McConnell's - Dutchman's Chocolate

Dutchman's Chocolate - Chocolate Ice Cream

Today we return to the Santa-Barbara-based McConnell's brand for the fourth and final pint of my recent four pint shipment.  The first three pints were limited-release pints from the Winter Collection. (the reviews are here, here and here).  For the fourth pint, I looked for one of their standard flavors which I have not yet reviewed.  It is getting harder to find unreviewed flavors, but I did see that I have not tried their simple chocolate flavor yet so I chose that one.  McConnell's calls it Dutchman's Chocolate. 

McConnell's uses Guittard chocolate -- a California company founded during the Gold Rush by a French immigrant.  So why is it Dutchman's chocolate?  Probably because of the Dutch process used for refining many modern chocolates.  Indeed, Guittard does sell baking cocoa which is "Dutched".  I was curious about what effect this process has on the flavor.  I found this article which describes Dutched chocolate has having a darker color, with a milder flavor, but less bitterness.  Interesting!  I'll have to see how this compares.

Opening the pint, the color is quite dark.  That matches what the above article says about Dutched chocolate.  The ice cream is quite thick and dense as is the norm with all of McConnell's flavors.  They don't churn in a lot of air at McConnell's, yet it still remains creamy.  Digging in, the flavor is chocolatey as one does expect.  I did find that it tastes different than the chocolate bases of some other brands.  This tastes more like chocolate-bar chocolate while the chocolate from Häagen-Dazs tastes like frozen-hot-chocolate chocolate.  They're both good, I'm just trying hard to try and contrast the flavors -- it's hard when the pints are simple and homogeneous.  I checked to see if the "Dutchness" is playing a role in this difference.  I don't think so because Häagen-Dazs think uses Dutch processed cocoa (also known as "cocoa processed with alkali") as well.  Oh well, it's fun to learn about chocolate process anyways.  Chocolate-bar chocolate is still good, though.  It has a clean flavor devoid of any bitterness.

This is a solid implementation of a chocolate ice cream.  McConnell's makes great ice cream and it is not surprising that they make their simple flavors as good as they make their more famous flavors (or seasonal specials).