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.

Graeter's - Butter Pecan

Butter Pecan - Buttery Sweet Cream with Butter Pecans

I was checking out the freezer case of one of my favorite local markets and was surprised to see a flavor that I had not seen before.  Butter Pecan.  This is certainly not a new flavor -- Butter Pecan and one of the oldest and most popular ice cream flavors -- it's just that I hadn't seen in local freezer cases.  I had to pick it up.  In retrospect, perhaps I should have waited.  It is nice to have flavors to fill out an order if I decide there are few limited-edition pints which I would like to try, but I couldn't help myself.  Graeter's is known for their Signature Chip line but their other types of flavors quite well, too, so I am looking forward to this.

After removing the lid, the top of the pint is a bright whitish color.  Many of the pecans are visible right away as well.  In the first spoonful, the base is very simple.  I can tell there is no vanilla.  It is not simply sweet cream though.  I checked the ingredient list and there is indeed butter in the base -- butter is not just in the mix from the coating of the pecans.  It is subtle, but delicious.  The pecans mix-ins are simple and quite delicious.

This is an excellent implementation of a butter pecan ice cream.  I have had butter pecan once previously (from Häagen-Dazs).  I think I like the Graeter's pint a little better, but they are both quite good. 

Milkjam Creamery - Cookie Monster

Cookie Monster - Cookie Butter Ice Cream & All the Cookies

The next pint from the Minneapolis-based Milkjam Creamery is called Cookie Monster.  This is a second pint of ice cream which I have had with this name.  The other pint I got from Grand Ole Creamery in Saint Paul.  The two implementations could not be more different -- other than the fact that they both contain cookies.  I guess it is a fairly obvious flavor name pun.  Here, the base is flavored with cookie butter and there are cookie mix-ins.  Cookie butter is made when you bake cookies, grind them into a powder and mix them with something like sweetened condensed mix so that they form a spreadable paste.  I have described cookie butter in more detail in a previous review.  For the cookie mix-ins, Milkjam does not have an ingredient list so I am unsure of the details of what types of cookies are used.  They website just says 'all the cookies'.  With a mixture of interest and curiosity, I am anxious to dig in.

Opening the pint, the base ice cream is a light creamy beige and many small cookie mix-ins are visible.  With the first spoonful, the ice cream is soft and creamy.  The cookie butter flavor is more subtle than I was expecting.  I am getting notes of speculoos flavor, but nothing too intense.  The size of the mix-ins ranges from crumb-size to half-inch chunk size.  There is quite a variability to the cookies.  Some of them seem chocolatey,  others seem like oatmeal raisin.  They did taste homemade, though some of the oatmeal cookies may have been a bit overdone for my liking.  Overall, I actually found the mixture of cookies to be quite odd.  I couldn't really focus on one particular type of cookie and it was weird having raising in the mix (or at least what I thought were raisins, I don't have an ingredient list so I can't check).

This is certainly a bold and interesting pint, but it was not a hit with me.  Like many of the kitchen-sink types of flavors sometimes too many different types of mix-ins is too distracting.  Since Milkjam is often bold and experimental, they can sometimes hit the ball out of the park with something amazing, but once in the while the experiment doesn't click with me.  Perhaps it was on odd batch?  "All the cookies" might be different types of cookies on a different day?  I don't know.  If you're at Milkjam and you are curious, you could give it a try, or you could play it safe and have their amazing Oreo-themed cookies and cream flavor, Ridin' Duuurty.

Ben & Jerry's - Minter Wonderland

Minter Wonderland - Dark Chocolate Mint Ice Cream with Marshmallow Swirls & Chocolate Cookie Swirls

There is a new Target-exclusive and presumably-seasonal flavor from Ben & Jerry's!  It is always exciting to return to the brand that started off these reviews.  The flavor is called Minter Wonderland -- an obvious pun on the classic holiday song.  Now, British readers may recognize Minter Wonderland as a holiday flavour from Ben & Jerry's on the other side of the pond.  Interestingly, these are not the same.  The flavour is not the same as the flavor!  The 500 ml tub is not the same as the pint!  The British flavour is a mint ice cream with chocolatey chunks while the American flavor is a Dark Chocolate Mint Ice Cream with Marshmallow Swirls and Chocolate Cookie Swirls.  So, while the Brits have what appears to be a chunkier version of the classic Mint Chip flavor the Americans are getting a more complex chocolate mint mixture with a dark chocolate base and swirls of both marshmallows and chocolate cookies.  I am only having the American flavor today, but it does look quite interesting!

