Milkjam Creamery - Let That Mango

Let That Mango - Mango Sorbet with Sticky Rice

Last week, I decided to make a trek back to the Milkjam Creamery in Minneapolis to pick up a few more pints.  Today's flavor is called Let That Mango and is based on the mango sticky rice dessert.  Let me start off by saying that "let that mango" is a high quality mango pun!  I am jealous that I didn't think of that!  The mango sticky rice dessert is popular in Thai restaurants.  Sticky rice is general is fun to eat, but it is especially fun in this fruity dessert dish.  I am looking forward to seeing how this pint turns out.

The first thing I notice even before I open the pint is that it is very heavy.  Opening the pint, I see the thick orange color of the mango base.  It is a sorbet (meaning that it is dairy free) which I think explains why the pint is so heavy.  This is solid mango!  Digging in, the mango flavor is quite strong.  I quicky encounter some of the sticky rice sections.  The sticky rice has an odd texture.  It seemed almost crunchy.  Sticky rice is chewier and has a tougher integrity than normal rice, but it usually isn't crunchy.  It seemed to get better as I continued eating, so perhaps this is a case of sticky rice not being something which freezes well.  This had a lot more mango in it than the usual sticky rice dessert.  The ratio here was several parts mango sorbet per part of sticky rice.  With the Thai dessert, the ratio is usually the other way around.

This was an interesting pint of ice cream.  I wanted to like it more -- especially because of the top notch flavor name pun -- but the sticky rice didn't mix well with the sorbet.  Also, I like Milkjam most when it is soft and creamy and this was an extremely dense pint.

Graeter's - Dark Chocolate Brownie

Dark Chocolate Brownie - Dark Chocolate Ice Cream with Brownie Bits

The penultimate pint of my six-pint Graeter's shipment is called Dark Chocolate Brownie.  This along with the S'mores flavor are new to the Graeter's line this year.  It looks like a standard 'chocolate brownie flavor originally made famous by Ben & Jerry's thirty years ago and is now a staple chocolatey flavor for many brands.  It will be fun to see how Graeter's compares.

The top of the pint is a dark brown color and I can see some brownie pieces right away.  I am always a bit curious about 'dark chocolate' ice cream.  Unless, it is a sorbet, it has to have some milk & cream in the mix, so it won't be truely 'dark' chocolate yet it usually means there is more cocoa included than a usual chocolate base.  That is the case here.  The ice cream is very chocolatey but still quite creamy and not at all dry or bitter.  The brownie bits are dispersed generously throughout the pint.  The bits are all reasonably sized (no ridiculously large chunks as can happen with their chips).  The brownies are soft and chocolatey, chewy without at all being 'tough'.  It is good.

This is a very good implementation of a chocolate fudge brownie flavor.  I enjoyed it quite a bit and I have a feeling that it's better than the average implementation of this flavor but I also get the impression that it might not be that hard of a flavor to pull off.  It's great that Graeter's has added this to their menu and chocolate lovers and Graeter's lovers should enjoy this.

Häagen-Dazs - Cherry Vanilla

Cherry Vanilla - Black Cherry Vanilla Ice Cream with Black Cherries

We return to Häagen-Dazs for their Cherry Vanilla flavor.  This is a flavor that I always forget that they have.  I am usually trying to get a hold of the brand-new flavors and the limited batch flavors or I'm trying to find the flavor with the most interesting ingredients first.  Somehow this flavor flew under my radar.  The first thing I notice after reading the description on the side of the pint in greater detail is that black cherries are used here.  The front of the pint show pictures of red cherries.  Maybe the whole cherries look quite similar, but it creates a completely different idea in my head for what the pint will be like.  Interestingly, the cherry is paired with vanilla here instead of the usual chocolate.  That will emphasize the cherry more in my opinion.  I am looking forward to checking this out.

