Coolhaus - Thai Town Crunch

Thai Town Crunch - Thai Tea Ice Cream with White Chocolate Covered Fortune Cookies

For today's flavor, I return to the Culver-City based Coolhaus brand for their Thai Town Crunch flavor.  This is not one of the standard flavors that are available in my local Minnesota grocery stores, so I ordered it online and had it shipped to me.  The flavor is based on Thai iced tea which is a staple at most Thai restaurants.  Thai iced tea is a brewed Ceylon tea which is mixed with sugar and sweetened condensed milk.  It should be fun to see how this flavor translates into an ice cream.  Here, Coolhaus also adds some mix-ins -- white chocolate-covered fortune cookies.  Let's check it out.

Removing the lid, the Thai iced tea base is a very bright orange color.  This is as orange as most pumpkin bases!  Also, I notice they have sprinkled a fair amount of the white-chocolate-covered cookies over the top.  It looks quite nice and is another example of Coolhaus giving a good impression right away.  Digging in, the iced tea base is delicious.  The color does seem to be a bit exaggerated, but it does have excellent sweetened tea flavor.  The white chocolate-covered cookies are not just on the top, they are distributed liberally throughout the pint as well.  They are mostly white chocolate -- not much cookie -- but they provide nice textural variation as I eat my way down.

This is a well-done implementation of a Thai iced tea ice cream.  The orange coloring is a bit over the top, but fun.  The mix-ins were decent.  I would have preferred a little more cookie underneath the white chocolate, but they still provided me something interesting to chew on while I was enjoying the excellent base.  White chocolate is a very neutral flavor for me.  It does not bring much by itself but it does not distract from the other flavors either.  Thai iced tea lovers will want to check this out.

Tillamook - Oregon Hazelnut Chocolate

Oregon Hazelnut Chocolate - Hazelnut Gelato with a Fudge Swirl and Oregon Hazelnuts

Today's flavor is another special-batch pint from the Oregon-based Tillamook Creamery.  This flavor is called Oregon Hazelnut Chocolate.  I bought it at Kowalski's on Grand Avenue in Saint Paul.  Hazelnut and chocolate is a well-known combination -- it is the basis for Nutella after all.  I have seen this combination before from a now-retired Ben & Jerry's core flavor, a Coolhaus sundae flavor, and a Talenti Gelato flavor which is probably the closest.  Let's check it out!

Removing the lid shows another one of those fun and cheeky phrases on the protective foil between the lid and the ice cream.  Coolhaus was the first brand I saw that was having fun with these, but now it seems like several places are joining in.  Peeling back this foil shows lots of chocolate and lots of nuts.  As I dig in, I observe that all the mix-ins are piled on top and most of the pint consists of the homogeneous hazelnut base.  The mix-ins are quite good -- crunchy hazelnuts immersed in rich chocolate sauce -- and I employ a strategy to make this top layer of mix-ins last as long as I can.  Similar to how I eat Ben & Jerry's core flavors, I will take a big spoonful of the base and then scoop in a little bit of the chocolate and hazelnuts into it.  This works for about a third of the pint, but then I am left with just the base.  It's a good base, though.  It is soft, rich and creamy.  Then as I near the bottom of the pint, I notice an additional layer of chocolate (no nuts).  The chocolate has clumped a bit on the sides and I have to scrape it off with my spoon.  That is a bit annoying but in some cases it worked out because I ended up with some big chunks of chocolate at the end.

This pint from Tillamook had all the ingredients, but like other recent pints of theirs I found it a little frustrating that all the mix-ins were bunched on the top and bottom leaving a bunch of relatively plain base in between.  These layers didn't lend themselves to blending themselves as I was eating the pint like many of the recent Talenti layers releases do.  So, for this flavor combination I prefer a pint from Talenti's non-layered line called Hazelnut Chocolate Chip.  The nut pieces there are a little smaller and the chocolate chips more subtle than the chocolate sauce used here but everything was fully blended.  Of course, if piling all the mix-ins on top appeals to you, you could give this a try.

Coolhaus - Cereal Dreams

Cereal Dreams - Cereal Soaked Milk Ice Cream with Crispy Cereal Swirl

The ice cream for today is the fourth pint from my six-pint shipment from the Culver-City-based Coolhaus Ice Cream.  This flavor is called Cereal Dreams and is a cereal-milk flavored ice with with a swirl of cereal.  I enjoy cereal-based flavors.  Cereal goes well in milk, so it is natural that it would go well in other dairy-based products such as ice cream.  There is a often challenge with keeping the cereal from becoming soggy in the cream because it is not added right before you eat it.  It will be interesting to see how Coolhaus tries to deal with this.    I ordered this pint online and had it shipped to me, so I am not aware that this flavor is available in Minnesota.  If you are reading from other states, perhaps they have a wider selection of Coolhaus pints.  Let's dig in!