What strikes me first as I remove the lid is that the dark chocolate base is indeed quite dark.  And a hint of the marshmallow swirl can be seen right away.  Digging in, the dark chocolate & peppermint flavors are both present.  This is a combination I have seen before from Jeni's and it works quite well.  The Jeni's pint was homogeneous, but Ben & Jerry's adds a couple of swirls. The marshmallow swirl here is a bit stronger and potent than the usual Ben & Jerry's pint.  I expected it to be like Phish Food where the swirls mainly acts to create a goopier, faster melting texture (I actually quite like this effect).  Here the marshmallow-y texture stays distinct from that of the base and I taste more specific marshmallow flavor.  Perhaps this was needed because the dark chocolate and peppermint are both so overpowering.  So, I can taste the marshmallow but it is still certainly a minty-chocolatey pint.  Then there is the chocolate cookie swirl.  This is one of my favorite Ben & Jerry's swirls and has been used several times.  Here it does not deliver much additional chocolate flavor as the base is already so chocolatey but it does add some gritty texture which is nice in an otherwise creamy-marshmallowy pint.

I liked this pint.  Long-time readers know that mint chocolate chip is my all-time favorite flavor so it is always fun to see imaginative variations on those two ingredients.  It was more chocolatey than minty and with a bit of marshmallow in the mix as well.  If dark chocolate and peppermint is your thing, then head to Target and check it out.

Footnote:  Ben & Jerry's has released a politically-themed flavor this fall called Pecan Resist.  I don't mind politics as long as the ice cream is good.  The trouble here is that it is not a new flavor.  This is just a temporary re-packing of their classic flavor New York Super Fudge Chunk -- you can even see that the ice cream in the pint images for the two links above is identical, the pint labels are swapped with photoshop.  From my old review you can read that New York Super Fudge Chunk has an interesting backstory of its own and I quite liked the flavor.

Sweet Science - Five Watt Coffee

Five Watt Coffee - Five Watt Coffee Ice Cream

It is election night and I plan to stay up late and watch the returns come in.  Checking my freezer, it just so happens that one of the November flavors for the Saint Paul-based Sweet Science brand is coffee-based:  Five Watt Coffee.  This will help me stay up.  The flavor gets its name from one of Sweet Sciences neighbor-vendors at their Keg and Case Market scoop shop:  Five Watt Coffee.   The specific coffee used in their House Blend called "The Residency".  There are no mix-ins.

Opening the pint, the coffee base has a taupe color.  It's coffee colored, though perhaps a slightly greyer tinge than usual.  The ice cream has a very good texture.  It is creamy but not too dense.  The spoon really cuts though it quite easily.  The ice cream itself has a good coffee flavor.  The flavor has a good intensity and is not at all bitter.  I am not a coffee drinker, so there is not much I can think to say about it.  People familiar with different blends and roasts would know more than me.

This is a solid implementation of a coffee ice cream.  It's just a homogeneous coffee base, but it tastes pretty good and gave me enough of a caffeine boost to stay up and watch the election returns.  The tie-in with the neighbor vendor at Keg & Case is pretty cool as well.  If you live near Saint Paul, check this place out, it is pretty cool.