Opening the pint, the base ice cream is a light purplish color.  This is definitely black cherry!  Chunks of black cherry are visible right away in the middle.  The ice cream itself is soft and creamy and has that distinctive black cherry flavor.  The cherries themselves are flavorful, juicy and not too sweet.  The flavor of the vanilla did not stick out too much for me, but maybe it helps enhance the cherry in ways that a simple sweet cream would not.  This pint is almost the complete opposite ice cream flavor of the recent Cherrylicious flavor which was all candy and sweetness.

This was a surprisingly good pint.  Those of you who are also not noticing this pint amongst the dozens of Häagen-Dazs flavors in the grocery store freezer case should give this a try.  The closest thing I have come to this flavor before is a Cherries Jubilee flavor from New Orleans Ice Cream.  I liked that flavor, but I like this Häagen-Dazs flavor even more.  More black cherry flavor and better and more numerous black cherry mix-ins.

Graeter's - Maple Cinnamon Crunch

Maple Cinnamon Crunch - Maple-flavored Ice Cream with Cinnamon-Sugar-coated Shortbread Cookie Pieces

The fourth pint of my six-pint shipment from Graeter's is another limited batch flavor:  Maple Cinnamon Crunch.  This is a unique flavor combination for me.  I have only seen a maple base a few times before (Yeti, Izzy's and the recent Coolhaus).  Cinnamon cookies are interest mix-in to go with it.  I can't wait to dig in.

Opening the pint, the base ice cream is a light tan color.  A couple of the cookie pieces are visible right away.  Digging in, the ice cream tastes just like maple syrup.  It is still ice cream, but it has the full flavor of maple syrup, too.  Graeter's did the same thing with a graham cracker base recently.  It is uncanny how they are able to reproduce these flavors.  The cookie pieces dispersed throughout the pint.  They have a moderate mix of softness and crunchiness.  The cinnamon flavor is not too strong, yet they taste quite good.

This is a well-done implementation of an interesting flavor combination.  In particular, the maple syrup base does an amazing job of giving you the feeling like you are eating maple syrup in an ice cream form.  The cookies provided a decent contrast and gave something to chew on.  This is one for lovers of maple syrup, though others would probably like it as well.

Museum of Ice Cream - Cherrylicious

Cherrylicious - Maraschino Cherry Ice Cream with Sugar Cookie Bites

The next pint in my survey of flavors from the Museum of Ice Cream is called Cherrylicious.  The Museum of Ice Cream is a youthful brand which has partnered with Target to release seven new flavors this year.  I say that the brand is youthful because a lot of the flavors seem to be bright and sweet.  When I was in college, I could eat a bag of gummi bears for dinner, but I have no inkling to do that anymore.  That's what I mean by youthful.  Some of the flavor descriptions of the Museum of Ice Cream set extra sugary expectations.  So far, the pints have been on the sweet side (e.g. the Piñata flavor), but they haven't been so much that I haven't been able to finish them.

Today's flavor is giving me similar expectations of sweetness.  It is a cherry ice cream based on maraschino cherries.  Maraschino cherries are the preserved, sweetened and dyed cherries that most people know from the single cherry on the top of a sundae (where even the stem is dyed).  A single one of them on top of a sundae is a nice treat, but it doesn't always make for a good base in recipes.  I made a cherry nut bread using maraschino cherries (and juice) and one bite of it tasted great but it was hard to eat more than just the one bite.  Then on top of the maraschino cherry base, this pint is adding sugar cookie bites as a mix in.  So, this is certainly bracing me for sweetness.

Without further ado, I open the pint.  The pint is a very bright and light pink color.  It reminds me of that cherry nut bread that I talked about above.  Digging in, the cherry flavor is very bright and sweet.  Then I unexpected start to encounter large pieces of maraschino cherries!  Quite a bunch of them too.  They are sweet too.  Unlike my nut bread, it stops short of being overwhelming, though.  I don't know if the cream and butter fat is just enough to counteract the sweet flavor, but I am able to eat the whole pint in one sitting.  I only found one small sugar cookie piece.  The size was larger than a peanut but smaller than a grape.  There must have been a mixing issue if I got only one.  The pint was plenty sweet enough already but the bites might have provided some textural variation.

