Sweet Science - Caramel Apple Cider Crisp

Caramel Apple Cider Crisp - Honeycrisp Apple Cider Ice Cream with a Caramel Swirl and Gluten-Free Streusel

I was a little late picking up the September flavors from the Saint Paul-based Sweet Science brand because I was waiting for their new scoop shop in the Keg & Case Market to open up.  The first September flavor is one I have already reviewed, S'mores.  (It was really good)  The second flavor is called Caramel Apple Cider Crisp.  It looks like a perfect flavor for fall.  It has Minnesotan-cultivated Honeycrisp apples, caramel and a streusel which works well in their popular Berry Crumble flavor.  This looks fun.  Let's check it out.

Opening the pint, the top is a yellow color with some brown from the caramel and streusel visible.  The first spoonful is quite soft! I checked the ingredient list and there is brandy and vodka in there!  That would explain the softness.  Alcohol lowers the freezing point of ice cream.  The flavor is quite apple-y with quite a bit of caramel as well.  Now that I know the ice cream has been 'spiked', I can tell there is a bit of a kick to the flavor as well.  Don't worry, it is not a very boozy pint -- you can feed it to your apple-loving small children with no worry.  I really like the flavor combination.  With the streusel adding nice texture, it tastes like a piece of caramel apple pie and the small amount of alcohol gives it a 'warmth'.  It is all so fresh too.

I really liked this flavor.  It is fairly unique too.  I checked my archives and the only thing similar was a Caramel Apple Pie flavor from Talenti.  I liked this flavor, but this flavor from Sweet Science is a significant improvement upon it.  Enjoy.

Häagen-Dazs - Coffee

Coffee - Coffee Ice Cream

Tomorrow is National Coffee Day!  That gives me an excuse to try a classic oldie but goodie from the Häagen-Dazs line:  Coffee.  It is one of their original flavors and they have not changed the recipe from when they started.  It has only five ingredients:  cream, skim milk, cane sugar, egg yolks and coffee.  They get their coffee from Brazil.  Without further ado, let's check it out!

Removing the lid and the protective plastic label shows the coffee base is a beautiful tan color -- perhaps even a taupe.  Unsurprisingly, it is the color of a cup of coffee with cream and sugar.  Digging in, the coffee flavor is pretty good.  It is flavorful -- though not too strong -- and not at all bitter.  It is simple, yet it works.  I checked with a friend who is more than a coffee drinker than I am and they liked it.  Good coffee flavor.

This is a classic old implementation of a coffee flavor which has held up pretty well.  That says quite a bit considering how much coffee drinking has changed since the early days of the Häagen-Dazs brand.  It is quite simple and the flavor is not too strong.  Coffee junkies may be interested in something which is stronger or more exotic.  Myself, I like a bit of chocolate with my coffee.  But for a simple four-dollar pint of coffee ice cream, you can't go wrong with Häagen-Dazs.

McConnells's - Wild Berry Chip

Wild Berry Chip - Ice Cream Infused with Wildberry Jam with Bittersweet Chocolate Chips

Today is the final pint of my recent five-pint shipment from McConnell's.  It is called Wild Berry Chip.  Unlike the previous pints in this shipment, this is part of their standard lineup of flavors and is not a limited or seasonal release.  It must be a recent addition, though, as I do not remember this flavor from my previous orders.  I checked the ingredient list to see which berries are wild berries.  It turns out that they use raspberries and marionberries.  This is only my second pint to feature marionberries.  You can read more about the marionberry in that previous review (also from McConnell's.

Cracking open the pint, I see the expected purplish pink color of the raspberry-marionberry base.  You can also see lots of berry seeds too.  If you look closer, you can tell that the color of the base is not homogeneous.  Some parts are a little whiter than others.  The berry jam appears to be swirled into the sweet cream and then it not fully mixed.  Don't worry, as you can see below there is still plenty of berry in each spoonful, but this is a little bit of variability as to the strength of the flavor.  The berry is quite good.  It is a little bit on the tart side, but not overly so, plus the seeds give it an aura of earthy authenticity.  As I scoop further, I quickly encounter the chocolate chips.  These chips are small and flake shape and have a bit of crispy-crunchiness to them.  The chocolate flavor is good and goes well with the berries.

