McConnell's - Rockier Road

Rockier Road - Chocolate Ice Cream with Almond Pieces and a Marshmallow Swirl

It is back to my shipment from McConnell's Ice Cream in Santa Barbara.  The first two flavors (here and here) were summer seasonal flavors and I was lucky to get them shipped to me before they were discontinued.  We move on now to the fall-release flavors which are still available online (and not available to my knowledge in Minnesota grocery stores).  The first fall flavor is called Rockier Road.  It looks like a standard implementation of rocky road -- chocolate marshmallow and almonds.  Rocky Road is the classic old flavor that I have tried from Häagen-Dazs (see here for history of the flavor), Jeni's, Baskin Robbins and Lapperts.  It should be fun to see how McConnell's implentation compares.

Popping open the top and removing the extra seal, I see the rich brown color of chocolate ice cream.  No mix-ins are obvious to me right away.  As I dig in, the chocolate ice cream is thick and dense as most McConnell's bases are.  It has a very good chocolate flavor -- a little on the dark side, but not at all bitter.  I quickly encounter some of the nut mix-ins.  They are fairly small but certainly add crunchy texture.  What I do not see right away is marshmallow.  Digging down a little further, I finally find some. It looks about half-mixed into the base -- I wonder if that is what happened at the top of the pint.  It is pretty good, but it doesn't grab my attention the way the marshmallows in most Rocky Road implementations do.

This is a fairly standard implementation of Rocky Road from McConnell's.  It's a little light on the marshmallows, so if marshmallows are a big part of your Rocky Road expectations, I would stick with my favorite Rocky Road so far: Häagen-Dazs.  I know some people are not big on marshmallows, so maybe it would not bother those people, but without marshmallows you are left with only chocolate and almonds and McConnell's already had an amazing pint with that combination:  Chocolate Almond Brittle.  I don't see that flavor on their website anymore, they could consider bringing that one back.

Sebastian Joe's - Senior Mo-mint

Senior Mo-mint - Chocolate Ice Cream with Mint Chocolate Pieces

Today's flavor is another one from the Minneapolis-based Sebastian Joe's.  This one is called Senior Mo-mint.  I picked it up at their scoop shop in the Lowry Hill neighborhood.  The flavor name is an obvious pun on "senior moment" which is... hmm... I can't remember what I was going to say.  Ha ha!  I am not a senior citizen, but I hope to survive long enough to become one someday.  Not that I think it sounds great, but it of course beats the alternative.  I picked up this pint because it is a chocolate-mint flavor and long time readers know that mint chocolate chip is my favorite ice cream flavor.  Here, the flavors are reversed.  The base ice cream is chocolate and it is the mix-ins which contain the mint.

After taking off the lid, the chocolate base is quite dark in color and I can see quite a few chocolate mix-ins right away on top.  I picked out one of the mix-ins and it is similar to the mini-cup or truffles that I have seen in other flavors which often contain peanut butter or chocolate.  I cut one of them in half and took a picture below.  There is indeed mint inside.  I return to the ice cream and start eating it and this is a very thick and rich chocolate.  It is only chocolate in the base and the mint is delivered only through the mix-ins.  It is not just mint in the mix-ins though, they also deliver quite a bit of chocolate themselves.  It is quite a good combination.

This is a very good chocolate and mint pint from Sebastian Joe's.  It is much more chocolatey than the usual chocolate-and-mint flavor -- I would say that instead of a one-to-one ratio of chocolate to mint, this one is more of a three-to-one ratio.  The chocolate is excellent, though, so it is an easy pint to like.

McConnell's - Santa Barbara Strawberry

Santa Barbara Strawberry - Strawberry Ice Cream with Strawberry Pieces

Today is another pint from my recent shipment from the Santa Barbara-based McConnell's Ice Creams.  As mentioned in my first review from the shipment, this order was a mixture of summer and fall flavors which happened to available for order at the same time.  This flavor, Santa Barbara Strawberry, is one of the summer ones so it is already unavailable by the time I write this, but often these seasonal flavors return in future years.  So, let's check it out!

