Jeni's - White House Chocolate Chip

We have a new president and he likes ice cream!  To celebrate, Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream of Columbus, Ohio made a limited batch flavor called White House Chocolate Chip to celebrate Joe Biden's favorite ice cream order: two scoops of chocolate chip on a waffle cone.  Jeni's is no stranger to politics and ice cream.  Last April, Nancy Pelosi was on the Late Late Show with James Corden and showed off a freezer filled with Jeni's Ice Cream (and sorbets) (twitter link here).  To be fair, Trump likes ice cream too, here is Obama at the local Grand Ole Creamery in 2014, and an article about presidents in general liking ice cream -- dating all the way back to Thomas Jefferson's own ice cream recipe.  Jeni's makes great ice cream, so I jumped at the chance at ordering this limited batch flavor online.  I did get my order in, but the flavor sold out before it was even shipped to me, so it's not available anymore.  I am still eager to check it out for myself, though.

On to the ice cream!  The pint somes in this nice baby blue colored carton with the flavor name in this all-caps serif font.  It reminds me a bit of the color and typeface used for Air Force One.  After removing the lid, I see the white vanilla base with lots of small chocolate chip speckles visible.  It looks like a typical vanilla chocolate chip pint at this point.  Digging in, the chocolate chip and chocolate-covered waffle cone mix-ins are larger and more dense than I would originally guess.  I can still taste the vanilla in the base, but the mix-ins deliver a lot of chocolate flavor.  The waffle cone pieces are quite crunchy as well.  This is very dense.  I find myself chewing a lot.

This is an amazing pint of ice cream.  I was just expecting vanilla chocolate chip, but Jeni's went overboard with the mix-ins.  There are packed in very densely and they are delicious. But, alas the flavor is gone already.  I am very happy that I was able to get my order in before they sold out, but I think this should be a regular flavor.  Even if they had to rename it to make it less 'presidential'.  Whatever your politics are, this is good stuff.

 

 

 

Pumphouse Creamery - Bing Cherry Chocolate Chip

Bing Cherry Chocolate Chip - Bing Cherry Ice Cream with Chocolate Chips

 

I returned to the Pumphouse Creamery in south Minneapolis to pick up a couple of pints of flavors that I have not yet tried.  Today's flavor is Bing Cherry Chocolate Chip.   The Bing cherry is a crossbreed of black cherry which was first grown in Oregon in 1875 by horticulturalist Seth Lewelling and his Manchurian foreman Ah Bing (for whom the cherry is named).  Checking my archives, I found three flavors which are relatively close to this one:  the famous Cherry Garcia from Ben & Jerry, Graeter's Black Cherry Chocolate Chip and Sweet Science's Cherry Chocolate Chip.  It will be fun to see how this one compares.

Popping off the top, the ice cream has a pick color to it and I see a few decent-sized chocolate chips beneath the surface.  Digging in, the bing cherry flavor is quite good.  It does taste like 'black cherry' to my palate.  I will tag both 'cherry' and 'black cherry' on this article.  The chocolate chips are of variable size.  Some of the chips are chunky enough to deliver quite a bit of chocolate in one bite.  The chocolate goes well with the cherry.

This is a simple and solid implementation of a cherry chocolate chip flavor.  Of the flavors above, it is most similar to Graeter's flavor, but it does not have Graeter's signature chips.  It's still pretty good though.  I just checked Pumphouse's website and it has been rotated out already (but Rhubarb is back!).  This flavor is still worth checking out if it gets rotated back in at some point and you are a fan of simple cherry flavors.

Cheesecake Factory - Key Lime

Key Lime - Premium Key Lime Cheesecake with a Signature Cream Cheese Blend, Sour Cream and Graham Swirls

 

A few days ago, I tried my first pint of Cheesecake Factory Ice Cream and was pleasantly surprised.  That first flavor was just their Original (plain) flavor, and I am curious to see how their flavored pints turn out.  Today's flavor is Key Lime.  I like key lime flavors and have had them from Talenti, Graeter's and Izzy's.  Let's see how this flavor compares.