This is an excellent combination of berries and chocolate chips.  There are lots of good raspberry chocolate chip flavors around -- including Graeter's signature Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip.  This McConnell's pint has a few twists to distinguish itself, though.  The inclusion of marionberries into the mix creates a unique berry flavor and also the small chucks and seeds give this pint a natural and earthy vibe.  And of course, McConnell's does a great job of tastefully balancing the flavors.  Fans of raspberries, marionberries and chocolate who have access to McConnell's will want to check this one out.

Milkjam Creamery - Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry Shortcake - Strawberry Sherbet with Vanilla Wafer Ice Cream

Today is another flavor from the Minneapolis-based Milkjam Creamery.   It is called Strawberry Shortcake.  Flavors based on strawberry shortcake are not uncommon -- I reviewed one a limited batch flavor from Ben & Jerry's a while back.  Strawberry is a strong and often very sweet flavor so it is common to cut it with cream cheese, rhubarb, sour cream or shortcake.  The combination here is a bit different.  The strawberry is delivered in the form of a sherbet (lower dairy, but not non-dairy like a sorbet) and the shortcake is delivered as vanilla wafers.  Sounds interesting.  Let's give it a whirl.

Removing the lid shows a lot.  I see a marbling of two bases -- the pink strawberry sherbet base and the vanilla wafer base.  Plus, I see a large hunk of a vanilla wafer on top as well.  It looks more breadish than the usual vanilla wafter.  Digging in, the texture is very soft, and smooth as is normal for Milkjam Creamery, but it is still creamy like ice cream.  The strawberry sherbet is a bit more tart than the usual strawberry but it is quite delicious.  The vanilla wafers are as soft and bready as they look.  A bit surprising but it works very well.  It reminded me a bit of the ladyfinger mix-ins in Milkjam's Turkish Tiramisu flavor.

This is a unique and delicious strawberry-themed pint.  Swirling sherbet with ice cream is a great idea and should be done more often.  'Strawberry shortcake' is a very loose inspiration -- it is a slightly tart strawberry and the bready mix-ins are soft -- but this is still a very good pint of ice cream.  Strawberry fans should check this out.

McConnell's - Sprinkle Cake

Sprinkle Cake - Ice Cream made with Sheet Cake Pieces, Frosting & Rainbow Sprinkles

The fourth pint of my recent McConnell's shipment is called Sprinkle Cake.  This is a bit of a change from McConnnell's.  They are an old brand which specializes in classic flavors.  I don't immediately associate them with sugary cake mix-ins and rainbow sprinkles.  Let's check it out.


Removing the lid and the extra paper wrap (McConnell's has an extra paper seal between the lid and the ice cream now) shows that the base ice cream is a bright white color and many of the brightly colored sprinkles can be seen right away as well.  In the first spoonful, I taste the flavor of white cake.  It is sweet, but not overly so.  Then I encountered some of the cake pieces.  I spoke too soon about the 'white' cake.  These pieces are rainbow colored as well, but it just coloring.  This is definitely a white cake flavor and not a yellow cake flavor.  Yellow cake has a different flavor because of the egg yolks.  The cake pieces are pretty small so it keeps the ice cream looking very white.  Every so often, I will run into a bit of frosting.  The frosting is not as sweet as some frosting mix-ins are.  It has a more buttery texture to it.  This works really well blending into the ice cream and complements the cake pieces quite well.  The rainbow sprinkles provide quite a bit of color, but it is the delicious cake flavor which dominates here.

This is an excellent sheet-cake themed ice cream flavor.  It looks gorgeous.  McConnell's did a great job here.  It tastes like a really good cake and it is not too sweet -- many cake-flavored ice creams make the mistake of being too sugary sweet.  This would be the perfect ice cream for someone's birthday. 