Van Leeuwen - Honeycomb

Honeycomb - Sweet Cream with Caramel Candy

I decided to try a new brand today, the Brooklyn-based Van Leeuwen ice cream.  I found a pint of it at one of my favorite local markets in Saint Paul, Tim & Tom's Speedy Market.  They have a surprisingly good ice cream selection there.  I figure because Van Leeuwen is based in New York City, that it gives me more ice cream to try when I visit that city as well.  I am never sure how to pronounce Dutch names and Van Leeuwen is no exception.  Thankfully, readers do not have to hear me try.  They got their start as a food truck in 2008 and have expanded to over a dozen scoop shops in the New York City area as well as on the west coast.  Today's flavor is called Honeycomb and is one of their signature flavors.  Interestingly, there is no honey in honeycomb.  It is a sweet cream with a chewy-crunchy caramel candy -- which evidently reminded someone of honeycomb candy.  This should be fun.

Opening the pint, I see some interesting orangeish-brown splotches right away on the top.  They seem to have created small coated voids in the base.  Is this the honeycomb candy?  Digging in, the sweet cream base is quite thick and creamy.  This is a good base.  There is a salted caramel flavor to the mix-ins.  Perhaps a slightly more burnt caramel flavor than the usual caramel mix-ins.  The salt is quite noticeable.  The sweet cream does a pretty good job of balancing the mix-in and making sure it isn't too strong.  The 'coated void' nature of the mix-ins persist throughout the pint, though, and it is not at all crunchy or chewy like the side of the pint implied that it would be.  I think the mix-ins may have dissolved in the pint!  I have seen this before with McConnell's Peppermint Stick flavor.  I think the candy slowly diffused into the surrounding sweet cream leaving the voids.  The effect in the Peppermint Stick flavor -- a melted candy in a mint base was rather cool --  but here I get the impression that the chewy/crunchy nature of the mix-in has been lost.

I'm not sure how to rate this pint because of what happened to the mix-ins.  The salted caramel was good.  The sweet cream was very good.  Nothing at all wrong with the flavors.  But the way the mix-ins dissolved does not appear intended.  I think we're supposed to munch on this 'honeycomb'.  Perhaps I will visit a scoop shop the next time I am in New York and see if things are any different there.

Izzy's - Lemon Sponge Cake

Lemon Sponge Cake - Lemon Custard with a Raspberry Swirl and Chunks of Spongecake

Today is the next pint in my series to try and explore the People's Flavor Award winners from Izzy's Ice Cream in Saint Paul.  As mentioned in a previous review, I had been frustrated that one of my favorite ice cream shops had a limited selection available in pints.  So, I decided to try getting some of the more interesting flavors hand-packed for me to bring home.  The People's Flavor Award winners seemed like a nice subset of interesting flavors.  In the People's Choice Awards, the people submit flavor suggestions, Izzy's selects several to implement and they have a tasting contest to determine the winners.  Today's flavors is called Lemon Sponge Cake which won the award in 2005.  Lemon Sponge Cake was actually the suggestion of a seven-year-old girl.  She wanted a flavor which reminded her of her favorite TV show SpongeBob SquarePants - the lemon sponge cake was supposed to represent SpongeBob and the raspberry swirl was suppose to represent Patrick, SpongeBob's pink starfish buddy.  The flavor itself was originally called SpongeBob, but it was presumably switched to Lemon Sponge Cake to avoid copyright concerns.  It looks like a fun flavor.  I love lemon and the previous raspberry flavor was excellent.  Let's dig in.

Removing the lid, the lemon custard base looks quite thick.  There is some faint pink marbling evident already on top which presumable represents the raspberry swirl.  Digging in, the lemon custard is simply delicious.  I've written before about how lemon is one of my favorite flavors but it is hard to get it to blend into an ice cream base.  This custard is just perfect.  I can tell by the color and flavor that the raspberry swirl is the same one used in the previous pint.  It is a good blend of sweet and tart and not too strong.  Here it plays more of a supporting role.  The spongecake pieces were fun.  Every other spoonful seemed to have one and they seemed to melt in my mouth as I ate them.

I really loved this pint.  Lemon lovers like myself simply have to try this.  The raspberry and spongecake did a good job of making things interesting without distracting too much from the lemon.  I liked it better in pint form as I was able to focus more on the flavor.  Sometimes a single scoop goes by too quickly.  That said, it was quite filling.  Perhaps eat a light dinner if you're planning on eating a whole pint.  Enjoy!