Popping off the lid, the key lime has and off-white greenish-yellow color to it.  I can see the graham cracker crust swirl, but it is not as pretty as the swirl in the Original pint I had last week.  There's also a fair amount of air pockets near the edges of top of the pint.  I am sure this is just a random fluke, but I may have gotten cheated out of an ounce.  Digging in, the flavor lime is quite delicious.  As a 'finish' flavor, I also notice the sour cream.  It adds tanginess.  I noticed this in the previous Cheesecake Factory as well.  It is looking like this is going to be a signature trait of this brand.  I do like it.  It is unique and distinctive and keeps the cheesecake from feeling too heavy.  The graham cracker swirl is nice and gritty as it was before.  It acts as the 'crust' in this slice-of-cheesecake flavor.

I enjoyed this key lime flavor from the Cheesecake Factory.  It's simple, yet that tangy sour cream makes it unique and distinctive.  Good key lime flavors are hard to find -- they tend to be late-summer seasonal flavors.  This flavor is available year round.  Check it out.

 

 

Talenti - Madagascar Vanilla Bean

Madagascar Vanilla Bean - Vanilla Gelato with Madagascar Vanilla Beans

 

I am still waiting to find Talenti Gelato's new flavors for 2021 to show up in my local grocery stores.  In the mean time, I will continue to survey their main menu of flavors.  Today is Madagascar Vanilla Bean.  I do not race to try a brand's vanilla flavor, but I do eventually get to them when I am nearing a complete survey of their menu.  I have written about different types of vanilla before, but here is a favorite link of mine as a refresher.  To sum up, although vanilla is originally native to Mexico, the islands of Madagascar and Réunion are now the places most associated with its production.  So, this is just regular (but natural) vanilla.  Let's check it out.

Unscrewing the lid, the vanilla gelato has a good off-white color.  I can see some of the bean specks even on the top.  Digging in, the gelato has a good easy-to-scoop texture and it has a good vanilla flavor.  I continue to see the bean specks throughout the pint but they do not provide any difference in texture as I am eating it.

This is pretty good vanilla.  I am never sure what to say about pints of vanilla.  I have tried simple vanillas from several other brands including Ben & Jerry, McConnell's, Coolhaus, Sweet Science, and side-by-side vanilla/vanilla-bean reviews for Häagen-Dazs and Izzy's.  It is quite good and will satisfy your vanilla cravings, but I am never sure if a simple vanilla is worth it when buying premium ice cream or gelato by the pint.  I often prefer the flavor with a twist, like Coolhaus uses Tahitian Vanilla or Sweet Science has a separate Vanilla Cardamom flavor.

 

Cheesecake Factory - Original

Original - Premium Cheesecake Ice Cream with a Signature Cream Cheese Blend, Sour Cream and Graham Swirls

 

Today I am trying a new brand!  The Cheesecake Factory has a line of pre-package pints.   I got mine at Target in the Midway, but I have also seen them at Cub and Hyvee.  I must admit that I hesitated before trying this brand.  Sometimes a brand like this is a gimmick based on name recognition, but I had heard some good things so I will try them out.  The Cheesecake Factory is chain of restaurants that started in the Los Angeles area in the late 1970s.  By the mid-1990s, they had expanded nationwide.  You may know them as the place where Penny and Bernadette first worked on the Big Bang Theory.  I have actually been to that Cheesecake Factory!  It looks much different in real life because of course they use a set for something like that when they film a television show.  Today's flavor is called Original which I think is a good place to start.  It's a plain cheesecake ice cream with a graham cracker crust swirl.  The flavor description also mentions sour cream which I think is intriguing.  Let's check it out.

Opening the pin, the cheesecake base has a bright white color and there is a beautiful swirl of graham cracker visible right away on top.  I like when you can see the swirl on top like this.  Digging in, I can taste the cheesecake, but I also taste the sour cream right away.  It's a bit tangy and it keeps the cheesecake having too heavy of a flavor.  The graham cracker swirl is quite good.  It has a very gritty texture and provides a good contrast to all the cheesecake.

This cheesecake ice cream from The Cheesecake Factory is quite good.  This "original" flavor is pretty basic but the blend of cream cheese and sour cream is quite appealing.  I am looking forward to trying more flavors.

