McConnell's - Strawberry Rhubarb

Strawberry Rhubarb - Ice Cream Infused with Strawberry Rhubarb Preserves

Today is the third pint of my recent shipment from the Santa Barbara-based McConnell's.  This flavor is called Strawberry Rhubarb.  Strawberry and rhubarb are commonly paired together because they are both strong flavors which complement each other well -- strawberry is very sweet and rhubarb is very tart.  Surprisingly, I have only had rhubarb in ice cream one other time, so I am looking forward to checking this out.

The top of the pint is a light pink color and there is sort of a bulgy shape to it.  McConnell's ice cream is often very thick and dense (not a lot of air) and I can tell just buy looking at this that it is thick.  Digging in, I can taste the strawberry right away.  It's a really good strawberry flavor, not too sweet and not too tart.  There are no strawberry chunks like in some other flavors (such as McConnell's own Chocolate-Covered Strawberries).  This is just smooth strawberry flavor and is very tasty.  The rhubarb comes through in the mix-ins.  You can see them in the pictures below.  They provide a twist of rhubarb flavor into each spoonful, but strawberry is the dominant flavor here.

This is a solid pint of ice cream.  The strawberry flavor is perfectly placed along the sweet-tart scale so as not to be too much of one and not the other.  The texture is thick and creamy as is McConnell's specialty.  Rhubarb is definitely a secondary flavor here.  That might be disappointing for rhubarb fans, but it might ease the concerns for those who might be apprehensive about the rhubarb.

Häagen-Dazs - Chocolate Peanut Butter

Chocolate Peanut Butter - Chocolate Ice Cream with a Peanut Butter Swirl

Today's flavor is from Häagen-Dazs.  There was a sale at my local grocery store, so I decided to explore more from their catalogue of pints.  Most of the pints I have yet to try are fairly basic, but Häagen-Dazs does basic flavors very well.  This flavor is called Chocolate Peanut Butter.  Those are two tastes that have been known to go well together for years.  This pint is a case of "you got peanut butter in my chocolate" meaning the base is chocolate and the mix-in is peanut butter.  In this regard, it is the opposite of their Peanut Butter Salted Fudge flavor.

The top of the pint looks just like their chocolate ice cream.  In the first spoonful, I tasted that chocolate which is excellent.  Häagen-Dazs has one of the best chocolate bases.  Soon I encounter the peanut butter mix-ins.  They are not completely obvious visually, but if you zoom in on the pictures below you can see them.  They provide just enough peanut butter to complement the chocolate without completely blending it.  This is a fairly chocolate-heavy peanut-butter-and-chocolate combination but it is a tasty one.

This is a solid pint of ice cream.  The combination of chocolate and peanut butter is quite simple, but it works well.  Previous times I have had this flavor, I remember the peanut butter swirl being a bit pronounced, but it was still quite good.  The subtler blend reminded me of Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter World which I liked.  People who like their chocolate peanut butter blends a bit chocolate heavy should like this.

McConnell's - Mocha Fudge & Smoked Almonds

Mocha Fudge & Smoked Almonds - Cold-brewed Coffee Ice Cream with a Ribbon Dark Chocolate Sauce Smoky, Salt-Roasted Almonds

The second pint from my recent McConnell's shipment looks like a good one:  Mocha Fudge & Smokey Almonds.  Sometimes you can just by the flavor combinations that a particular flavor will be especially decadent.  Coffee, chocolate sauce and almonds... looks good.  Let's dig right in.

There is a lot of chocolate sauce visible on the top of the pint.  There is a thicker and darker sauce visible on one side and the lighter strip by a small air pocket.  The coffee base is a light beige color.  Digging in, the coffee base is quite flavorful.  It is a cold-brew coffee and not at all bitter.  The chocolate sauce is thick and rich.  It is a lot like a thick sauce that you would put on a sundae.  It is excellent.  The almonds are buried below.  Interestingly, these are whole almonds instead of sliced almonds from the olive oil flavor from the same shipment.  Just noting the difference.  They still taste quite good.

This is an amazing pint of ice cream.  It looked amazing in the online images before I made the order and it completely lived up to expectations.  They are going to have a hard time keeping this one in stock.  I've written about how coffee & chocolate go well together many times before.  This is one of the better combinations of those flavors.  What separates this pint is the thick and rich chocolate sauce.  Most of the time, the chocolate is delivered in chips or chunks.  The almonds are a great bonus as well.  Enjoy.