Removing the lid, the cereal milk base is bright white in color.  I can see some golden speckling in a swirl on one side of the pint.  I find that the golden speckling gets a bit denser the further I dig further down, but there are no larger cereal pieces.  The golden speckling is the swirl.  It tastes good, it reminds me of the flavor of a good generic wheat/corn flakes in milk, but I certainly would not say that it was crispy.  The cereal milk base has a very mild flavor by itself, but it accompanies the cereal swirl quite well.

This is a fairly straightforward and mild implementation of a cereals-in-milk ice cream.  The flavor is quite good, and I did enjoy eating it.  They solved the soggy cereal problem by grinding the cereal pieces into finer crumbs before swirling them in.  It provides good cereal flavor but no crunchiness or crispiness.  You can certainly enjoy this flavor for it's good flavor -- just know ahead of time how fine the cereal crumb mix-ins will be.

Sebastian Joe's - Danza di Limon

Danza di Limon - Lemon Ice Cream with Slivered Almonds

Today's flavor is another from the Minneapolis-based Sebastian Joe's Ice Cream.  It is called Danza di Limon.  It's a lemon ice cream with slivered almonds.  I picked it up at the scoop shop in Linden Hills a couple of weeks ago.  The name appears to be roughly Italian for "lemon dance" which sounds fun.  I love lemon and I am always looking for well-done lemon-centric ice cream flavors.  Here the lemon is paired with almonds -- a rather unique combination.  It looks quite interesting and I'm looking forward to checking this out.

Opening the pint, the lemon-base is a very bright yellowish white color which quite a lot of almonds visible right away.  I was not expecting that many almonds.  I have mentioned this before but Sebastian Joe's bases always have a dense and thick look to them.  Digging in, I taste the lemon flavor but it is a little more muted than I expected.  It's not a lemon-creme pie or lemon-bar type of base, it's more like a thick sweet cream with a significant twist of lemon.  The slivered almonds are so numerous that I often feel like there are nuts in the base, too.  The nuts are numerous enough that I often felt like I was eating a pistachio ice cream.  They are delicious and provide plenty of crunch. 

This is a fun and surprisingly nutty pint of ice cream.  I really like lemon, and the lemon is tasty here, but the lemon plays more of a supporting role to all the nuts.  It's quite good, but so unique that I'm not really sure what to compare it to.  If you see it in stocked in the scooping bins on your next visit to Sebastian Joe's, give it a taste.

Coolhaus - Take the Cannoli

Take the Cannoli - Italian Mascarpone Ice Cream with Chocolate Covered Cannoli Shells

Today is the third pint from my recent six-pint shipment from the Culver-City-based Coolhaus Ice Cream.  This flavor is called Take the Cannoli.  Locally, the Fresh Thyme Market carries this fun brand, but they stock only a half-dozen older flavors.  With this online order, I focused on flavors I cannot find in Minnesota (yet?)  OK, now that I have sufficiently warned local readers not to expect to find this flavor in local freezer cases, let's check it out. 

Take the Cannoli is based on the Italian dessert which is a fried dough shell filled with a soft, sweet cheese and perhaps other sweet mix-ins.  Traditionally, ricotta is used for the cheese but it is quite common to use mascarpone as a substitute because mascarpone is has a thicker consistency which is easier to work with.  There is an interesting discussion of this substitution here.  Here, Coolhaus uses mascarpone as the base and chocolate-covered cannoli shells as the mix-ins.  I like the green and red color scheme of the carton which matches the Italian flag.  OK, on to the ice cream!

Removing the lids and peeling back the cheeky foil wrapper, I see the bright white color of the mascarpone base and several of the chocolate-covered shells are nicely displayed right on top of the pint.  Coolhaus has stepped up their top-of-the-pint presentation in the past couple of years and this is pint is a good example of that.  Digging in, the mascarpone base is significantly sweeter than I expected.  I tend to think of mascarpone as being a thick almost buttery dessert cheese which is sometimes added to mute the sweetness of a fruity mix-in but here the base itself is quite sweet.  Definitely the sweetest mascarpone I have had yet.  Perhaps this is done to mimic the sweetness of cannoli?  I am not sure.  The chocolatey mix-ins are generously dispersed throughout the pint.  They provide quite a bit of chocolate flavor. I can see the doughy cannoli shells inside.  I did not even have to break them open to see.  A normal scoop of my spoon would often slice through the chocolate and expose the shell inside.  The dough itself did not provide that much flavor -- I primarily tasted the chocolate.  The chocolate tasted good though.

