Jeni's - Cognac with Gingerbread

Cognac with Gingerbread - Warming Cognac Ice Cream, with Notes of Butterscotch and Brown Sugar. Dark Caramel Sauce and Heavily Spiced Gingerbread Cake Pieces Throughout.

I have returned to Minnesota after my trip to New York City trip for the Thanksgiving holiday.  Arriving not long after I returned was my only Black Friday purchase -- six pint of Jeni's Ice Cream!  Jeni's has several holiday flavors every year and they offer a six-pints-for-the-price-of-four sale as well.  That combination makes them the ideal choice for a Black Friday ice cream shipment.  I have already reviewed half of this year's holiday flavors in previous years.  That leaves more of the shipment for some of the other non-holiday flavors that are not carried by my local Whole Foods but that I have always wanted to try.  There was Boozy Egg Nog, Sweet Potatoes and Torched Marshmallows and Pumpkin 5-Spice -- all pretty good and I will forward you to those reviews.    There are still two holiday-themed flavors which are new to me this year.  The first of those flavors is called Cognac with Gingerbread.  The description of this flavor seems very high class -- like it's the type of ice cream that they might serve at a polo match or something.  I have actually had cognac in ice cream once before and it was pretty good.  I am looking forward to checking this out.

Opening the pint, I see a gritty looking base (light in color) with one hunk of caramel visible and some darker spots.  At first, they look like chocolate chips but checking the ingredients, I see they must be the gingerbread.  The first spoonful is full of cognac flavor!  It is not at all 'boozy', but I can taste a lot of the flavor of the distilled wine.  Jeni's uses tapioca syrup to thicken their ice cream which also make it slower to melt.  In contrast, a high alcohol content lowers the freezing point and makes the ice cream quicker to melt.  This ice cream is its normal thick and creamy self.  I'm guessing they may have let a bit of the alcohol evaporate off so that we get the flavor of the cognac without the effects of the alcohol.  The taste is very good, though, so I don't might.  It's very unique, too.  I like excellent flavors that feel new.  The first mix-ins I encounter are the chunks of caramel sauce.  These are thick but not chewy and deliver excellent caramel flavor that goes well with the cognac.  Next I encounter the gingerbread pieces.  These are chewy little nuggets.  They don't pack as much gingerbread flavor as I was expecting.  I had to stop and focus on an individual piece to taste it.  Perhaps my mouth was too full of cognac and caramel flavors?  They are fun to chew on, though.

This is an excellent holiday pint of ice cream!  The cognac flavor is amazing and unique.  The caramel is quite good, as well.  The gingerbread here plays only a supporting role, but that is OK.  If you find a pint of this available somewhere, don't hesitate to check it out.

Coolhaus - Spiked Egg Nog

Spiked Egg Nog - Real Egg Nog Ice Cream with a Cinnamon Graham Crumble Swirl

I always check the ice cream freezer cases even when I am not shopping for ice cream.  I was doing that on the Upper East Side near my sister's apartment when I encountered a holiday pint from Coolhaus.  I know Coolhaus is a west coast brand, but they seem to have more available in Manhattan than they do in Minnesota.  With Thanksgiving over and the Christmas shopping season in full swing, I grab this pint and eat it on my last day in New York.  I have had Egg Nog ice cream a couple of times before (from McConnell's and Jeni's).  I always enjoy it much more than I expect to.  I don't really like drinking egg nog because of the texture -- but when you freeze it and churn it, it's really just frozen custard which I like quite a bit.  Let's see how Coolhaus handles this.

Removing the lid, there is a lovely message waiting for me on top of the foil seal (see below).  I love these.  Peeling bakc the foil, the first thing I notice is the graham cracker swirl!  As I have mentioned in a previous review, Coolhaus does a very good job of top-of-the-pint presentation.  The swirl has a very dark color for graham cracker.  I wonder what is up with that.  As expected, the freezing and churning the egg nog has indeed created an excellent frozen custard.  There is a hint of cinnamon evident, but I mainly taste the creamy sweet custard with that thick-but-malleable consistency that Coolhaus is known for.  Then the dark graham cracker swirl has a distinct molasses flavor to it.  I like this twist on a graham cracker swirl.  About halfway through the pint I start noticing hints of rum.  It is much more subtle than I was expecting.  If I wasn't looking for it  -- the flavor is called "Spiked" Egg Nog after all -- I might have missed it.

