Talenti - Vanilla Peanut Butter Swirl

Vanilla Peanut Butter Swirl - Vanilla Gelato with a Peanut Butter Swirl and Mini-Peanut Butter Cups

 

Talenti Gelato released several new flavors earlier this year.  I was able to find and review all of the new Layers flavors in fairly short order, but I have had trouble finding the two new non-layered flavors:  Honey Graham and Vanilla Peanut Butter Swirl.  I finally found the peanut butter one at a local Cub Foods (I have recently seen it again at Whole Foods in Saint Paul).  I think grocery stores have limited space in their freezers so maybe they cannot stock all the new flavors?  If anyone out there has seen the new Honey Graham flavor, let me know.  OK, on to today's flavor.  It's a vanilla gelato base with a swirl of peanut butter and chocolate-covered peanut butter cup mix-ins.  Let's check it out.

Unscrewing the lid, I see the vanilla gelato base has a white color and the machine they use to add the swirl creates this tri-lobed pattern on top -- see their Vanilla Caramel Swirl for comparison.  Digging in, the peanut butter swirl holds its integrity better than in previous Talenti swirl pints.  For example, in the Vanilla Caramel Swirl review that I just linked, I lamented that the caramel swirl ends up getting mostly blended into the base -- so the pint was not as caramel-ly as I expected.  Here, there are decent-sized chunks of thick peanut butter in the mix.  They taste excellent.  There are also mini-peanut butter cups in the mix.  Small peanut butter cups are more chocolatey than peanut butter (the surface to volume ratio goes up when things are small).  That's OK, because these are not the primary source of peanut butter in this pint.  The vanilla gelato serves to balance it all.  So, even though there is plenty of peanut butter flavor in the swirls, the flavor does not dominate or overwhelm the pint.

This is a very good peanut butter in vanilla flavor from Talenti.  This is a case where a Talenti swirl works very well.  I've written before that their caramel and dulce de leche swirls tend to get blended into the base which greatly mutes their effect, but that is not the case here.  The peanut butter swirl is excellent.  I think my favorite peanut butter cup in vanilla pint is still Ample Hills' PB Wins the Cup, but a high bar for another brand to reach (and not available locally).  Fans of this flavor combination should check it out.  Hopefully, grocery stores will start carrying it more.