Talenti - Black Raspberry Vanilla Parfait

Black Raspberry Vanilla Parfait - Layers of Black Raspberry Gelato, Oat Crisps, Blueberry Sauce, Vanilla Gelato, and a Second Layer of Oat Crisps

Talenti has a new line of flavors for 2019.  They have introduced a new set of Gelato Layers pints.  They stack layers of gelato, sauce and mix-ins into a single pint.  I've seen pints like this before.  Häagen-Dazs has their "Trio" flavors where layers of crunchy Belgian chocolate separate two different base ice cream.  Tillamook also does this with a few of their pints (for example, Chocolate Covered Strawberry).  With Talenti, they generally have five layers per flavor and each layer is either a gelato, a sauce or a crunchy mix-in.  This particular pint is called Black Raspberry Vanilla Parfait.   Looking at the rest of the 'layers' pints, this is the only flavor which does not contain chocolate. 

This is the second "parfait" flavor in a row (see previous review)!  If I had only seen one in isolation, I would have chalked it up to typical Peterman-catalogue-type branding (I know 'parfait' means 'perfect' in French), but then I remembered the Peanut Buster Parfaits that were available at Dairy Queen when I was a kid and figured it must mean something more specific.  Sure enough, a parfait is a dessert which usually features layered fruit and cream flavors and is served in a tall clear glass.

The layers here are:

1. Black Raspberry Gelato
2. Oat Crisps
3. Blueberry Sauce
4. Vanilla Gelato
5. Oat Crisps (again)

Since Talenti uses clear jars, you can actually see all the layers from the outside!  This should be fun.  Let's check it out!

Unscrewing the lid, all I see is the very light pink color of the black raspberry gelato on top.  The other four layers are buried.  Hmm... taking pictures of this flavor is going to be more challenging than usual.    I got out a sharp knife and tried to cut out a pie-shaped wedge that went all the way down to the bottom.  The results are below.  It's not perfect, but you get the idea.  Once I got the pictures I wanted I finally tasted it.  The black raspberry base is fairly mild but quite tasty.  You don't have to dig too far to run into the blueberry sauce and the first layer of oat crisps.  The blueberry sauce is good and blends well with the raspberry.  The oat crisps were small oatmeal nuggets.  They had the same shape and consistency of oyster crackers except they had the flavor of an oatmeal pie crust.  There weren't as many of these as I expected but the provided good crunchy texture.  Below the blueberry sauce and oat crisps was vanilla gelato.  This second layer served as a palate cleanser to keep things from getting too fruity.  Then at the bottom was a second layer of oat crisps.  Again not as many as I expected but still fun and crunchy when I got some on my spoon.  I guess the idea is to split up the oatmeal layers to prevent a 'dry layer' in the pint.

How did it all come together?  This pint actually came together pretty well.  The pint jar is small enough that I did not have to dig too much to encounter all the flavors.  Everything mixed surprisingly well.  I never felt like I was stuck eating consecutive spoons of just one flavor.  I guess the gelato and sauce was not too hard and it facilitated the mixing.  So, I liked this pint quite a bit.  Could this have been done just as well by swirling instead of vertical layers?  Perhaps.  But the layers did not present too much of an obstacle.  I'm sure people will have different strategies when eating these pints.  Should one mix with the spoon first?  I didn't but I'm sure some people will.  Another issue is trying to split the pint into multiple servings.  I ate the pint by myself in one sitting but not everyone does that.  It might be tricky to share this pint, or to eat only half and come back later.  Not a problem for me, though.  This pint gets a thumbs up from me.  Six more layered flavors to try!  I'll be curious to see how the layering works with thicker mix-ins like chocolate or peanut butter.