This is an interesting and well-done implementation of an egg nog ice cream.  One should set the right expectations before eating, though.  Despite the word "Spiked" in the title, this is not a very boozy pint at all.  Even the flavor of rum can be easy to miss.  Also, there's not a lot of spices blended into the base.  No nutmeg and just a little bit of cinnamon.  What this pint does have is amazing egg-nog flavor -- the best egg nog base from a pure 'frozen custard' perspective -- and an excellent molasses-graham cracker swirl.  Look for those two things when you try this and you will enjoy it very much.

OddFellows - Oatmeal Cookie Dough

Oatmeal Cookie Dough - Cinnamon Ice Cream with Oatmeal Cookie Dough Pieces

I am still in New York visiting my sister, so I'll try another New York ice cream.  Today I return to the OddFellows brand for their Oatmeal Cookie Dough flavor.  I did have OddFellows on my last New York visit, so you can check that review for more information about the brand.  This flavor looks promising as oatmeal cookies make for good mix-ins.  I am looking forward to checking this out.

Popping off the plastic lid, the top of the pint is a nice off-white beige color with hints of the oatmeal cookie pieces visible right away on top.  As I eat the first spoonful, I taste a mild cinnamon flavor in the base.  Nothing too potent like in my recent cinnamon ice cream reviews (here and here) but still quite delicious.  I think the mix-ins are going to be the main focus here.  Then I encounter the oatmeal cookie dough.  These are tasty.  They resemble soft oatmeal cookies more than cookie dough to me, but I think that might be what oatmeal cookie dough it like -- the dough has so much oatmeal in it that it doesn't change its consistency as much when it is baked.  Using dough just ensures that the mix-ins are soft and chewy which is nice.  Eating my way further down, I am liking the thick and creamy base and the generous amount of oatmeal cookie dough pieces.  This is good stuff.

I really liked this pint.  I think this might be the best oatmeal-centric pint I've had yet.  (Ample Hills' Nonna's Oatmeal Lace is amazing -- but the brown sugar base is arguably the star there)  Oatmeal cookie lovers should check this out.

Ample Hills - Confetti Celebration

Confetti Celebration - Sweet Cream Ice Cream with Confetti Cake, Ribbons of Yellow Buttercream Frosting and Yellow Mickey-shaped White Chocolate Pieces filled with Lemon Cream

Today we complete my survey of the Ample Hills Mickey Mouse Collection.  Please check the first review in the series for background on the collection and their unique packaging.  The flavor designs all have a cake-and-frosting theme which a different twist.  The first pint was peanut-butter-and-strawberry, the second pint was all chocolate, and the third and final pint -- this pint -- is a traditional birthday cake: a white sheet cake with sprinkles.  Let's check it out.

Cracking open the rectangular top shows another one of those company factoids -- it reads that the couple that founded Ample Hills met while vacationing in Trout Lake, New York.  Cool.  This is card number #012, previous pints were #007 and #009.  I wonder if they'll eventually migrate all of their flavors to the square pints?  I guess this collection serves as a bit of a test run.  Anyhow, moving past the card the ice cream is a bright white color.  Digging in, I encounter some cake pieces.  This is the first pint in the series where the cake pieces were obvious -- in previous pints the blending of the swirl into the ice cream was stronger so that you got the flavor but not necessarily the cakey texture.  The cake pieces add some color to the ice cream with their sprinkles.  The swirls of buttercream frosting added more sweetness to the pint.  Lastly, this pint's Mickey-shaped mix-ins had a white-chocolate outside layer with lemon cream on the inside.  The contribution of the Mickey filling -- the lemon cream here -- was more obvious in this pint than it was in the previous pints because this was this was the first pint where the filling did not match the flavor of the cake swirl.  So, it was rather fun to get a small dose of lemon every time I crunched on a Mickey.  Altogether, it was a good combination of flavors -- it reminded me of eating a birthday cake which is what this collection is all about.