 

 

Bebe Zito - Dat Malt Dough

Dat Malt Dough - Malted base Ribbon with Chocolate Ganache Cookie Dough

 

Today we return to Bebe Zito in south Minneapolis for their Dat Malt Dough flavor (instagram link here).  Piecing together details of the flavor from the flavor page, the instagram link and the ingredient list on the side of the carton, it looks like there is malted cookie dough in the base ice cream and also malted cookie dough mix-ins plus there is also chocolate ganache as a mix-in.  Sounds good.  The name of the flavor sounds like a slang or dialectical way of saying "that malt, though" which the double entendre on the 'dough'.  And sure enough, someone at Mental Floss wrote an article on the history of the expression "That <noun> though".  Enough nerdy linguistics, let's check out this ice cream!

Popping off the lid, there is this nice marbly look to the top of the pint.  The darker color of the chocolate ganache looks half-mixed into the malted cookie dough base.  Plus there is a sizeable cube of cookie dough right on top.  Digging in, I can taste the malt right away.  The cookie dough flavor in the base does not stick out, but the base here is just a vehicle for the mix-ins.  The cookie pieces are quite good.  They are salty and chewy.  Next there are larger chunks of chocolate ganache.  These are soft and chewy as well. Chocolate ganache is an excellent mix-in.  I like the fact that it can be made gooey like or sauce or it can be made chewy almost like a flourless brownie.  Altogether this is very delicious.  The malty base complements the two types of mix-ins very well.

This is an excellent flavor from Bebe Zito.  This might be an odd comparison, but it reminded me a bit of Ben & Jerry's Half Baked flavor, but better.  Half Baked is Ben & Jerry's most popular flavor every year for several years now and I think Dat Malt Dough tops it.  This flavor has a more interesting base with malt in it.  The cookie dough is better, the ganache is like a better version of brownies.  So, as eclectic of a comparison as this is, I mean it as a great complement.  If Half Baked is also your flavor and you want to see a local shop one-up it, then check out Dat Malt Dough.

 

 

Talenti - Belgian Chocolate

Belgian Chocolate - Belgian Chocolate Ice Cream

 

I have good news and bad news.  The good news is that Talenti Gelato has new flavors for 2021!  Four new layers flavors and two new gelatos.  The bad news?  I can't find them yet.  It often takes a couple of weeks after I find out before they start popping up in the usual locations.  My plan is to check Cub, Target and Hyvee periodically until they show up.  In the meantime, there are still flavors in their regular line that I have not yet tried.  Like today's flavor Belgian Chocolate.  This is "recipe #5" which means that it is one of their very first flavors.  This was their first stab at a simple chocolate gelato.  Since then they've released Double Dark Chocolate (a darker base with chocolate chips) which shows up in some of their Layers flavors without the chips and they also have a Dark Chocolate Sorbetto.  Let's check it out.

Unscrewing the lid, I see the chocolate has the expected brown color.  It is not especially dark or light.  Digging in, it is a good chocolate flavor.  It is not super intense like a dark chocolate.  It is not especially milky.  I sometimes write about whether simple chocolates taste like frozen hot cocoa or not.  This is more of a standard chocolate-bar chocolate and not a hot cocoa chocolate.  There's one clarification, the Belgian Chocolate flavor that Häagen-Dazs has is a special chocolate which has small pebbly specks of chocolate embedded in it.  This is not that.  This is a simple homogenous pint of chocolate gelato.

This is a simple and pleasing pint of chocolate gelato from Talenti.  I prefer their more intense Double Dark Chocolate flavor, but it makes sense that they would keep their original plain chocolate pint on their menu.  For simple chocolates, I still prefer Häagen-Dazs' simple chocolate flavor for the frozen-hot-cocoa type of chocolate and for local readers, Izzy's has a great simple chocolate with a slightly richer flavor.