Sweet Science - Honey Vanilla

Honey Vanilla - Vanilla Ice Cream Sweetened with Wildflower Honey

Last week I visited the new Sweet Science scoop shop in the new Keg & Case Market in Saint Paul.  They finally have a brick and mortar shop.  No more need to track down new flavors at tasting events or specialty markets.  I can just go down to their shop.  They have a freezer case right by the register with all sorts of pints.  I saw three pints which I didn't have before so I picked them up.  Today's pint is called Honey Vanilla.  Here, they use honey provided by one of the other vendors at Keg & Case, Worker B.  The specific honey used here comes from the nectar of a basswood tree.  It should be interesting to see how this compared to a regular vanilla.

Cracking open the pint, the color is an off-white and a few tiny specks of vanilla bean are visible.  That it isn't a pure white is not necessarily due to the honey.  Lots of regular vanilla come out with this color.  The first scoop is creamy.  It is a good texture.  Not too soft, but not at all tough to scoop.  The flavor is a bright vanilla.  It is very tasty.  What I don't taste is honey, though.  I tried.  I asked a friend, too.  The vanilla is good, though.

This is a very good pint of vanilla ice cream.  I did not specifically note honey flavor, though, so fans of honey flavor might be disappointed.  It is basically a vanilla ice cream which is sweetened with honey instead of cane sugar.  If your palate or dietary restrictions are more sensitive to that switch, then this might interest you.  If you are getting a scoop at the scoop shop, it might be fun to give it a try instead of the usual vanilla.

McConnell's - Strawberry Rhubarb

Strawberry Rhubarb - Ice Cream Infused with Strawberry Rhubarb Preserves

Today is the third pint of my recent shipment from the Santa Barbara-based McConnell's.  This flavor is called Strawberry Rhubarb.  Strawberry and rhubarb are commonly paired together because they are both strong flavors which complement each other well -- strawberry is very sweet and rhubarb is very tart.  Surprisingly, I have only had rhubarb in ice cream one other time, so I am looking forward to checking this out.

The top of the pint is a light pink color and there is sort of a bulgy shape to it.  McConnell's ice cream is often very thick and dense (not a lot of air) and I can tell just buy looking at this that it is thick.  Digging in, I can taste the strawberry right away.  It's a really good strawberry flavor, not too sweet and not too tart.  There are no strawberry chunks like in some other flavors (such as McConnell's own Chocolate-Covered Strawberries).  This is just smooth strawberry flavor and is very tasty.  The rhubarb comes through in the mix-ins.  You can see them in the pictures below.  They provide a twist of rhubarb flavor into each spoonful, but strawberry is the dominant flavor here.

This is a solid pint of ice cream.  The strawberry flavor is perfectly placed along the sweet-tart scale so as not to be too much of one and not the other.  The texture is thick and creamy as is McConnell's specialty.  Rhubarb is definitely a secondary flavor here.  That might be disappointing for rhubarb fans, but it might ease the concerns for those who might be apprehensive about the rhubarb.

Häagen-Dazs - Chocolate Peanut Butter

Chocolate Peanut Butter - Chocolate Ice Cream with a Peanut Butter Swirl

Today's flavor is from Häagen-Dazs.  There was a sale at my local grocery store, so I decided to explore more from their catalogue of pints.  Most of the pints I have yet to try are fairly basic, but Häagen-Dazs does basic flavors very well.  This flavor is called Chocolate Peanut Butter.  Those are two tastes that have been known to go well together for years.  This pint is a case of "you got peanut butter in my chocolate" meaning the base is chocolate and the mix-in is peanut butter.  In this regard, it is the opposite of their Peanut Butter Salted Fudge flavor.

The top of the pint looks just like their chocolate ice cream.  In the first spoonful, I tasted that chocolate which is excellent.  Häagen-Dazs has one of the best chocolate bases.  Soon I encounter the peanut butter mix-ins.  They are not completely obvious visually, but if you zoom in on the pictures below you can see them.  They provide just enough peanut butter to complement the chocolate without completely blending it.  This is a fairly chocolate-heavy peanut-butter-and-chocolate combination but it is a tasty one.