I enjoyed this pint quite a bit.  Of the three flavors in this collection, this one is my favorite.  It kept the cake-and-frosting theme and did so in a way that was not too sweet.  There have been a couple of other pints in the white-sheet-cake-and-frosting category this year.  I think McConnell's is still the best, but that is perhaps too high of a bar to use.  This pint is very close.  I'm glad I got to check out this collection on my trip to New York.  I am curious what the future will be for these square pints.  They take some getting used to, but I think they worked out pretty well.

Ample Hills - Triple Chocolate Surprise

Triple Chocolate Surprise - Chocolate Malted Ice Cream with Chocolate Fudge Cake, Ribbons of Dark Chocolate Buttercream Frosting and Mickey-shaped White Chocolate Pieces filled with Fudge

I am in New York City all week and I am working my way through the Ample Hills' Mickey Mouse Collection.  See the first review for more details on the collection as a whole and its unique packaging. This is pint two: Triple Chocolate Surprise.  The collection's theme is cake & frosting, here the base is chocolate malted, the cake is chocolate and the frosting is chocolate.  That's triple chocolate!

Opening the square pint, I see another factoid card.  This one is number #007, while the previous one is #009.  Removing it exposes the ice cream.  I see a lot of chocolate!  The base ice cream looks like a milky chocolate with some darker brown swirls visible.  Digging in, I taste chocolate of course.  I can tell right away that the chocolate is malted.  Then there are some heavier chocolate sections within the base.  Like the previous pint, the cake and frosting swirls seem to be blended in a bit more than I expected.  I can taste different types of chocolate but at no type is it obviously a spongy cake piece or a sugary frosting piece.  I think the buttercream frosting helps to let the frosting blend with the ice cream better.  Sometimes frosting swirls taste like candy, not here.  Then I encounter the Mickey-shaped mix-ins (pictured below).  They have a white chocolate exterior and are filled with fudge.  They don't supply a lot of intense chocolate flavor by themselves, but they are fun to crunch on.  Overall the mix is good.  The malted base creates a more measured feel to all of the chocolate flavor.  I am tasting a lot of chocolate, but I don't feel like the point is to overload me with it.

This is another solid pint in the collection.  Like the first pint, it's a more measured and subtly blended pint than I expected.  I felt like I was eating a marbled pint of different chocolates rather than something that was obviously cake and frosting.  It is still quite good, though.  Chocolate lovers should like this.  Chocolate junkies looking for an overdose may still prefer a dark chocolate sorbet or New York Super Fudge Chunk, but this is still good chocolate.

Ample Hills - Peanut Butter Jamboree

Peanut Butter Jamboree - Vanilla Bean Ice Cream with Strawberry Cake, Ribbons of Peanut Butter Frosting and Mickey-shaped Peanut Butter Pieces filled with Strawberry Jam

I am in New York visiting my sister for the Thanksgiving holiday.  That means New York City brands!  Right after I get off the plane and drop off my luggage at my sister's apartment, the first stop is Whole Foods to see what local ice cream they have in stock.  I notice right away that they have the entire Mickey Mouse Collection from the Ample Hills Creamery.  This came out in September and I had been debating whether or not I should get a shipment, but with the pints right there in the freezer case, I couldn't pass them up.  I picked up all three.

A few things about the Mickey Mouse Collection.  Ample Hills has had a relationship with Disney for a few years.  They have a scoop shop inside Disney World and they have released an ABC News flavor in the past (Disney is the parent company of ABC).  Secondly, the collection is to celebrate Mickey's 90th Birthday -- Mickey first appeared in an animated short called Steamboat Willie back in 1928.  Next, the pints all come in square cartons!  The folks at Ample Hills like to create artwork for their flavors and they've notes how difficult it is to show off their artwork on a curved surface.  With a square carton, they effectively have four panels to fill.  Naturally, the artwork for this particular collection is Mickey-themed.  Then we have the ice cream itself.  All three flavors are birthday-cake themed.  They all have either a simple or muted base (vanilla bean for one, sweet cream for another and malted chocolate for the third), and the same types of mix-ins:  a cake swirl, a frosting swirl and crunchy Mickey-shaped mix-ins that have one flavor for the shell and another inside.  For the three flavors, they have three types of cake:  a traditional white sheet cake, a chocolate cake, and a strawberry cake with peanut butter frosting.