This is a fun flavor from Coolhaus.  It is essentially a mascarpone and chocolate mix and both of those flavors are easy on most people's palates.  It is a bit sweeter than I expected, but still good enough to recommend to all the cannoli lovers out there.  Surprisingly, I haven't had a cannoli-based flavor yet.  I see there's an old flavor in Ben & Jerry's Graveyard, but I missed it by a couple of decades.  I will keep my eye out for other cannoli implementations.

Sweet Science - Honey Cinnamon

Honey Cinnamon - Honey Cinnamon Ice Cream

The Saint-Paul-based Sweet Science brand releases a couple of limited-batch flavors on the first Friday of every month.  The flavors for September 2019 are S'mores which I reviewed a couple of years ago and this flavor -- Honey Cinnamon.  I picked it up at their scoop shop in the Keg & Case Market in Saint Paul.  I had their Cinnamon ice cream last year and liked it.  Here they blend it with honey.  It'll be interesting to see how this one turns out.

Opening the pint, I see an off-white colored base.  Perhaps a little lighter than the usual cinnamon-flavored base.  As I dig my spoon in, I notice the very nice texture that I have come to expect from Sweet Science.  It feels very light and clean.  As I taste the spoonful, I taste the cinnamon flavor primarily at first, but it is not as strong as other cinnamon bases.  The honey flavor was not obvious to me at first, but my friend noticed it right away.  It is a pretty good blend.

This is well done implementation of a honey-cinnamon flavor.  The two flavors blend together to make for a softer cinnamon flavor.  Personally, I like things a little more spicy than the average ice cream eater so I prefer the straight Cinnamon flavor from last year.  This is still very well done, though.  If you like a softer cinnamon blend, you might like this one more than me.

Coolhaus - Aunt Gladys Yellow Cake Batter

Aunt Gladys Yellow Cake Batter - Yellow Cake Batter Ice Cream with Rum Raisins & Candied Ginger

Today, I move on to the second pint in my six-pint shipment from the Culver-City-based Coolhaus Ice Cream.  This flavor is called Aunt Gladys Yellow Cake Batter.  Note to local readers:  Coolhaus is a fun brand and the Fresh Thyme Market carries some of its flavors but I am not aware that this particular flavor is available in Minnesota.  I ordered it online and had it shipped to me. 

The flavor name is rather fun.  Gladys is indeed an old person's name.  It was a fairly popular name for people born in the early 1900s but has been falling in popularity ever since.  Unlike some old-fashioned names like Eleanor or Grace, it has not made a comeback in recent years.  Do I have an Aunt Gladys?  Technically no, but my grandfather had a first cousin named Gladys.  That would make her my first cousin twice removed which I guess is similar to a great aunt.  I might have met her once, I can't recall.  I don't know if she was a good cook.  Anyhow, at first glance this appears to be a yellow cake batter flavor which is not uncommon but on second glance there are rum raisins in the mix as well.  I have had once yellow cake batter flavor (from Ben & Jerry's) and one rum raisin flavor (from Häagen-Dazs).  This appears to be a combination of those two flavor ideas with some pieces of candied ginger thrown into the mix as well.  Let's check it out.

Opening the pint, the ice cream is much softer than I am used to from Coolhaus.  Coolhaus is usually known for having a firm bases ideal for use in ice cream sandwiches.  I am temporarily concerned that my freezer might be malfunctioning, but I double-checked and it says -2F plus all the other pints appear to be unaffected.  What seems to have happened was the alcohol from the rum raisins has seemed into base which has lowered its freezing point.  It is not completely melted but it is just softer and gooier than I expected.  Digging in, I do taste a bit of the yellow cake batter at first but I quickly start tasting the rum from the raisins.  The rum-soaked raising are generously dispersed throughout the pint.  They are chewy and provide quite a bit of rum flavor.  The candied ginger pieces do not stand out very much but I do find them if I look for them. 

This is an interesting and very eclectic flavor from Coolhaus.  I was expected a yellow-cake batter implementation, but the cake batter has mostly been overpowered by the rum raisins.  It's worth a shot if you want an interesting twist on rum raisin, but you might just want to stick to Häagen-Dazs' very well-done implementation of the that flavor.