Bebe Zito - The Crowening

The Crowening - A Cookies and Cream Base, Peanut Butter Chocolate Caramel, Oreo Pieces and Peanut Butter Salted Cookie Dough

 

Today I am back at Bebe Zito in south Minneapolis for their flavor called The Crowening.  The flavor name is a reference to an episode of the same name in the Canadian sitcom Schitt's Creek.  Catherine O'Hara's character, Moira Rose, goes off to Bosnia to film part three of The Crows Have Eyes horror movie franchise -- subtitled The Crowening.  A twitter link to the movie preview is here.  What kind of ice cream is it?  It's a cookies and cream base with extra mix-ins -- peanut butter chocolate caramel and salted cookie dough.  It looks very similar to Milkjam Creamery's Ridin' Duuurty.  This makes sense as one of Bebe Zito's founders, Ben Spangler, used to design flavors for Milkjam Creamery.  It makes sense that he would try to bring over some of his favorites.  Let's see how The Crowening compares!

Removing the lid, it looks like cookies and cream with a couple of the 'extra' mix-ins visible.  It looks like some of the cookie dough.  Digging in, the cookies and cream base is quite good.  I can tell that Oreos are used because the chocolate cookies have a very distinctive flavor.  The extra mix-ins are quite interesting.  Some of the salted cookie dough piece are quite large.  That's a lot of fun.  The chocolate caramel mix-ins create something chewy amidst the crunchy Oreos.

This is a very good cookies and cream with a twist flavor from Bebe Zito.  It is indeed a lot like it's cousin over at Milkjam, Ridin' Duuurty.  They are both quite good.  As far as the cookies and cream goes, I think I prefer Ridin' Duuurty.  It has more of an Oreo-Milk thing going in the base which is quite excellent.  This Crowening pint as more interesting extras though -- lots of large interesting mix-ins while Ridin' Duuurty has simple peanut butter cubes.

 

 

Milkjam Creamery - Fresh Thyme

Fresh Thyme - Lemon Zest Ice Cream with Thyme

 

Today is the fourth and final January flavor from Milkjam Creamery in Minneapolis.  This flavor is called Fresh Thyme (instagram link here).  It is a lemon zest ice cream flavored with thyme.  I have never had thyme in ice cream before!  So, I am looking forward to this.

Thyme is an old-world aromatic evergreen herb known to the ancient Egyptians and Greeks.  It is the mint family Lamiaceae along with basil, oregano, marjoram, sage and rosemary (not parsley, though).  It is commonly used in cooking but the oil of thyme can also be used medicinally.  The dominant compound in this oil, thymol, is an antiseptic and is a common ingredient in many mouthwashes.

Enough talk about thyme, let's check out this ice cream!  Removing the lid, the lemon zest base is a light yellow with perhaps a tinge of greenish grey in it.  Digging in, the lemon zest base is delicious.  It is pleasantly lemony but not intensely so like a custard or a pie filling.  I think the effect of the zest.  As I have written before, lemon ice cream can be tricky to implement because lemon juice does not mix well with milk or cream.  Often, eggs are used to create lemon curd or lemon custard, but you can also use the zest of a lemon to deliver the flavor.  The thyme I notice in the flavor 'finish' -- the flavor you taste after you swallow.  It is not strong, but it's a slight bitter savory flavor that I taste at the end of every spoonful.

This is a very interesting flavor from Milkjam Creamery.  It is a very creative use of a non-standard ice cream ingredient.  The flavor is mostly lemon -- so do not be too frightened -- but with a bit of a twist at the end.  The instagram link above mentioned that this was originally made as a dessert for a local restaurant.  I can definitely see that.  A scoop or two would really hit the spot after a good meal.  Try it out if you like flavors with eclectic ingredients.

 

 

Bebe Zito - Marvelous Mrs. Hazel

Marvelous Mrs. Hazel - Chocolate Hazelnut and Coconut Cream Base with Vegan Chocolate Cookie Dough

 

Today is a vegan flavor from Bebe Zito in south Minneapolis called Marvelous Mrs. Hazel.  The flavor name is a reference to the excellent Marvelous Mrs Maisel series on Amazon Prime.  They usually release seasons around this time of year, but it looks like shooting has been delayed by the pandemic.  Maybe this ice cream will tide me over until then.  The base of this flavor is chocolate hazelnut -- same ingredients as Nutella -- and vegan chocolate cookie dough is the mix-ins.  Sounds chocolatey.  Let's check it out.