After opening the pint and peeling back the label, the top of the pint is a light pink color reminiscent of other strawberry bases.  I can see a strawberry piece on top.  I also see some lighter patches on top -- I think a small amount of ice has formed right under the lid.  I only saw this on the very top and did not turn out to be an issue.  Scooping my way down into the pint, I see a lot of large strawberry pieces.  These are quite beautiful and look delicious, but they are also frozen.  Strawberries have a lot of internal moisture, so frozen strawberries tend to be icier than I would like.  This is not an uncommon issue with strawberry mix-ins but I notice it quite a bit here because the pieces are so large.  So, I do my trick of warming up my spoonfuls against the roof of my mouth for a few seconds before biting into the strawberries.  It is not ideal, but it works.

This is a good, but flawed pint of strawberry ice cream from McConnell's.  Large strawberry pieces are a great idea above 32 degrees, but below freezing it creates issues with ice.  I could work around it and enjoyed the strawberry flavor but a friend of mine decided to leave the bowl out for quite a bit before eating it.  I wonder if there is a good way to put use larger strawberry piece mix-ins without freezing.  I suppose one could dry the strawberries, or perhaps dry and then soak them in something that doesn't freeze.  Anyhow, this pint still has good strawberry flavor, but be prepared for this minor issue.

Sebastian Joe's - Oatmeal Raisin Cookie

Oatmeal Raisin Cookie - Brown Sugar Cinnamon Ice Cream with Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Pieces

Today is another pint from the Minneapolis-based Sebastian Joe's Ice Cream.  This flavor is called Oatmeal Raisin Cookie.  They have it listed as a 'fall flavor'.  I got it at their scoop shop on Franklin in the Lowry Hill neighborhood.  I've had several oatmeal cookie flavors from Ben & Jerry's, Sweet Science, OddFellows and Ample Hills, but this is the first oatmeal cookie pint that I've had which includes raisins.  This should be interesting!

Removing the lid, I immediate greeted by a lot of raisins.  This pint is super-loaded with mix-ins!  I see sizeable chunks of cookies on top as well.  The base ice cream is a little darker brown than I expected.  Digging in, I can taste some cinnamon in the base.  Not incredibly strong, but definitely noticeable.  I think I taste a little brown sugar in the mix as well, and that could explain the darker color of the base, but most oatmeal cookie recipes include brown sugar and it could be coming from that.  But enough about the base ice cream, this pint is dominated by the mix-ins.  Most Sebastian Joe's ice cream bases are quite thick and chunky in texture but all the mix-ins make this pint even thicker and chunkier.  Also, there are a lot of raisins!  The ratio of cookie dough to raisins is almost one-to-one.  The flavor is quite good.

This is an excellent and chunky pint of oatmeal raisin cookie ice cream.  It is just super-loaded with cookie piece mix-ins.  If you like oatmeal raisin cookies -- especially those with extra raisins -- you should check this flavor out.

McConnell's - Honey & Cornbread Cookies

Honey & Cornbread Cookies - Honey Ice Cream with Cornbread Cookie Pieces

I ordered a shipment from McConnell's Ice Cream in Santa Barbara!  Earlier this year, I was lamenting that I was running out of regular flavors to try from them and had resorted to reviewing their vanilla ice cream.  But, I was fortunate to find a window of time where their limted-batch summer flavors and their limited-batch fall flavors were both available at the same time giving me five new pints for me to try.  So, I pulled the trigger and made the order.  None of these flavors are available locally in Minnesota. 

I will start today with one of the summer flavors.  As I write this, the summer flavors have already been retired from their website for the season, but perhaps it will be back next year.  Today's flavor is called Honey & Cornbread Cookies.  I am starting to see more honey-based ice creams of late, but this is the first pint I have tried which includes cornbread.  McConnell's partners with San Marcos Farms Honey Company to get the honey used and have an interesting blogpost here about the partnership.  This should be fun, let's check it out!

