Sweet Science - Strawberry Malt

Strawberry Malt - Strawberry Mascarpone Ice Cream Swirled with Malt Ice Cream

Today is yet another new flavor from Sweet Science Ice Cream in Saint Paul.  I got this as part of a choose-your-own-four-pack curbside pick-up, but their scoop shop in the Keg & Case Market is now back open so you can now buy pints there.  The flavor is called Strawberry Malt.  It is two bases strawberry-mascarpone and malt swirled together.  This is the second strawberry flavor from the same four-pack from Sweet Science -- the other being the recently reviewed Strawberry Stracciatella.  This is a completely different flavor.  Instead of a strong-and-tart strawberry sauce in a vanilla base with chocolate chips.  The strawberry here is muted twice, once by mascarpone in its own base and then muted again by swirling it with a malt base.  Let's see how this tastes!

Removing the lid, I see the very light pink color of the strawberry-mascarpone base with a little bit of the yellowish-white color of the malt base.  Digging in, the strawberry is mild but delicious.  The blending with the mascarpone is done in such a way as to not give any specific cream cheese aftertaste.  I have never had a malt-only base before. Instead, I usually encounter flavored with are 'malted' -- that is, malted vanilla or malted chocolate.  When I try the malt base by itself, the malt flavor is fairly mild, but I do notice it if I focus.  When the two bases are in the same spoonful, it further mutes the strawberry as I described above.  As I step back and get an overall impression of the flavor mix, it does remind a lot of a strawberry shake that would get at a diner or ice cream parlor.  Not too intense on the strawberry or malt but very creamy and delicious.

I enjoyed this strawberry malt pint from Sweet Science.  It is delicious and pleasant and accurately recreates the flavor of a shake or malt which I might get at a neighborhood malt shop.  It doesn't really pack a powerful punch, so I might personally pick a strawberry flavor which is more intense (like the recent Strawberry Stracciatella), but this is still quite delicious and if a hard-ice-cream version of a strawberry malt is what you crave, this works well.