Jeni's - Dark Chocolate Truffle

Dark Chocolate Truffle - Non-dairy Dark Chocolate Frozen Dessert with a hint of Coconut Cream

 

Today's flavor is from the Columbus-based Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream.  This is from their non-dairy line -- not a 'sorbet' but made with dairy substitutes to simulate the feel of ice cream.   I don't always review the non-dairy flavors of the major brands but I have made a couple of on-line purchases recently from Jeni's to get limited batch flavors (like White House Chocolate Chip) and I needed pints to fill out the shipment.  Into the non-dairy line I go!  As I said before, I bought this online and not from a local grocery store.  It is possible that local Whole Foods stores carry this (it is a fairly basic non-dairy flavor) but I have not checked.  Today's flavor is called Dark Chocolate Truffle.  It looks like a relatively simple implementation of chocolate ice cream but made with coconut cream instead of dairy cream.  Let's check it out!

Removing the lid, I am greeted with a nice Lord of the Rings reference on the extra seal for the top of the pint.  Nice.  Peeling back the seal, the base is a medium to light brown color.  Although 'dark' is in the flavor name, this is not that dark.  Digging in, this has a good cocoa flavor to it.  I have written before about how some chocolate ice creams taste like frozen hot cocoa while others taste like chocolate bars.  This flavor is on the cocoa side.  The texture is smooth and creamy, like an ice cream.  I do not notice specific coconut flavor but it does taste slightly different from dairy chocolates. It is quite good, though.

This is a solid non-dairy implementation of chocolate from Jeni's.  It does not taste like a copy of one of their dairy chocolates.  The level of chocolatey-ness is about halfway in between their Darkest Chocolate and Milkiest Chocolate and the texture was too smooth and creamy to qualify as a sorbet.  That helps it be its own flavor and I was not fixated on whether or not I noticed that it was not dairy.  They did a good job in that regard though.  If I did a blind taste test I might not have noticed that it was dairy free.  Personally, I prefer Jeni's Darkest Chocolate flavor to this.  And for dairy free, I recommend local readers try Milkjam Creamery's unique and amazing Black flavor.  But this is still quite good.  Check this out if you are at Jeni's and need a dairy-free option.