Häagen-Dazs - Pistachio

Pistachio - Sweet Cream with Pistachios

Today we return to one of the main national brands,  Häagen-Dazs, for their implementation of a Pistachio ice cream.  Looking at the side of the container, I am surprised to find that this is not a pistachio base!  Sweet cream is the base here and pistachios are the mix-ins.  That's an interesting and unexpected variation.  Let's see how this works out.

Removing the lid, the base ice cream is indeed quite light in color.  This is definitely not the standard green pistachio base.  That said, there are loads of pistachio pieces visible already on top.  Digging in, I immediately taste the pistachios.  There are many of them on each spoonful.  The fact that it is a sweet cream base does not have as large of an effect as I expected.  The pistachio pieces are so numerous that it almost tastes like the base had some pistachio flavor in it.  Maybe some flavor got mixed in from the nuts during the churning process.  I guess it made it taste a little brighter and less rich.

This is an interesting pint of pistachio ice cream.  Most brands do a pistachio-flavored base -- often with pistachio pieces as mix-ins.  This is the first pint I have seen to use plain sweet cream as the base and then lots of mix-ins.  It is still quite good, but I feel like I should give people the heads up about the twist.