Izzy's - Dessa's Night Drive

Dessa's Night Drive - Cold Brew Coffee Ice Cream with Chocolate Covered Espresso Chips, Toffee Crunch and a Hint of Cardamom

Today's flavor is a special flavor from the Saint Paul-based Izzy's Ice Cream which was created for this year's Minnesota State Fair.  This flavor is called Dessa's Night Drive after the indie hip hop artist Dessa.  It is a coffee-based ice cream with chocolate and toffee mix-ins with a bit of Cardamom.  This is the second Izzy's flavor named after Dessa -- the first being Dessa's Existential Crunch.     There is a cool blogpost about the new Dessa's Night Drive flavor here.  When I was at the State Fair a couple of weeks ago, I checked out a scoop of the new flavor and liked it.  Last week, I was pleasantly surprised to see it pop up in the Saint Paul scoop shop rotation already so I ran down and had them hand-pack a pint.

Removing the lid, there is quite a bit to see.  The base is a light beige color which is not unexpected for a coffee base.  I also see two different types of mix-ins.  Some large oddly-shaped chocolate chunks and some smaller caramel-colored toffee pieces.  Digging in, I immediately taste the cardamom mixed into the coffee base.  This is more than a hint of cardamom!  The blend is very interesting and unique.  I really like it.  The chocolate chunks provide quite a bit of coffee flavor.  I don't notice that there are espresso beans inside these chunks but they're still quite tasty.  The toffee pieces do not stand out as much as the chocolate but they add to the mix as well.  Both go quite well with the coffee-cardamom base.

This is a fun and very unique pint of ice cream from Izzy's.  It's all about the base here -- an eclectic mixture of cold brew coffee and cardamom.  It is quite a bit different from the standard coffee base so you might want to try a sample first to see if it is up your alley but I enjoyed it very much.  Cardamom always spikes my curiosity as it is not a spice that I grew up with and I really liked how it contributed to the mix here.  The chocolate and toffee mix-ins added to the fun as well.  Enjoy.

Coolhaus - Mo Matcha Mochi

Mo Matcha Mochi - Japanese Matcha Green Tea Ice Cream with Green Tea Mochi Bites

I decided to treat myself and order six pints from Coolhaus Ice Cream in Culver City, California.  Coolhaus is a fun brand started about ten years ago by a pair of architecture students in Southern California.  If you check my archives, you can see all of the flavors that I have reviewed of theirs over the past couple of years.  They released several new flavors last winter and I have been biding my time to see when they'd become available in Minnesota.  The local Fresh Thyme markets stock this brand, but so far I have only seen one new flavor available here -- Milk & Cookie Crumbs.  I decided I could not wait any longer, so I ordered six pints shipped to me through the mail.  As far as I know, none of these flavors are available yet in the Twin Cities, but maybe someday. 

The first flavor in my shipment is called Mo Matcha Mochi.  This combines two elements that I have not yet seen in an ice cream:  matcha green tea and mochi.  Matcha is a green tea powder which originated in China and was adopted by the Japanese for use in their traditional tea ceremonies.  Mochi is a Japanese rice cake made from japonica sticky rice.  I have seen flavored mochi in the dessert section of some fancier grocery stores.  Here, small bites of match-flavored mochi are mixed into a matcha green tea base.  It should be interesting.

Removing the lid reveals a message on the protective foil.  I have seen this message before, but it is still fun.  Peeling it back shows the matcha base is a bright lime green color.  A couple of the mochi bites can also be seen in the mix.  They look like little pellets.  Digging in, the ice cream has a thick consistency that almost folds into my spoon as I scoop.  I have mentioned this in previous reviews, but Coolhaus' specialty is ice cream sandwiches, so their bases are designed to hold firm when pressed between two cookies.  I really like this texture.  The matcha green tea flavor in the base itself is fairly mild, but the tea flavor in the mochi mix-ins is fairly strong.  It has a very distinctive flavor.  For those that have had matcha tea before, it tastes just like it, for those new to matcha I found a discussion on the difference between matcha and standard green tea here.  I find that the matcha has a little bit of a bitter kick to it with a bit more aftertaste.  The mochi itself is a great idea for a mix-in.  They are firm, but chewy and deliver the matcha flavor quite well.

This is an interesting and unique flavor from Coolhaus!  The tea flavor is a bit potent and bitter for my taste, but if you are not a sweet tooth and you love matcha tea, it might be more up your alley.  Using mochi to deliver extra match flavor was fun.  It made me wonder if mochi could be used to deliver other flavors as well.  I'll keep my eye out for other flavors that might use mochi in the future.