This is a solid pint of ice cream.  The combination of chocolate and peanut butter is quite simple, but it works well.  Previous times I have had this flavor, I remember the peanut butter swirl being a bit pronounced, but it was still quite good.  The subtler blend reminded me of Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter World which I liked.  People who like their chocolate peanut butter blends a bit chocolate heavy should like this.

McConnell's - Mocha Fudge & Smoked Almonds

Mocha Fudge & Smoked Almonds - Cold-brewed Coffee Ice Cream with a Ribbon Dark Chocolate Sauce Smoky, Salt-Roasted Almonds

The second pint from my recent McConnell's shipment looks like a good one:  Mocha Fudge & Smokey Almonds.  Sometimes you can just by the flavor combinations that a particular flavor will be especially decadent.  Coffee, chocolate sauce and almonds... looks good.  Let's dig right in.

There is a lot of chocolate sauce visible on the top of the pint.  There is a thicker and darker sauce visible on one side and the lighter strip by a small air pocket.  The coffee base is a light beige color.  Digging in, the coffee base is quite flavorful.  It is a cold-brew coffee and not at all bitter.  The chocolate sauce is thick and rich.  It is a lot like a thick sauce that you would put on a sundae.  It is excellent.  The almonds are buried below.  Interestingly, these are whole almonds instead of sliced almonds from the olive oil flavor from the same shipment.  Just noting the difference.  They still taste quite good.

This is an amazing pint of ice cream.  It looked amazing in the online images before I made the order and it completely lived up to expectations.  They are going to have a hard time keeping this one in stock.  I've written about how coffee & chocolate go well together many times before.  This is one of the better combinations of those flavors.  What separates this pint is the thick and rich chocolate sauce.  Most of the time, the chocolate is delivered in chips or chunks.  The almonds are a great bonus as well.  Enjoy.

Museum of Ice Cream - Chocolate Crush

Chocolate Crush - Chocolate Ice Cream with Chocolate Flakes

Today we return to the Museum of Ice Cream for their Chocolate Crush flavor.  The Museum of Ice Cream is a youthful brand with sometimes bold and sugary flavor combinations, but this looks like a fairly simple chocolate flavor with chocolate mix-ins.  Let's see how this turns out.

The base ice cream has a moderately brown color typical.  It looks like a milk chocolate base -- not too dark.  Some of the chocolate flakes can be seen right away.  Digging in, the chocolate flavor of the base is pretty good.  It tastes a lot like chocolate milk in ice cream form.  The mix-ins were surprisingly good. They were dispersed generously and randomly (sometimes clumped, sometimes not) throughout the pint.  They had a flat, rectangular shape to them and were the width of a dime.  They had a crumbly-crunchy texture to them.

This is a pretty good pint of ice cream.  It is just chocolate chocolate chip -- nothing too exciting or fancy -- but the chips were better than most.  The Museum of Ice Cream brand has flashy marketing but my favorite pints of theirs are when they use simple flavor combinations. 

McConnell's - Olive Oil & Salted Almonds

Olive Oil & Salted Almonds - Arbequina Extra Virgin Olive Oil Ice Cream with Smokey Salt-Roasted Almonds

I have to get an order from McConnell's!  They had an interesting group of fall flavors that I had not had before and their shipping costs seemed reasonable, so I got a five-pint shipment.  McConnell's is headquartered in Santa Barbara but the shipment came from Union City which is in the northern part of the state.  Perhaps this is a sign that they are expanding their distribution.  It could also be why the shipping is now more reasonable.  The first flavor is called Olive Oil & Salted Almonds.  I have heard murmurs that olive oil makes a surprisingly good ice cream base and I have not tried it before.  So, I am anxious to give this pint a try.

