Ample Hills - Nectar of the Queens

Nectar of the Queens - Honey Cinnamon Ice Cream featuring Baklava and Galaktoboureko

Today's flavor is the second pint from my recent "Taste of New York" shipment from the Brooklyn-based Ample Hills Creamery.  The flavor is called Nectar of the Queens and is normally available only at their scoop shop in Astoria, Queens.  A blogpost from when they opened this scoop shop last summer which includes a discussion of this flavor can be found here.  Astoria has a lot of Greek neighborhoods, so Ample Hills decided to partner with a local Greek bakery called Artopolis to create a flavor based on the Greek desserts of baklava and galaktoboureko.  Most people know of baklava -- many layers of a paper-thin pastry called filo with nuts and honey embedded between the layers -- but I had not heard of galaktoboureko before trying this flavor.  Galaktoboureko is features a semolina custard which is wrapped in that same paper-thin filo pastry.  These two desserts are used as mix-ins in a honey cinnamon base.

On to the ice cream!  After removing the lid, the base is a light gold color and I can see lots of little mix-ins already.  When I dig in, I taste a nice soft cinnamon flavor.  It is very creamy and has a good flavor.  The mix-ins that I encounter right away are small pieces of that paper-thin filo pastry.  They remind me a bit of cereal flakes but they are a little chewier instead of crunchy.  I taste some small nuts in the mix as well.  This is a really good combination.  I am surprised that I have not yet seen a baklava-themed flavor before.  I looked for the influence of the galaktoboureko.  Galaktoboureko also contains filo pastry, so some of the mix-ins I tasted could have been from that, but I did not see explicit sections or swirls of custard.  I like to think that the custard blended into the base ice cream and contributed to its delicious flavor but I am not sure.

This is a really good pint of ice cream!  It is delicious and unique.  I said this above, but it is worth repeating.  Using baklava as a mix-in is a great idea and Ample Hills does a great job of swirling the pieces in.  If you are at their Astoria scoop shop, give this flavor a try.