Sweet Science - Opera Cake

Opera Cake - Coffee Ice Cream with a Fudge Swirl and Toasted Almonds

It is Christmas Day, so I figured I'd have the fourth and final holiday flavor from the Saint Paul-based Sweet Science Ice Cream.  This one is called Opera Cake.  I had not heard of opera cake before, but when I looked it up, I recognized it.  It is a coffee-dipped almond sponge cake with layers of chocolate.  Coffee, chocolate and almond are all winning ice cream flavors so I am looking forward to this.

Removing the lid, the top of the pint appears to be quite marbled.  I see the the light beige color of the coffee base along with some darker sections.  One of them definitely looks like chocolate while the other one is a little lighter in color.  Digging in, the coffee base is quite flavorful.  It tastes like the same coffee base used in their Five Watt Coffee flavor.  I checked the ingredient list and Five Watt Coffee -- a local coffee shop -- is indeed used for the base here.  The darker sections are a chocolate swirl.  The lighter swirl was due to some diffusion from a swirl right below the surface.  As I've written in previous reviews, coffee and chocolate have similar active ingredients (caffeine and theobromine) so they are very good together as a flavor combination.  The swirl is a bit light, though.  The coffee base dominates the chocolate here.  Also underneath are small pieces of almond which are tasty and add a little bit of crunchy texture.

This is a pretty good pint.  Since there are no cake pieces, the 'opera cake' inspiration is a bit lost but you can't really go wrong mixing coffee, chocolate and almonds.  The mix is a bit coffee-centric though, so this will appeal to coffee lovers more than chocolate lovers.  I checked my reviews for similar flavor and this appears to be a premium version of Baskin-Robbins' famous Jamoca Almond Fudge.  My favorite combination would probably be McConnell's limited-batch Mocha Fudge & Smoked Almonds from last fall.  Neither of these are locally available though.  If you're in Saint Paul, and like coffee ice cream check this one out.