You really need to like maraschino cherries to enjoy this pint.  It was surprisingly flavorful and edible given my expectations but it was a very sweet pint.  Someone who loves candied cherries could like this more than I did but be sure you know what you are in for.

Graeter's - Peach

Peach - Peach Ice Cream with Peaches

It is late summer, so that means peaches are in season!  The bread place has peach scones, the supermarkets all have Colorado peaches on sale.  So, it makes sense that one of Graeter's summer seasonal flavors would be Peach.  I am looking forward to this.

Opening the pint, the creamy orange color of the peach base greets me.  You can tell the pint is hand-packed from the unevenness of the surface.  Some substantial chunks of peach are visible right away.  Digging in, the peach flavor in the base is delicious.  The peach chunks are have a decent texture -- not at all mushy or frozen -- and they tasted great as well.  Big chunks too.  Graeter's is known for its big chocolate chips, and they took the same idea here as well.

This is an excellent pint of peach ice cream.  I've only had two other peach flavors from Talenti and Tillamook.  Nothing against either of those two pints, but this easily beats those two.  This Graeter's flavor is only seasonal, though.  So, if like peaches and you happen to see this, don't hesitate.

Museum of Ice Cream - Churro Churro

Churro Churro - Cinnamon Ice Cream with Churro Bites

Today we try another flavor from the Museum of Ice Cream.  This one is called Churro Churro.  Checking the 'churro' tag in my search bar, this is the fourth churro-themed pint that I've had -- McConnell's, Jeni's, the chocolatey Coolhaus and now this one.  It's a fun idea for a flavor because its cinnamon-y and dough-y -- both things go well with ice cream.  Let's check this out.

Opening the pint and removing the foil, the base is as expected an off-white cinnamon color.  Digging in, it has a light cinnamon flavor.  It is more of a sweet-cinnamon flavor of a pastry than a hot cinnamon, but it is not too sweet.  As I eat further down, I run into several of the churro-bite mix-ins.  These are tasty and give you something to chew on.

I liked this pint quite a bit.  The combination of cinnamon, sugar and pastry (churro) is pretty simple but it works pretty well.  Enjoy.

Graeter's - Cheesecake Cookies & Cream

Cheesecake Cookies & Cream - Cheesecake Ice Cream with Oreo Cookies

The second pint of my six-pint shipment from the Cincinnati-based Graeter's brand is called Cheesecake Cookies & Cream.  I have not done their regular Cookies & Cream yet.  I like try the basic versions before doing the accented flavors, but this is a limited batch flavor.  I always feel a sense of urgency for limited batch flavors.  I have to check them out before they go away.

The top of the pint shows the whitish color of the cheesecake base.  A couple of cookie pieces are visible but only a few cookies "specks".  I've talked before about different types of cookies and cream.  Some implementations allow some of the cookie mix-ins to be ground into fine powdery crumbs which fully speckle the base while others rely on only larger cookie pieces.  This is the latter.  Digging in, the cheesecake base does have the distinctive cream-cheesy flavor of a plain cheesecake.  Graeter's has used this base before in their Cheese Crown flavor (with very different mix-ins).  The cookie mix-ins used here are Oreos (and not imitation Oreos).  As mentioned above, they are mainly large pieces and they often include the creme filling as well.

This is a solid implementation of a cookies & cream with a cheesecake twist.  There's nothing too complicated here.  If "Oreo Cheesecake" is one of your favorite types of cheesecake, then you'll like this.