Removing the lid the honey base has a much lighter color than I expected.  It is a little yellowish but otherwise very bright.  It could easily pass for a sweet cream or a vanilla. Digging in, the ice cream is quite thick and dense as McConnell's bases usually are.  I do taste the honey in the base.  It is a very bright honey flavor and not at all burnt or caramel-like.  Soon I encounter the small, nugget-sized pieces of cornbread cookies.  They do taste like cornbread.  They have a slightly grittier texture, but that's probably because they are cornbread cookies and not just cornbread.  The blogpost linked above is correct, honey does go pretty well with cornbread.

This is a fun and unique mixture of flavors from McConnell's.   The density of the cornbread cookie pieces was a little on the sparse side, but there was just enough of the mix-ins to keep me interested. Honey and cornbread do make for a good combination.  If you like cornbread and they bring this flavor back next summer, check it out.

Tillamook - Stumptown

Stumptown - Cold Brew Coffee Ice Cream

There is a new TV show this fall called Stumptown.  It is a private eye show with a cast of folks I normally associate with comedies (Cobie Smulders from How I Met Your Mother, Jake Johnson from New Girl, etc).  I have watched a few episodes.  It's been OK so far, but the cast is very likeable so it has the potential to get much better.  At this point, you are probably wondering if you are reading the wrong blog.  This is not 'David's Network Television Reviews'!  Anyhow, I was talking to a friend of mine about the show and I said, "you know there is a Stumptown ice cream..." and they replied "No, there is not!  Not everything is about ice cream you know!!"  Then I forwarded them this link from the Tillamook Creamery in Oregon and they just rolled their eyes.  Naturally, I had to get this pint and review it.  I found it at Kowalski's Market on Grand Avenue in Saint Paul (check the whole freezer case, there are multiple sections of Tillamook pints).

"Stumptown" is a nickname for Portland Oregon.  The story goes that the town was growing so rapidly in the 1840s and 1850s that as they were clearing the forest to allow the town the grow, they did not have time to remove all the tree stumps.  The nickname stuck.  It is also the name of a chain of coffee shops which started in Portland.  I can tell by the typeface that this is the connection to the Tillamook ice cream flavor.  This is a cold brew coffee flavored ice cream.  Let's check it out!

Removing the lid and the foil protective cover, I see the ice cream is a fairly light beige color.  Digging in, the ice cream is quite thick and dense.  It is a homogeneous pint with no mix-ins.  I taste the coffee flavor but none of the bitterness.  I have read that is one of the differences between cold brew and hot brew.  That is definitely the case here.  The coffee flavor is still there, though.  I checked with one of my coffee-loving friends and they give this a thumbs up.  This is one of the better coffee-based ice creams that they have tried.

This is an excellent coffee ice cream -- very simple and clean with no mix-ins.  Tillamook does ice cream bases quite well and this pint is no exception.  Coffee-lovers should check this out.  Also, if you like that new TV show, you could eat it during the show to create an extra Portland experience while you watch.

Izzy's - Sugar Cookie

Sugar Cookie - Sugar Cookie Ice Cream

Today we return to the Saint Paul-based Izzy's Ice Cream for a flavor called Sugar Cookie.  I saw the flavor on their flavor up page which I often check while riding the bus home from work.  I had not seen this flavor before -- I have not seen a similar flavor from other brands either -- so I figured that I should check it out.  Interestingly, the flavor is not listed on their main flavor page, so perhaps it is an experimental flavor (though they often say 'test batch' for those).  Anyhow, it should be a fun to see what this flavor is like.


Removing the lid, I see the base ice cream is a light off-white color -- the same color as a sugar cookie.  That makes sense!  The first spoonful tastes like a sugar cookie -- not just the sugar, but the cookie, too.  It tastes pretty good.  I do not notice any mix-ins.  As I eat my way through the rest of the pint, I only notice a couple of larger crumbs of cookies, so it appears that the cookies here have been ground into a powder before being blended into the base.  I noticed the same thing with their Norwegian Chai flavor.  The ice cream retains its smooth, rich homogeneous texture, but attains the flavor of the ground cookies that are mixed in very early in the churning process.

