Jeni's - Atlantic Beach Pie

Atlantic Beach Pie - Sweet Cream Marbled with Lemon Custard and a Saltine Cracker Swirl

The third pint in my recent online shipment from the Columbus-based Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams is called Atlantic Beach Pie.  This flavor is part of their late-summer State Fair Collection which I ordered to partially make up for the fact that my own state, Minnesota, has cancelled their fair for this year due to the pandemic.  A note to local readers that I bought this flavor online and I am not aware that it is available in any grocery stores in the Twin Cities area.  Atlantic Beach is a small town on the coast of North Carolina just south of the Outer Banks.  A pie was developed there because it was supposedly better to eat with the seafood meals common to the area.  It is a pie that in some ways resembles a key lime pie but with lemon instead of lime, in some ways resembles a lemon meringue pie but with whipped cream instead of meringue and usually has a saltine cracker crust.  Jeni's has a blogpost with further detail here.  It looks like a fun idea for an ice cream flavor and I am looking forward to checking it out.

Removing the lid and peeling back the fun seal, I see both the lemon custard and sweet cream bases.  The lemon custard has a bright yellow color and the sweet cream is white.  Digging in, the lemon custard has a bright lemon-y flavor which a little bit, but not too tart.  I liked it.  The sweet cream serves to mute the lemon a little bit and also to contain the saltine cracker mix-ins.  These crackers provide the 'pie crust' for this pie-themed pint.  They were small and ground up, so they did not completely resemble saltines to me, but they were crunchy and provided some salt.

I really enjoyed this lemon pie pint from Jeni's.  This is one the best lemon flavors that I have yet tried.  Right up with Sweet Science's Lemon Meringue Pie.  Check it out.