Jeni's - Pumpkin Cake Roll

Pumpkin Cake Roll - Sweet Heirloom Pumpkin Ice Cream swirled with Spiced Sweet Cheese and Cake

 

It's the holiday season and Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream of Columbus, Ohio has released their holiday flavors, so I made an order of four pints had it shipped to me.  A few places in the Twin Cities such as Whole Foods do stock Jeni's, but the pints in this shipment are limited batch so they are only available online.  I did my Jeni's shipment a little differently this year and made the order before Thanksgiving -- mainly because I only needed four pints and I wanted to beat the holiday shipping rush.  The holiday collection includes flavors that I enjoyed from previous years such as Cognac with Gingerbread and White Chocolate Peppermint as well as flavors that are new to me like Campfire Chocolate, Sugar Plum and today's flavor:  Pumpkin Cake Roll.  This flavor was new last year, but it sold out before I could get it so I am happy to see it return this year.  It is a pumpkin ice cream swirled with spiced sweet cheese and cake.  I am curious to find out what 'sweet cheese' is.  I am guessing it is similar to cream cheese.  Anyhow, let's check it out!

Removing the lid, there is a cool saying on the plastic seal for the top of the pint.  I have seen this one before, but it's worth seeing again (see below).  Peeling back the seal, I can see both the pumpkin and the cheese on top -- each swirled into a spiral.  If I look closely, I can see small crumbs of the cake.  Digging in, the pumpkin flavor is mildly spiced and quite good.  The cheese swirl is indeed sweeter than I expected.  This is almost as sweet as a pastry creme, but not quite.  I would say it is about halfway between a pastry creme and a cream-cheese/cheesecake.  The cake pieces are dispersed throughout the pint.  These are small in size and are like little pieces of pumpkin bread.  Pumpkin bread is a holiday favorite of my family, so I liked these.  The pieces added additional pumpkin flavor and gave me something soft to chew on once in a while.

This is a fun pumpkin flavor from Jeni's.  It is sweeter than the average pumpkin flavor -- it more closely replicates the flavor of a pumpkin pastry rather than pumpkin bread or pumpkin pie.  So, if you're in the mood for a sweeter pumpkin dessert, check this out.