Opening the pint, the color of the olive oil base is on off-white yellow and I can see some evidence of almonds right away.  Digging in, the base ice cream is quite thick and dense.  McConnell's is known for that.  There's not a lot a lot of air introduced during the churning process.  The olive oil has made the base perhaps a bit creamier than normal but I must admit that I don't immediately taste olive oil.  Scattered throughout the pint are almond shavings.  These are excellent.  I keep trying to think more about this base.  I do like it and it goes well with the almonds but I'm trying to figure out what the olive oil is bringing into the mix.  I guess it does seem a bit more savory and rich than plain old sweet cream.  Maybe that is it.

I really liked this pint of ice cream.  The almond mix-ins were quite good and the base ice cream goes very well with it though I didn't really specifically taste olive oil.  It is good -- I don't want to scare people away -- but I think I might have gotten a bit too wound up in anticipation of my first ice cream which included olive oil.  I will have to see if I can find more olive oil flavors where the specific effects are more pronounced.  That said, McConnell's makes great ice cream.  This is thick and rich ice cream and the almonds are excellent.

Milkjam Creamery - Black

Black - The Darkest Coco

When a neighbor of mine first recommended Minneapolis' Milkjam Creamery, she made a point to single out a flavor called Black.  Each time I have gone, I have been distracted by flavors which have more complex flavor combinations and I end up getting those instead.  Both times I've run into this neighbor, I've thanked her for recommending Milkjam because I enjoyed this flavor or that flavor and both times she's asked me "Did you try 'Black'?"  So I decided that I had to try this flavor.  It appears to be a simple dark chocolate sorbet, although there is a 'nut' icon on the menu next to the flavor.  I checked and found and interview with the owner of Milkjam and he said that the flavor is made with a mixture of coconut and almond milks.  The presence of non-dairy substitutes might be why it isn't labeled a 'sorbet'.  I found a link to someone who liked the flavor so much that they posted a recipe trying to mimic the flavor.  This should be interesting.

After opening the pint this is indeed black!  This is not only the blackest ice cream I have ever seen, this is one of the blackest colors I have ever seen.  This could be a tub of black finger paint.  Scooping, it is a bit softer and creamier than most sorbets.  The coconut and almond milks are doing their jobs here.  The flavor is super chocolatey but not bitter.  I read some reviews saying that it is bitter but I disagree.  I really like this flavor.  I'm not sure if the coconut and almond milks are adding anything specific flavor-wise to the mix but I really like this flavor.

This is the best dark chocolate ice cream or sorbet that I have ever had.  The color is beautiful, the texture is creamy and the flavor is delicious.  This definitely deserves to be one of MilkJam's signature flavors.  Dark chocolate lovers in Minnesota need to check this out.  The success of this flavor has me curious to try their namesake MilkJam flavor the next time I visit.  Enjoy.

Museum of Ice Cream - Vanillionaire

Vanillionaire - Vanilla Ice Cream with Wafer Cookies

We return to the Museum of Ice Cream today for a review of their Vanillionaire flavor.  This is one of the more basic flavors from this youthful brand.  It is a vanilla base with vanilla wafer cookies.  I just reviewed a pint which contained vanilla wafers.  In that review, I noted that all of the times that I have encountered that mix-in, it has been paired with a banana base.  This pint breaks that streak.  A vanilla base is used here.  I am actually surprised that more brands have not tried this.  It seems like an obvious way to spruce up vanilla.  Let's dig in.

First, I note that the carton features a whitish grey on yellow color scheme.  You can read it in person, but I always have the darnedest time trying to get my camera to deal with this lack of contrast.  Just a pet peeve there.  Opening the pint, the vanilla is the expected off-white color but instead of bean specks being visible I see crumbs on vanilla wafers.  Digging in, the vanilla base is decent.  The wafer cookie pieces are a bit small.  Perhaps I am spoiled by the large pieces of my previous pint.  They are still good, though.

This is a simple and decent pint of vanilla.  The idea of using vanilla wafers as a mix-in is a good one and I wish more brands would try this.  Perhaps most people thing people want to add their own toppings to vanilla?  The amount of wafers here is a bit light, though.  When the mix-ins are sugary, sometimes the Museum of Ice Cream overdoes it, but here I think more wafers would have been fun.