This ice cream very accurately re-creates the flavor of sugar cookies inside, that thick, creamy texture that I know and like from Izzy's.  It is a very simple pint, though and sugar cookies are the cookies with perhaps the simplest flavor, and the flavor is ground in so there are no chunky cookie mix-ins.  It's still great sugar cookie flavor so if you're in the mood for that, this is a great flavor to try.  If it is too simple, you might want to pair a scoop of it with a scoop of something else.

Ample Hills - The Hook

The Hook - Burnt Sugar Ice Cream with Housemade Stroopwafels and Chunks of Salted Fudge

The next pint in my "Taste of New York 4-Pack" from the Brooklyn-based Ample Hills Creamery is called The Hook.  This is the last pint which will create a new review because the last pint in my shipment is one I have already written about -- the famous It Came From Gowanus.  Today pint, The Hook, is normally only available at their Red Hook Factory and scoop shop in the Red Hook area of Brooklyn.  I actually visited this scoop shop last year when I was in New York for Thanksgiving.  It was pretty quiet there on a winter weekend -- just big windows that let you peer inside to see idle machines.  I would not make a special trip just to see the factory unless there is some sort of pre-arranged tour, but if you happen to be in the neighborhood or if you can find an excuse to go to the large Fairway Market across the street, then by all means stop by. 

This flavor is a burnt sugar ice cream with stroopwafel and salted fudge mix-ins.  Burnt sugar is the hottest  the candy temperature scale -- past caramels, nougats, caramels and toffees.  I found an interesting article about burnt sugar here.  Stroopwafels are thin Dutch cookies pressed with special waffle iron.  They are pronounced "strope-vah-ful" -- I like how the Dutch use two o's to represent the long-o sound.  That actually makes a lot of sense!  I did have the chance to try a scoop of this flavor last year and I am anxious to try a full pint so I can write a proper review.

Opening the lid, the burnt sugar base is a creamy-beige color.  It resembles the color of a coffee base or a brown sugar base.  I see a few chunks of fudge with smaller speckling of chocolate as well.  Digging in, the base has an interesting flavor.  It is sort of like brown sugar, but not exactly.  Ample Hills has several dark brown, brown or burnt sugar bases.  They could have just used the same one for each, but they decided to give each flavor a special twist.  This base is more neutral than the two linked before.  It's not as aromatic as the brown sugar in their oatmeal flavor or as dark and 'toasted' as the base in their butter pecan flavor.  That brings out more of the flavor of the mix-ins.  The salted fudge is excellent.  The chunks were relatively large, very chocolatey and enough salt for me to notice but not too much.  I did not find as many stroopwafels as I expected -- perhaps that varies from batch to batch? -- but when I did encounter them they were delicious.  They were crispy crunchy with a nice dash of cinnamon.  They would actually make a pretty good cone.  I wonder if a cone made with stroopwafel batter would be strong enough to hold scoops of ice cream?

This is a delicious pint of ice cream from Ample Hills.  The salted fudge is the clear star of the show.  The stroopwafels were good, too, but I wish there were slightly more of them.  If you are in the Red Hook scoop shop, check this one out.

Milkjam Creamery - Peach's Castle

Peach's Castle - White Peach Sorbet with a Raspberry Swirl

I recently returned to the Milkjam Creamery in Minneapolis and found a couple of pints to try.  The first pint is called Peach's Castle.  It is a white peach sorbet with a raspberry swirl.  Peach's Castle is a reference from the world of Super Mario Brothers.  Princess Peach is a character in the game series who is often in need of saving.  Since she is a princess, she would naturally have a castle, and other game characters might visit here there.  The flavor is a white peach sorbet with a swirl of raspberry.  I was unfamiliar with different colors of peaches before today.  This link discusses the difference.  Yellow peaches have a stronger, more acidic flavor which is better for cooking while white peaches have a milder, sweeter flavor which is better for eating out of hand.  White peach in a sorbet would seem reasonable because it is not cooked and we would like it to be sweet.  Let's check this out.

