Pumphouse Creamery - Pumpkin

Pumpkin - Long Island Cheese Pumpkin Ice Cream spiced with Cinnamon, Ginger, Cloves and Nutmeg

I picked up a pint of Pumpkin ice cream from Pumphouse Creamery on my last visit.  I kept it in my freezer for a while because it didn't seem close enough to the holidays quite yet.  Halloween is growing close, though, so I decided to crack it open.  This is sort of a companion pint to their 5 spice flavor.  At first, I worried that the 5-spice would get all the spices and there'd be none for the pumpkin -- as if one would be expected to get a scoop of each.  But fear not, there are spices in this pint as well.  The website says, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg.  Traditional pumpkin spices.  My homemade pumpkin bread recipes is pretty much the same list (substituting allspice for ginger).

Interestingly, the pumpkin used here is labeled a Long Island Cheese Pumpkin.  This means it is a cultivar of Cucurbita moschata instead of Cucurbita pepo.  I will leave it for the botanists and the bold readers of those two wikipedia links to distinguish the difference.  The name itself comes from the fact that it was commonly grown on Long Island way back when there were farms on Long Island and because the gourd is short and squat like a wheel of cheese.  Here is a link discussing the Long Island Cheese Pumpkin from a culinary perspective.

Opening the pint, the pumpkin base has a lighter than expected color.  It is not quite an off-white but it is certainly not a deep orange.  Digging in, I taste the pumpkin flavor along with a moderate amount of spices.  The spice level is fairly mild, and it is a non-hot kind of flavorful spicy, but it is certainly spicier than the average slice of pumpkin pie.  There are small little bits in the ice cream which you can see if you zoom in closely.  I wasn't entirely sure what they were.  I think they might be bits of pumpkin.  They were just a visual curiosity though.  If they had flavor, they blended into the base.

This is a decent pint of pumpkin ice cream.  I like my pumpkin a little spicier so I prefer Jeni's and Sweet Science but this is still quite good.  If I went to Pumphouse, I would probably get a scoop of this and a scoop of the 5-spice.