Today's flavor is the strawberry and peanut butter cake -- Peanut Butter Jamboree.  The idea of this reminds me a bit of peanut butter and jelly.  Hmm... I am just getting the jam/jamboree pun as I type this...  lets dig in!  Opening the pint here is a bit different.  I've never had a square pint before!  You have to break a seal on one of the corners and then the lid pops off.  It looks like it would pop back on easily enough if you wanted leave some of it for later.  I usually eat my pints in one sitting so it doesn't affect me, but I know many people who enjoy smaller portions.  Two things I notice after removing the lid, first there is a card on top of the ice cream.  This contains a factoid about the company.  The one hear is numbered "009" so there must be others.  The card doesn't act as an extra 'seal' but it doesn't hurt.  Then inside the lid itself are two small plastic spoons.  That's handy.  Finally on to the ice cream.  The top of the pint is sort of a light beige.  I've never had Ample Hills's straight vanilla bean flavor so I don't know what color it would be.  I know they use a fair amount of eggs in their bases so it could be a little more off-white than other vanillas.  Digging in, I taste a bit of the peanut butter flavor right away.  As I continue to eat, I encounter some pinkish streaks that taste like strawberry and some peanut butter streaks that taste like peanut butter.  I like the balance of flavors -- the peanut butter is not at all 'heavy' and the mild strawberry flavor accents it very well.  That said, it's not all like a 'cake swirl' and a 'frosting swirl'.  Perhaps it is overly mixed?   Ample Hills is known for their intense over-the-top mix-ins this here is a subtly-balanced blend of flavors.  It's quite good, though.  The Mickey-shaped mix-ins are fun.  I cleaned one off and showed it below.  They were crunchy and added more peanut butter flavor.  It wasn't obvious that they were filled with strawberry jam.  In my mouth, that strawberry was hard to separate from the strawberry swirl in the ice cream.  But the filling probably kept it from being too much peanut butter at once.  Lastly, I was a bit worried at first that the square pint looked a little smaller than the usual pint.  That appears to be an illusion.  The top half looks a little smaller but then the bottom half looks larger.  After I finished I did feel like I ate a full pint.  And nothing got stuck in the corners on the bottom.

This is a pretty good pint of ice cream. That said, it is not the 'wow' flavor that you'd expect from a special birthday cake collection from Ample Hills.  It's still a very good blend of peanut butter and strawberry flavors though.  Fans of peanut-butter-and-jelly themed pints will certainly enjoy it.  I am looking forward to the other pints in this collection.

Milkjam Creamery - Monster Mash

Monster Mash - Frankenberry, Booberry & Count Chocula

I know it is almost Thanksgiving, but I found a Halloween flavor and I was worried that it might disappear forever so I picked it up.  The flavor is called Monster Mash from the Minneapolis-based Milkjam Creamery.  The flavor description only says "Frankenberry, Booberry & Count Chocula", so it seems to be a cereal-based flavor based on the General Mills monster cereals which first came out in 1971.  Frankenberry had a strawberry flavor, Booberry was blueberry and Count Chocula was of course Chocolate.  The "Monster Mash" flavor name is from the old novelty song by Bobby (Boris) Pickett from 1962.  Just for kicks, I am going to listen to the song while eating the ice cream.

Opening the pint, I see a lot of color and a lot of cereal pieces.  They weren't lying about the cereal, it is everywhere!  Digging in, I can taste the cereal right away -- specifically the corn-meal that makes up the bulk of the actual cereal.  The real monster cereals are used here.  I tagged the pint with 'blueberry', 'chocolate' and 'strawberry' but all of the flavor here is delivered through the sugar cereal.  The base ice cream is quite colorful.  The photos below do not do the colors of the ice cream justice.  The base colors were mostly pink or blue (I don't remember the orange of the close-up below, that might be the camera shifting the colors because of the red tablecloth).  So, I think Milkjam created two bases, one created by infusing the milk-cream mixture with Frankenberry and the other by infusing the milk-cream mixture with Booberry.  Then the two bases were swirled together and whole pieces of all three cereals were added for crunchy mix-ins (the Count Chocula was primarily a mix-in).  All of this had the potential to be a mess, but it worked out surprisingly well!  The pink and blue colors remained bright and distinct for the most part, there was a strong cereals-in-milk flavor to the whole thing, the cereal pieces were crunchy and fun.

