Tillamook - Oregon Hazelnut Chocolate

Oregon Hazelnut Chocolate - Hazelnut Gelato with a Fudge Swirl and Oregon Hazelnuts

Today's flavor is another special-batch pint from the Oregon-based Tillamook Creamery.  This flavor is called Oregon Hazelnut Chocolate.  I bought it at Kowalski's on Grand Avenue in Saint Paul.  Hazelnut and chocolate is a well-known combination -- it is the basis for Nutella after all.  I have seen this combination before from a now-retired Ben & Jerry's core flavor, a Coolhaus sundae flavor, and a Talenti Gelato flavor which is probably the closest.  Let's check it out!

Removing the lid shows another one of those fun and cheeky phrases on the protective foil between the lid and the ice cream.  Coolhaus was the first brand I saw that was having fun with these, but now it seems like several places are joining in.  Peeling back this foil shows lots of chocolate and lots of nuts.  As I dig in, I observe that all the mix-ins are piled on top and most of the pint consists of the homogeneous hazelnut base.  The mix-ins are quite good -- crunchy hazelnuts immersed in rich chocolate sauce -- and I employ a strategy to make this top layer of mix-ins last as long as I can.  Similar to how I eat Ben & Jerry's core flavors, I will take a big spoonful of the base and then scoop in a little bit of the chocolate and hazelnuts into it.  This works for about a third of the pint, but then I am left with just the base.  It's a good base, though.  It is soft, rich and creamy.  Then as I near the bottom of the pint, I notice an additional layer of chocolate (no nuts).  The chocolate has clumped a bit on the sides and I have to scrape it off with my spoon.  That is a bit annoying but in some cases it worked out because I ended up with some big chunks of chocolate at the end.

This pint from Tillamook had all the ingredients, but like other recent pints of theirs I found it a little frustrating that all the mix-ins were bunched on the top and bottom leaving a bunch of relatively plain base in between.  These layers didn't lend themselves to blending themselves as I was eating the pint like many of the recent Talenti layers releases do.  So, for this flavor combination I prefer a pint from Talenti's non-layered line called Hazelnut Chocolate Chip.  The nut pieces there are a little smaller and the chocolate chips more subtle than the chocolate sauce used here but everything was fully blended.  Of course, if piling all the mix-ins on top appeals to you, you could give this a try.