing here, but they did not phone it in with the coffee base either.  It was soft, creamy, with sharp dark coffee flavor but not ridiculously potent that only espresso-junkies can handle it.  If you like coffee and chocolate, this is a flavor that you should try.

Sweet Science - The Old Fashioned

The Old Fashioned - Brown Sugar Ice Cream with Cherry Vanilla Bitters, Rye Whiskey, Brandied Cherries and a Twist of Orange 

We return again to the Saint-Paul-based Sweet Science for another one of their cocktail flavors.  Last week, it was the White Russian, today we try The Old Fashioned.  This looks like an interesting flavor.  The Old Fashioned cocktail has been around since the early 1800s.  Later in that century, it picked up its "old fashioned" moniker. It has been an old drink for 130 years!

Opening the pint, the base has a beige-ish color and looks very soft.  I have been told that alchohol-based ice creams don't freeze as hard and that is consistent with what I am seeing here.  Also visible are a couple of the brandied cherries.  In the first spoonful, the bitters and the twist of orange give a bit of a non-sweet, but fruity taste.  I guess that is why they call it 'bitters'.  The brown sugar in the base is fairly subtle.  It is just providing a vehicle for the mixed-drink ingredients.  There is quite a bit of whiskey flavor in there as well.  The whiskey is especially noticeable at the end of each spoonful.  I am not very familiar with the Old Fashioned as a mixed drink, but this ice cream definitely re-creates the feeling of having a whiskey-based cocktail in ice cream form.  The brandied cherries are quite potent in that they have a lot of brandy in them.  They were good though.  As I continued eating, the ice cream got softer and the alcohol seemed to get stronger.  I didn't get tipsy or anything but the bottom of the pint almost tasted like a mixed drink with some cream.  Of all the booze-infused ice creams that I have had, this one definitely was the booziest.

This was a very interesting pint.  It was a very good representation of a cocktail-as-ice-cream and they took what is normally an optional garnish to that cocktail -- the cherry -- and turned it into a potent mix-in.  If an Old Fashioned is your favorite drink then you should check this out.  I don't know if it would be my favorite drink, but I am intrigued about other cocktails they could try. 

Sweet Science - Berry Crumble

Berry Crumble - Vanilla Ice Cream with Swirls of Blackberry, Raspberry Sauce and Streusel

Today, we look at another pint from the Saint-Paul-based Sweet Science brand for their Berry Crumble flavor.  I picked this up at a tasting last month, but it is one of their standard flavors that they always carry -- that is, it is not a special seasonal pint.  It appears to be a standard pie-and-ice cream flavor.  I am looking forward to checking it out.

Opening the pint, the vanilla base is a bit yellowish -- and you can see the swirls of berry and streusel as well.  The swirls are blended into the base quite a bit -- but not to the point that it is homogeneous pint.  Digging in, the berries are a bit tart, but quite flavorful.  The streusel reminded me of the oatmeal streusel that is in a few other pints.  I checked the ingredient list and the streusel is billed as 'gluten-free' but it is not just oatmeal, it includes some rice flour as well.  Either way, it provided some textural crunch that goes well with these berry flavors.  The combination is quite delicious and stayed that way throughout the pint.

I enjoyed this pint quite a bit.  It is not quite as good as Jeni's Brambleberry Crisp, but it is up there.  If you are in the Twin Cities and you like raspberry & blackberry pie, then give this a try.

Sweet Science - White Russian

White Russian - Coffee Liqueur and Vodka Ice Cream with Hazelnuts

We start the new year with a pint from the St. Paul based Sweet Science brand: White Russian.  This is a member of their cocktail collection, so it cost a couple of extra dollars.  The cocktail it is designed after is the flavors namesake, the White Russian.  Everyone remembers the White Russian as the favorite drink of the Dude in the Big Lebowski.  It is made with coffee liqueur, vodka, and cream.  A cream-based drink is a good basis for ice cream -- the cream is already in there!

Removing the lid shows an off-white base with two full hazelnuts visible right on the top.  They look like they were manually added just before the lid was put on.  Digging in, the texture is fairly soft.  I have heard that mixing alcohol with ice cream makes it harder to freeze.  It is still creamy but it is definitely not hard.  The spoon sliced through it pretty easily.  The alcohol is noticeable right away.  Then the coffee liqueur.  I am not all that familiar with the cocktail so I shared with a friend.  She assured me "it tastes just like the drink".  As I ate further down into the pint, I didn't see any more hazelnuts until I got to the very bottom.  There were two more hazelnuts sitting on the bottom of the pint.  They didn't hurt anything, but I'm not sure what the hazelnuts were doing here.

This was an interesting pint.  A 'cocktail' collection where they make a pint out of a mixed drink is a decent idea.  A cream-based drink like a White Russian is ideal for this because it is almost like melted ice cream to begin with.  If you like White Russians, give this a try.