Removing the lid, the chocolate hazelnut base is very dark and I can see a couple of large cookie dough chunks on top as well.  Digging in, this is actually quite 'creamy' for a non-dairy flavor.  The flavoring ingredients help out here -- nutella is creamy after all.  Coconut cream is used to help in the base as well, but the chocolate flavor here is so strong that you do not notice.  The cookie dough chunks are a lot like brownies -- or vegan brownies, I guess.  They are soft and chocolatey and my spoon slices through them quite easily.  This is a very chocolatey point.  It is delicious.

I enjoyed this pint from Bebe Zito.  It reminds me a lot of chocolate fudge brownie flavor.  I have had their chocolate fudge brownie before and it did remind me a lot of it (without the gochujang spice, of course)  There is hazelnut in the mix, but I never taste hazelnut in these chocolate-hazelnut blends, it just adds a creamy texture for me.  The cookie dough pieces here were thick, chocolatey and chewy -- very brownie-esque.  If you're looking for a well done non-dairy version of that flavor, this is it.  It's so thick and chocolatey, you forget that it's not dairy.

 

Milkjam Creamery - Duuude

 

Duuude - Cookie Butter Ice Cream with Chocolate Covered Munchies

Today is the third of the four January flavors from Milkjam Creamery.  This was is called Duuude (instagram link here).  It is a vegan flavor (so it is non-dairy) and features a cookie butter base with chocolate-covered munchies.  As mentioned in previous reviews, cookie butter is fully baked cookies which are crushed into a powder and them mixed with something to make it a spreadable paste.  Often, sweetened condensed milk is used for this, but since this is vegan flavor, they must use something else.  For the mix-ins, they are fairly vague on what kinds of "munchies" are used, but the instragram link says that potato chips are involved.  Let's check it out.

Opening the pint, I see the off-white-beige color of the cookie butter base.  I can tell it is non-dairy right away by how solid it looks.  Digging my spoon in, it has a dense and grainy texture to it.  That's all the sugar and the crushed cookies.  The taste is quite sweet.   It tastes like cookies.  It's a lot like cookie dough, but I understand that cookie butter is cooked and then crushed.  As I scoop my way down, the mix-ins are quite large and chunky.  The instagram link above mentioned potato chips but they are not too salty and there are other chunky treats involved as well.  Some of them taste a bit like no-bake cookies.  All of these chunks are covered in quite a bit of chocolate so there is a lot of chocolate flavor to them.  Texture-wise, they are more crumbly-chunky than crunchy.  I quite like these mix-ins actually.

This is an interesting vegan flavor from Milkjam Creamery.  A non-dairy cookie butter churned into a non-dairy base is quite creative and takes some skill.  It is quite sweet which I guess is understandable considering all the cookies involved.  Cookie lovers looking for a non-dairy pint could give this a try, but personally I think this one might be better as a dairy flavor.  These fun mix-ins in a creamy cookie-butter ice cream sounds quite good.

 

Izzy's - Caramel Cookie Crunch

Caramel Cookie Crunch - Sweet Cream with Chocolate Sandwich Cookies and a Caramel Swirl

 

Izzy's Ice Cream has a new flavor!  Caramel Cookie Crunch.  I found it at Widmer's market on St Clair & Prior, but I have since seen it at several Lund's markets in the city.  They also carry them at Hyvee and Kowalski's.  If you've been following the ice cream scene in the Twin Cities area, you'll know that one of the big stories of the pandemic is Izzy's Ice Cream closing both of its scoop shops and focusing on factory-made pints for sale in grocery stores.  Back in December of 2019 (just a few months before the pandemic hit), the founders of Izzy's were featured in a local business podcast called By All Means (link here) where they discussed their goals of increasing their grocery store pint business.  It is interesting how the pandemic greatly accelerated their time scale.  I am a bit bummed that their scoop shops are no longer around because they had a much wider selection available there.  They are down to about a dozen flavors now.  That's just the selfish ice cream lover in me talking though.  I understand the business reasons why they did this.

