Izzy's - Honey Crunch

Honey Crunch - Honey Flavored Ice Cream with Cashew Brittle

Today we return to the Saint-Paul-based Izzy's Ice Cream for a flavor they call Honey Crunch.  They don't seem to have a webpage for the flavor but it is a twist on their Honey flavor -- a cashew brittle is mixed in.  Honey from the local Ames Honey is used.  This should be interesting.

Removing the lid, I see that the ice cream is a bit fluffy even though it has been hand packed.  It has a golden off-white color and some of the brittle mix-ins are visible right away.  Digging in, the honey base has a darker flavor than I anticipated.  Honey has more of a muted sweetness than cane sugar, so I was not expecting it to be as sweet as normal ice cream, but it tastes bit darker than that.  It tastes like the honey has been caramelized a bit.  The brittle mix-ins are dispersed throughout the pint.  As often happens with brittle in ice cream, it ends up half-melted.  I actually like this effect.  The half-melted brittle might be part of the source of the caramel-like flavor that I am tasting.  So, the pint is not all that crunchy.  Every once in a while, I encounter a small cashew piece or a small white shard of unmelted brittle.

This is a decent pint, but I did not enjoy it quite as much as I expected.  The darker, almost burnt caramel flavor reminded me a bit of their popular Butter Caramel Swirl flavor.  The darker flavor is certainly intentional, but evidently not my personal preference.  I prefer something like Jeni's Matterhorn flavor.  Still, if you are interested in a darker honey flavor with a swirl of half-melted brittle, you might enjoy this flavor more than me.