Removing the lid shows a very bright pink splotches over a whitish base.  It is a very striking and beautiful top of the pint.  Digging in, I taste the raspberry first.  It is a sweet raspberry and not too tart.  I have to concentrate to notice the peach, but when I do I can tell that it is there underneath the raspberry.  They sorbet texture is fairly creamy.  I can still tell that it is a sorbet and not an ice cream, but they do a very good job of whipping it up so that it not too icy or slushy.

This is refreshing peach and raspberry sorbet.  The raspberry dominates the pint a bit, so it would appeal to raspberry fans more than it would appeal to peach fans, but it is delicious nonetheless.  Check it out if you see it in their scooping bin and you are looking for something light and fruity.

Ample Hills - Nectar of the Queens

Nectar of the Queens - Honey Cinnamon Ice Cream featuring Baklava and Galaktoboureko

Today's flavor is the second pint from my recent "Taste of New York" shipment from the Brooklyn-based Ample Hills Creamery.  The flavor is called Nectar of the Queens and is normally available only at their scoop shop in Astoria, Queens.  A blogpost from when they opened this scoop shop last summer which includes a discussion of this flavor can be found here.  Astoria has a lot of Greek neighborhoods, so Ample Hills decided to partner with a local Greek bakery called Artopolis to create a flavor based on the Greek desserts of baklava and galaktoboureko.  Most people know of baklava -- many layers of a paper-thin pastry called filo with nuts and honey embedded between the layers -- but I had not heard of galaktoboureko before trying this flavor.  Galaktoboureko is features a semolina custard which is wrapped in that same paper-thin filo pastry.  These two desserts are used as mix-ins in a honey cinnamon base.

On to the ice cream!  After removing the lid, the base is a light gold color and I can see lots of little mix-ins already.  When I dig in, I taste a nice soft cinnamon flavor.  It is very creamy and has a good flavor.  The mix-ins that I encounter right away are small pieces of that paper-thin filo pastry.  They remind me a bit of cereal flakes but they are a little chewier instead of crunchy.  I taste some small nuts in the mix as well.  This is a really good combination.  I am surprised that I have not yet seen a baklava-themed flavor before.  I looked for the influence of the galaktoboureko.  Galaktoboureko also contains filo pastry, so some of the mix-ins I tasted could have been from that, but I did not see explicit sections or swirls of custard.  I like to think that the custard blended into the base ice cream and contributed to its delicious flavor but I am not sure.

This is a really good pint of ice cream!  It is delicious and unique.  I said this above, but it is worth repeating.  Using baklava as a mix-in is a great idea and Ample Hills does a great job of swirling the pieces in.  If you are at their Astoria scoop shop, give this flavor a try.

Ben & Jerrys - Justice ReMix'd

Justice ReMix'd - Cinnamon & Chocolate Ice Creams with Gobs of Cinnamon Bun Dough & Spicy Fudge Brownies

Long-readers may recall that Ben & Jerry's is the brand that started these reviews.  I was dared into trying every flavor by one of my sisters.  Eventually, I completed my survey of their flavors and I had to try other brands.  I still get excited when Ben & Jerry's releases new flavors, though.  Today's flavor is a new flavor that they have released this fall called Justice ReMix'd.  It is a limited batch flavor with a political theme.  I found it at the Target store in the Midway neighborhood of Saint Paul.  Proceeds of the flavor will go to organizations interested in the advancement of criminal justice reform.  Not everyone likes mixing politics with ice cream -- even Stephen Colbert who has a popular flavor named after him is making jokes about it.  That said, a new flavor is a new flavor and unlike the recent Pecan Resist which was just a clone of New York Super Fudge Chunk this is a new flavor and I am eager to check it out. 