Izzy's - Chocolate Agate Crunch

Chocolate Agate Crunch - Chocolate Candy Rocks with Oreo Pieces and a Salted Caramel Swirl in a Triple-Chocolate Ice Cream Base

Today's flavor is from Izzy's Ice Cream in Saint Paul and is called Chocolate Agate Crunch.  This is one of the flavors that Izzy's has made in the past for the Minnesota State Fair.  This was Izzy's featured State Fair flavor in 2016.  It is a very chocolate-centric pint -- one of those that loads several chocolatey mix-ins into a chocolate base.  The name of the flavor refers to the Lake Superior Agate which is Minnesota's official gemstone.  I wouldn't want to eat one of those, but it will be fun to see how Izzy's imagines chocolate versions of those rocks.  Let's dig in!

Removing the lid, I see a lot of chocolate.  There is chocolate in the base and several chocolatey mix-ins are visible right away.  I do see a little bit of white on some of the mix-ins which made me wonder if there was marshmallow in the mix.  That turns out not to be the case, it's just a thin white dusty coating that you sometimes see on hunks of dark chocolate.  Digging in, it is quite chocolatey.  It's a very good chocolate base.  I quickly encounter the 'agates' which are sizable chunks of high-quality chocolate.  It was like the nuggets of gourmet chocolate from the fancy section of the candy aisle used as mix-ins.  It is quite good.   The flavor description says there are Oreo pieces mixed in.  What I noticed was more like small brownie pieces.  They could have been Oreo pieces that were soaking in the cream a while or this could be one of those flavors whose exact recipe differs a bit from batch to batch.  Either way, they were good.  What I did not notice was an explicit salted caramel swirl.  It reminded me a bit of their Chocolate Caramel Superstar flavor (formerly known as Snap Crackle Chocolate).  The chocolate bases are similar.  Each has excellent flavor but without being too intense.  I wonder if the caramel gets swirled in so much that it becomes a homogeneous part of the base?

This is an excellent chocolate-centric pint.  Every brand likes to appease the chocoholics with this type of pint from time to time.  Don't expect a gooey caramel swirl, but the blend of chocolate and caramel here is excellent and keeps the chocolate from getting so intense.  The best part of the pint is the chocolate 'agate' pieces.  These taste like gourmet chunks of chocolate from a good candy store.  Check it out if you're in the mood for something chocolatey.

Sebastian Joe's - Apple Crisp

Apple Crisp - Apple Cinnamon Ice Cream with an Oatmeal Swirl

The other day, I went back to Sebastian Joe's in the Linden Hills neighborhood of Minneapolis to see if they had anything interesting to try.  I found a couple of pints and had them packed and took them home.  Today I crack open the first of those pints.  Apple Crisp is the first pint -- an apple-cinnamon base with an oatmeal swirl.  It is a fall flavor and fall is rapidly approaching.  Let's check it out!

Opening the pint, I see the light beige color of the apple-cinnamon base.  I can also tell right away that this ice cream is thick.  It almost looks like cookie dough.  Digging in, I verify that the ice cream is indeed quite thick.  It is also very apple-y.  This is great and intense apple flavor with a nice dash of cinnamon in the mix.  This is very good!  There is a bit of oatmeal in the mix as well.  Not as much as other pie-based flavors but enough to create a change of texture once in a while.

This is an excellent implementation of an apple-pie ice cream flavor!  The apple-pie-like flavors that I have had before from Talenti and Sweet Science both included caramel in the mix and the caramel was the best part of each of those flavors.  This pint from Sebastian Joe's has the best apple flavor hands down.  This is excellent stuff. 

Museum of Ice Cream - Malt Shake

Malt Shake - Malted Chocolate Ice Cream with Malted Milk Balls

Today I return to the Museum of Ice Cream brand for another one of the new flavors that they have released this summer.  This pint is called Malt Shake.  It features a malted chocolate base and malted milk ball mix-ins.  I found the pint at Target in Saint Paul.

Removing the lid, I see that the malted chocolate base is a light brown color and I see one of the malted milk ball mix-ins on the very top of the pint.  Digging in, I definitely taste malted milk chocolate in the base.  The base tastes a lot like a piece of Whoppers candy.  Then the mix-ins themselves basically are Whoppers candy!  They milk ball pieces are appropriately crunchy and malty on the inside.

This is a very simple flavor.  The flavor is not really based on a malt shake.  Instead, it is essentially a malted milk-ball (Whoppers) flavored ice cream with malted milk ball pieces.  This is the first time I have had seen this implementation.  It is done quite well.  This is one of the better Museum of Ice Cream flavors that I have had.  How much you like it probably depends on how much you like malted milk balls, but if Whoppers are your go-to movie theater snack, then you should definitely check this out.