Talenti - Coffee Cookie Crumble

Coffee Cookie Crumble - Layers of Cold Brew Gelato, Dark Chocolate Chunks, Chocolate Coffee Sauce, Vanilla Bean Gelato and Amaretti Cookie Pieces

Talenti has new Gelato Layers pints for 2020!  The new ones are the ones which include coffee, lemon, banana and coconut.  Today's flavor is the coffee one:  Coffee Cookie Crumble.  I got this pint at Lund's in Highland Park, but I have also seen it at Cub in the Midway.  To refresh everyone's memory, a Gelato Layers pint involves stacking several (usually five) layers of ingredients in the same pint container.  The five years here are cold brew coffee gelato, dark chocolate chunks, a chocolate coffee sauce, vanilla bean gelato and amaretti cookie pieces.  I've written many times before about how coffee and chocolate always makes for a great combination possibly because their active ingredients (caffeine and theobromine) are so similar.  I was unfamiliar with "amaretti" cookies but like amaretto liqueur, it appears to be almond based.  I found some recipes online.

Let's check it out!  Unscrewing the distinctive lids of the Talenti jar, I only see the top layer.  That's true of all Talenti pints.  For these special flavors, I like to cut out a slice for the pictures below.  I can see the two gelato bases (coffee & vanilla) separated by two mix-in layers (chocolate chunks and coffee chocolate sauce) which are both thin enough to effectively blend together.  The bottom layer is the cookies.  Digging in, the coffee gelato has a smooth coffee flavor.  They bill it as a 'cold brew'.  I am not enough of a coffee expert to recognize that immediately, but it does have good coffee flavor without any hint of bitterness.  The chocolate chunk/sauce combo in the middle is quite delicious.  The chunks are fairly small -- they are almost chip-sized -- and the sauce has a bite to it.  My first impression was that it had a similar bite to it than canned syrup has, but I also note that it is billed as a coffee-and-chocolate syrup so I imagine some of the bite comes from the coffee.  It's delicious.  Quite a lot of chocolate in these two layers and it goes well with the coffee base.  The vanilla base it a refreshing compliment to it all -- to keep the coffee and chocolate from being too intense.  The cookie at the bottom are OK but not too memorable.  They are not bad, but they provide a bit of soft chewy crunch and not a lot of flavor.

This another successful layers pint from Talenti.  The coffee gelato goes really well with the chocolate chunks and sauce and the vanilla and cookies keeps it from being too much.  My method of extracting out a slice for the photos leaves the pint in such a state that it makes it easy for me to sample most of the layers with almost every spoonful.  If you find it tricky to do the same, you could try scooping it all out into a bowl first.