Sweet Science - Orange Sorbet

Orange Sorbet - Orange Sorbet with Mexican Honey Imperial Lager

The Saint Paul-based Sweet Science brand has two new seasonal flavors for August.  The first flavor is the return of the previously-reviewed Sweet Corn Blueberry and the second is called Orange Sorbet with Mexican Honey Imperial Lager.  Sweet Science likes to partner with local craft beer makers.  This time, they've paired with Indeed Brewing Company and use their Mexican Imperial Lager to accent the flavor of their orange sorbet.  I don't think I have ever had an orange sorbet.  Orange is a popular flavor for a sherbet which has a lower dairy content, but a sorbet by definition has no dairy content.  This should be interesting.

Opening the pint shows the bright orange color of the sorbet.  You can tell right away that it is not ice cream.  Digging in, the sorbet is quite smooth and has a creamy texture (even though there is no cream).  I checked the ingredient list and it looks like some tapioca syrup is used to help thicken it up.  The orange flavor is very good.  It tastes like a glass of orange juice!  Not just a normal glass of orange juice, either.  It's like a really good glass that you'd get at a nice restaurant or something.  I must admit that I did not taste the beer.  I asked a friend and they didn't taste the beer either (they really liked the orange flavor though).  Perhaps, the beer flavoring was too subtle for me.   Or maybe it blended into the orange and was why the orange flavor tasted so good?  I did not mind though.  I liked the orange and I am not really a beer aficionado anyways.

This is an excellent pint of orange sorbet.  Very good orange flavor and nice to drink on a hot summer day.  In general, I prefer ice cream over sorbets, but this is one of the better sorbet's that I have had.  Despite the flavor-name, it's not really a boozy pint.  Orange-lovers of all ages would enjoy this.

Coolhaus - Buttered French Toast

Buttered French Toast - Buttered Brown Sugar Ice Cream, Pecan Pralines, Cakey Toast Pieces, Maple Swirl

Today is the final review from my recent Coolhaus shipment. Shipments are six pints, but there were only five pints on their menu which I had not had before so my sixth pint was a duplicate (Balsamic Fig & Mascarpone if you are curious).  Today's pint is called Buttered French Toast.  This one looks very intriguing.  They bill in on the pint as being "our take on butter pecan", but they use praline pecans and there are cakey toast pieces and a swirl of maple syrup as well.  This looks very interesting.

Removing the lid, there is a 'winking face with tongue' emoji (U+1F61C) on the foil.  I had been appreciating some of the wittier phrases that have been appearing here on recent pints but this is pretty fun as well.  Peeling off the foil, the base is a milky off-white beige color and there is a beautiful swirl of maple syrup visible right away.  Coolhaus does these top-of-the-pint swirls quite well.  Digging in, the buttered brown sugar base is quite good.  It is thick and creamy and serves as a good vehicle for the swirls and mix-ins.  The maple syrup swirl is also quite tasty.  I've seen a few maple bases and swirls that get blended in to the point where it loses its punch.  Here, you can distinctly taste the maple syrup.  It is as if one had added maple syrup as a topping to a bowl of ice cream (I have never tried that, but now I am curious).  The mix-ins were dispersed throughout the pint.  The toast pieces were indeed soft and cakey.  They absorbed the flavor of the base and maple swirl and dissolved in your mouth, so it seems like their main role here is textural.  The praline pecans were crunchy and quite good.  There were about half as many as are usually included in a pralines-n-cream implementation which makes sense because they share the pint with the cake pieces.

I really enjoyed this pint.  It is one of the better pints in my recent Coolhaus shipment.  Sometimes a Coolhaus flavor is not what you imagine it to be from the flavor name and side-of-the-pint descriptions but it ends up being quite delicious anyways.  That happened here.  I was expecting some sort of butter cake or bread pudding ice cream, but it ended up being a maple syrup pralines & cream -- the cake pieces played only a supporting role here.  I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys maple syrup and praline pecans.  Enjoy.