This is a fun and unique pint which I enjoyed more than I expected.  The use of children's sugar cereals provides a campy, kitschy feel that keeps you from taking it too seriously.  It would appeal to young kids and nostalgic older 'kids'.  Mash good.  Grrr!!!

Sweet Science - Cinnamon

Cinnamon - Cinnamon Ice Cream

Today I am reviewing the second November flavor from the Saint Paul-based Sweet Science Ice Cream brand, Cinnamon.  At first blush, this looks like a simple homogeneous flavor which is seasonally appropriate for the holiday pie season, but a note on the side of the pint says that they are using two types of Cinnamon:  Cassia and Ceylon.  I must admit that I did not know before today that there are two different types of cinnamon.  It turns out that there are several.  The Cassia (or Chinese) Cinnamon is the most common and least expensive variety, while Ceylon Cinnamon is more expensive and often billed as the 'true cinnamon' (partly due to its scientific name Cinnamomum verum).  Many foodie blogs tout the benefits of Ceylon cinnamon while a recent Washington Post article downplays the differences.  Since this pint from Sweet Science mixes the two kinds, it could make fans of both kinds of cinnamon happy.  Reminds me a bit of the Coolhaus flavor which mixed the two kinds of vanilla of the 'best of both worlds'.  With that spirit, I look forward to this pint.

Removing the lid, the ice cream is a light tan color.  It is appropriate for a cinnamon base, but perhaps a little lighter than I expected.  Digging in, the pint is texture has that soft, creamy and easy to scoop texture that I've come to appreciate from Sweet Science.  The cinnamon flavor is notable right away.  The initial flavor is sweet and enjoyable and in the aftertaste or 'finish' I can sense hotter notes -- similar to a Big Red gum or red hot candies.  The heat is not front and center though, this is not a hot-and-spicy pint.  This is just something I noted that makes it different from the cinnamon of a pastry roll.

I really enjoyed this pint.  It is quite simple -- there are no mix-ins -- but it had good quality cinnamon flavor.  I imagine a pint like this is meant to accompany a slice of pie, but you could also enjoy a scoop or two of it in isolation -- or be like me and eat the whole pint in one sitting.  It's natural for me to compare this pint to the Izzy's Cinnamon pint from last month.  The two are actually quite similar.  Both featured sweet and flavorful cinnamon with notes of heat in the finish.  They are very close.  If I had to pick one, I might go with Sweet Science by a nose, but it could be because this is the pint I just had.  You can't go wrong with either.

Talenti - Peppermint Bark

Peppermint Bark - White Chocolate Peppermint Gelato with Semi-Sweet Chocolate Flakes

Today I review the second of three holiday flavors from Talenti Gelato.  They had all three holiday flavors available at my local co-op and I snatched them all up before they ran out.  The first flavor was Pumpkin Pie and today's flavor is called Peppermint Bark.  (The remaining flavor is an Old World Egg Nog). I have had a Peppermint Bark flavor once before.  It is a version of peppermint candy which includes a lot of white chocolate.  I prefer the standard mint chip combination, but 'tis the season and this can help get us all in the holiday mood.

Unscrewing the lid from the distinctive Talenti jar, I see the creamy white color of the white chocolate peppermint base with quite a few chocolate chips visible below.  Digging in, the peppermint flavor is surprisingly strong.  Perhaps the white chocolate in the mix adds some richness and/or creaminess to the mix but I mainly taste peppermint.  It is quite aromatic and delicious.  The chocolate flakes are distributed throughout the pint and provide good chocolate flavor.  The chip density is not extremely high but there is enough that every spoonful contains some chips.

I quite liked this peppermint bark implementation.  It is a much better flavor for me than the Häagen-Dazs flavor.  That said, this version of peppermint bark emphasizes peppermint over white chocolate.  When you do that, you come pretty close to creating just a straight mint chip flavor.  Mint chip is my favorite flavor, so of course I would like that!  But I am wondering if true fans of the specific peppermint bark candy might feel this pint is not bark-y enough?  I am not sure.  But mint-chip lovers (Talenti has a good one) who are in a holiday mood will like it.  Enjoy.