This new flavor is called Caramel Cookie Crunch.  It is a cookies and cream ice cream with a caramel swirl.  It looks like a re-imagining of one of their old scoop shop flavors called Caramelia Cookie Crunch which I reviewed a couple of years ago.  I debated whether or not I needed to write a new review, but decided that it would be fun to write about Izzy's again.  Let's check it out!

Removing the lid, I see a light colored base with the finely specked cookie crumbs immersed in them -- typical of cookies and cream implementations.  Plus, I see a beautiful single swirl of caramel across the top.  Digging in, the base tastes like a good version of a cookies and cream flavor.  I can taste the sweet milky flavor of the ice cream more than the average rendition. Some versions steep the cookies in the milk for a long time before churning creating a 'cookie milk' flavor.  Here, it is a brighter sweet cream base.  The cookie crumbs are of two different sizes.  There are the fine crumbs which are blended fully into the base and then there are these large chunks which are dispersed randomly throughout like mix-ins.  Back in the scoop shop, they used Oreo brand cookies, but now that it's packaged in stores they use their own imitation chocolate sandwich cookie.  This cookies are good, deliver a lot of chocolate flavor, but you can tell they are not Oreos.  The chocolate that Oreo uses has a very distinctive flavor.  Then, the salted caramel swirl is quite delicious.  I taste it right away on the top of the pint.  The swirl does disappear from time to time -- I was not able to get the caramel on every spoonful -- but it is quite potent and delicious when I do encounter it.  I do not know if this was intentional to keep the caramel from overwhelming the pint or a mixing issue when the swirl was added.

This is a delicious new cookies and cream flavor from Izzy's.  Compared to their old scoop shop flavor, this flavor has a brighter milky flavor in the ice cream and a bit less caramel.  The caramel flavor is still very delicious at the lower levels, though.  Think of it as cookies and cream with a caramel twist instead giving caramel the top billing.  I will continue to follow Izzy's and see if they have any plans on adding more flavors.

 

 

Milkjam Creamery - Ritz Life

Ritz Life - Ritz Cracker Ice Cream with Fried Almond Brittle

 

Today we move on to the second of the four January flavors available at Milkjam Creamery in Minneapolis.  This flavor is called Ritz Life (instagram link here).  These January flavors are all old flavors in honor of their fifth anniversary.  This is a Ritz Cracker flavored ice cream with a fried almond brittle.  Sounds interesting.  Ritz Crackers as an ice cream flavor is something I saw that was available as a limited batch from Coolhaus last year, bur unfortunately I was not able to get my hands on that pint.  There are Ritz Crackers in an Ample Hills flavor called The Munchies that I had a few years ago, but that's one of those "kitchen sink" flavors with many ingredients and the specific flavor of Ritz Crackers did not stick out among the M&M's, pretzel and potato chips.  So, I am looking forward to checking out today's pint to see how Ritz Crackers work as an ice cream flavor.

Ritz Crackers were introduced by Nabisco back in 1934.  They were introduced to specifically compete against the Hi Ho cracker from Sunshine Biscuit company.  They picked the name 'Ritz' because it was the middle of the Great Depression and they thought customers were in the mood for a "a bite of the good life".  Interestingly, this is not the most famous case of Nabisco taking an idea from Sunshine and making it more famous.  A couple of decades earlier, they came out with Oreo cookies to directly complete with Sunshine's Hydrox cookies.

OK, enough talk!  Let's get to the ice cream!  Popping off the top, I see the Ritz Cracker base has an off-white beige color and I can the brittle already.  I can even see some drizzle emanating from the brittle which looks like swirls of caramel.  Digging in, I can taste the Ritz Crackers!  With that first spoonful, I got the distinct memory of the taste of Ritz Crackers in my head.  It was uncanny.  Eating further down, this effect does fade, though.  It's mainly something I noticed in the first couple of spoonfuls.  The star of the pint is the almond brittle.  It is generously dispersed throughout the pint.  It is crunchy and crispy and is coated in this caramel-like syrup.  It is delicious.  This is one of the better brittles that I have had.

This is an interesting pint from Milkjam Creamery.  The use of Ritz Crackers in the base is an interesting novelty that diminishes after the first few spoonfuls but the mix-in is one of the best almond brittles that I have ever had.