What this flavor appears to be is a blend of two other flavors: Cinnamon Buns and Chocolate Fudge Brownie.  That sounds a bit derivative at first, but Ben & Jerry's has had big success doing just this with their Half Baked flavor -- which is a blend of their Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and Chocolate Fudge Brownie flavors.  When Ben & Jerry's releases their list of top ten most popular flavors each year, Half Baked tops the list almost every year.  Will a similar pint with cinnamon bun dough instead of cookie dough be just as successful?  Let's check it out.

Removing the lid, I see a lot of chocolate, but hints of the cinnamon base as well.  Like in Half Baked, the two bases here are marbled instead of fully blended together.  With the first spoonful, I taste both chocolate and cinnamon together.  It is good.  This gives the feel of a Mexican chocolate which I have seen several times from other brands but not from Ben & Jerry's.  There are two types of mix-ins scattered throughout the pint.  Each mix-in stays within its corresponding base.  The cinnamon dough within the cinnamon base sections and the brownies within the chocolate sections.  The cinnamon dough are like little nuggets of chewy cinnamon-and-sugar bites.  They are fun to chew on and provide extra cinnamon flavor.  The brownies are soft and chewy and provide extra chocolate.  The side of the container says the brownies are 'spicy', but any spice that is in there does not stick out amongst the cinnamon that is in the other ingredients.  The brownies are good though.  Ben & Jerry's pioneered the use of brownies as a mix-in back in the 1980s and the have not lost their touch.

This a fun and successful blend of chocolate and cinnamon from Ben & Jerry's.  Everyone knows and loves their Half Baked and Chocolate Fudge Brownie flavors.  This pint blends in their underrated Cinnamon Buns flavor instead of regular cookie dough and this blend does work out really well.

Ample Hills - The Flavor of Record

The Flavor of Record - Sweet Cream Ice Cream with Deep Fudge Swirls and Housemade Black & White Cookies

I have ordered a shipment from the Brooklyn-based Ample Hills Creamery!  I stumbled upon this brand a few years ago on one of my visits to my sister who lives in New York City.  I have trying to keep up by making orders online.  This shipment is the "A Taste of New York 4-Pack" and contains today's pint "The Flavor of Record" and flavors which are specific to individual scoop shops in the New York City Area.  Apologies to my local readers, none of this is available in Minnesota grocery stores.

As mentioned above, today's flavor is called "The Flavor of Record" and was created for the first  New York Times Food Festival which was held earlier this month.  The name of the flavor is a pun on the 'paper of record' distinction that is sometimes bestowed upon the paper.  The flavor is based upon the black and white cookie which is one of those uniquely New York treats and 'black-and-white' creates yet another newspaper-related pun.  Today I learned that the cookie was actually invented Glaser's Bakery which was not far from my sister's apartment on the Upper East Side.  Glaser's closed just last year after being open for more than a century.  I can't remember if I ever went there.  If not, I like to think that they supplied all the black and white cookies to all the local delis and markets in the area.

On to the ice cream!  Removing the lid shows an off-white cream color to the sweet cream base (Ample Hills uses eggs in their base which explains the yellowish color).  I see a little bit of white color - presumably from the vanilla frosting.  I also see quite a bit of the fudge swirl.  Digging in, the ice cream is thick, creamy and delicious.  I quickly encounter a large number of cookie pieces.  The cookies seem to be cut into small cubes which let allow them to be mixed in quite well.  I also notice that often the frosting gets its own cube.  Some of the cubes appear to be mostly vanilla frosting, some mostly chocolate frosting and some mostly cookie.  The cookie pieces are soft and chewy.  The fudge swirls help to make the pint a bit more chocolatey.

This is a fun pint from Ample Hills.  A black-and-white cookie themed flavor is a great idea.  Fans of this particular cookie should definitely check this out.  For those unfamiliar with this particular New York novelty treat, blend of chocolate, vanilla and soft cookies into ice cream make for a great combination.