Graeter's - S'mores

S'mores - Graham Cracker Ice Cream with Milk Chocolate Chips & Marshmallows

Today would not be normally an ice cream day -- I just had a pint yesterday -- but I was informed by many tweets today that it is National S'mores Day.  I just so happen to have a pint of S'mores ice cream in my freezer from Graeter's.  What are the odds?!  So, I decided not only move up not the day of next pint of ice cream but my pint of Graeter's leapfrogged several other pints in my freezer as well.  I got a six-pint shipment from Graeter's!  I was going to wait until I finished eating all of the pints from my recent Coolhaus shipment before starting in on the Graeter's, but hey, it is National S'mores Day and I have S'mores ice cream. I don't really have a choice!

I have had S'mores implementations from many brands.  It is almost becoming a standard flavor!  As we know S'mores include three core ingredients:  chocolate, marshmallow, and graham crackers.  Each brand seems to combine these ingredients in a unique way.  Coolhaus used a vanilla base with chocolate mix-ins and a graham-marshmallow swirl.  Sweet Science has a graham cracker base with marshmallow, chocolate and graham mix-ins.  Ben & Jerry's has two flavors.  Their standard flavor has a chocolate base, chocolate mix-ins with graham and marshmallow swirls and they have a recent limited batch flavor with a marshmallow base, graham swirl and chocolatey mix-ins.  So, you see that we have almost all the permutations already.  What is Graeters doing here?  They have a graham cracker base with marshmallow mix-ins and their signature chocolate chips.  Quite close to the Sweet Science implementation, though I'd say this is a more straightforward rendition while Sweet Science   This should be fun.

The of the pint has a small air-pocket visible but it does not seem to affect the consistency of the ice cream.  The graham cracker base is the expected tan color, there is a marshmallow visible already and hints at the chocolate chips buried below.  I dug my spoon in and the base tastes exactly like graham crackers.  If it wasn't cold and creamy, I would think that I was actually eating a graham cracker.  The marshmallows were about the size of mini-marshmallows but they seemed a bit more gelatinous (a bit better than if they came right out of a package).  These were just so-so, but you have to have all the ingredients for it to be s'mores.  The Graeter's chocolate chips were of course amazing.  Soft, chewy and sometimes quite large.  If you have not had Graeter's chocolate chips, watch the videos linked on one of my reviews and check out any flavor with 'chocolate chip' in the name.

This is an excellent pint of S'mores ice cream.  The graham cracker base was extremely well done.  Graham crackers were invented during the 19th century temperance movement that involved minimizing pleasure and stimulation of all kinds, but I think there actually are people today that love the taste of graham crackers.  If you are one of those people, this base ice cream is for you.  Fans of Graeter's chips will like it as well.

Milkjam Creamery - True Colors

True Colors - Mint Ice Cream with Chocolate Chips

When Minneapolis' Milkjam Creamery came out with a limited-batch mint chocolate chip flavor, I quickly went down and picked up a pint.  Long-time readers know that mint chocolate chip is my favorite flavor so I am always interested to see how each brand will implement it.  Milkjam calls this flavor True Colors.  I am not sure why.  Their flavor names usually sound cool but about half the time they are over my head.  Anyhow, this should be fun.

Opening the pint, there are a lot of chocolate chips visible right away!  So many chips that it is hard to tell if the base is greenish or yellowish.  Digging in, this is the highest density of chocolate chips that I have seen in an ice cream.  It almost looks like the speckling of micro-crumbs of a cookies and cream implementation, but these are actually small chocolate chips.  Through the chips, I could tell that the mint flavor comes at least partly from mint leaves.  Because of this, it is perhaps not as strong as some mint bases but it was still pretty minty.

This is a fun implementation of a mint chip.  It is definitely the chippiest of mint chips that I've ever had, that is for sure.  I love a strong mint flavor so I can't put it in my inner circle of mint chips (Graeter's & McConnell's) but it still very successful.  Of course chocolate chip fans will absolutely love this.  Unfortunately, as with many Milkjam limited batch flavors, the flavor is gone by the time I get around to eating it and writing it up.  Hopefully, they'll bring it back often.