Milkjam Creamery - Ritz Life

Ritz Life - Ritz Cracker Ice Cream with Fried Almond Brittle

 

Today we move on to the second of the four January flavors available at Milkjam Creamery in Minneapolis.  This flavor is called Ritz Life (instagram link here).  These January flavors are all old flavors in honor of their fifth anniversary.  This is a Ritz Cracker flavored ice cream with a fried almond brittle.  Sounds interesting.  Ritz Crackers as an ice cream flavor is something I saw that was available as a limited batch from Coolhaus last year, bur unfortunately I was not able to get my hands on that pint.  There are Ritz Crackers in an Ample Hills flavor called The Munchies that I had a few years ago, but that's one of those "kitchen sink" flavors with many ingredients and the specific flavor of Ritz Crackers did not stick out among the M&M's, pretzel and potato chips.  So, I am looking forward to checking out today's pint to see how Ritz Crackers work as an ice cream flavor.

Ritz Crackers were introduced by Nabisco back in 1934.  They were introduced to specifically compete against the Hi Ho cracker from Sunshine Biscuit company.  They picked the name 'Ritz' because it was the middle of the Great Depression and they thought customers were in the mood for a "a bite of the good life".  Interestingly, this is not the most famous case of Nabisco taking an idea from Sunshine and making it more famous.  A couple of decades earlier, they came out with Oreo cookies to directly complete with Sunshine's Hydrox cookies.

OK, enough talk!  Let's get to the ice cream!  Popping off the top, I see the Ritz Cracker base has an off-white beige color and I can the brittle already.  I can even see some drizzle emanating from the brittle which looks like swirls of caramel.  Digging in, I can taste the Ritz Crackers!  With that first spoonful, I got the distinct memory of the taste of Ritz Crackers in my head.  It was uncanny.  Eating further down, this effect does fade, though.  It's mainly something I noticed in the first couple of spoonfuls.  The star of the pint is the almond brittle.  It is generously dispersed throughout the pint.  It is crunchy and crispy and is coated in this caramel-like syrup.  It is delicious.  This is one of the better brittles that I have had.

This is an interesting pint from Milkjam Creamery.  The use of Ritz Crackers in the base is an interesting novelty that diminishes after the first few spoonfuls but the mix-in is one of the best almond brittles that I have ever had.