Museum of Ice Cream - Chocolate Crush

Chocolate Crush - Chocolate Ice Cream with Chocolate Flakes

Today we return to the Museum of Ice Cream for their Chocolate Crush flavor.  The Museum of Ice Cream is a youthful brand with sometimes bold and sugary flavor combinations, but this looks like a fairly simple chocolate flavor with chocolate mix-ins.  Let's see how this turns out.

The base ice cream has a moderately brown color typical.  It looks like a milk chocolate base -- not too dark.  Some of the chocolate flakes can be seen right away.  Digging in, the chocolate flavor of the base is pretty good.  It tastes a lot like chocolate milk in ice cream form.  The mix-ins were surprisingly good. They were dispersed generously and randomly (sometimes clumped, sometimes not) throughout the pint.  They had a flat, rectangular shape to them and were the width of a dime.  They had a crumbly-crunchy texture to them.

This is a pretty good pint of ice cream.  It is just chocolate chocolate chip -- nothing too exciting or fancy -- but the chips were better than most.  The Museum of Ice Cream brand has flashy marketing but my favorite pints of theirs are when they use simple flavor combinations. 

McConnell's - Olive Oil & Salted Almonds

Olive Oil & Salted Almonds - Arbequina Extra Virgin Olive Oil Ice Cream with Smokey Salt-Roasted Almonds

I have to get an order from McConnell's!  They had an interesting group of fall flavors that I had not had before and their shipping costs seemed reasonable, so I got a five-pint shipment.  McConnell's is headquartered in Santa Barbara but the shipment came from Union City which is in the northern part of the state.  Perhaps this is a sign that they are expanding their distribution.  It could also be why the shipping is now more reasonable.  The first flavor is called Olive Oil & Salted Almonds.  I have heard murmurs that olive oil makes a surprisingly good ice cream base and I have not tried it before.  So, I am anxious to give this pint a try.

Opening the pint, the color of the olive oil base is on off-white yellow and I can see some evidence of almonds right away.  Digging in, the base ice cream is quite thick and dense.  McConnell's is known for that.  There's not a lot a lot of air introduced during the churning process.  The olive oil has made the base perhaps a bit creamier than normal but I must admit that I don't immediately taste olive oil.  Scattered throughout the pint are almond shavings.  These are excellent.  I keep trying to think more about this base.  I do like it and it goes well with the almonds but I'm trying to figure out what the olive oil is bringing into the mix.  I guess it does seem a bit more savory and rich than plain old sweet cream.  Maybe that is it.

I really liked this pint of ice cream.  The almond mix-ins were quite good and the base ice cream goes very well with it though I didn't really specifically taste olive oil.  It is good -- I don't want to scare people away -- but I think I might have gotten a bit too wound up in anticipation of my first ice cream which included olive oil.  I will have to see if I can find more olive oil flavors where the specific effects are more pronounced.  That said, McConnell's makes great ice cream.  This is thick and rich ice cream and the almonds are excellent.

Milkjam Creamery - Black

Black - The Darkest Coco

When a neighbor of mine first recommended Minneapolis' Milkjam Creamery, she made a point to single out a flavor called Black.  Each time I have gone, I have been distracted by flavors which have more complex flavor combinations and I end up getting those instead.  Both times I've run into this neighbor, I've thanked her for recommending Milkjam because I enjoyed this flavor or that flavor and both times she's asked me "Did you try 'Black'?"  So I decided that I had to try this flavor.  It appears to be a simple dark chocolate sorbet, although there is a 'nut' icon on the menu next to the flavor.  I checked and found and interview with the owner of Milkjam and he said that the flavor is made with a mixture of coconut and almond milks.  The presence of non-dairy substitutes might be why it isn't labeled a 'sorbet'.  I found a link to someone who liked the flavor so much that they posted a recipe trying to mimic the flavor.  This should be interesting.

After opening the pint this is indeed black!  This is not only the blackest ice cream I have ever seen, this is one of the blackest colors I have ever seen.  This could be a tub of black finger paint.  Scooping, it is a bit softer and creamier than most sorbets.  The coconut and almond milks are doing their jobs here.  The flavor is super chocolatey but not bitter.  I read some reviews saying that it is bitter but I disagree.  I really like this flavor.  I'm not sure if the coconut and almond milks are adding anything specific flavor-wise to the mix but I really like this flavor.

This is the best dark chocolate ice cream or sorbet that I have ever had.  The color is beautiful, the texture is creamy and the flavor is delicious.  This definitely deserves to be one of MilkJam's signature flavors.  Dark chocolate lovers in Minnesota need to check this out.  The success of this flavor has me curious to try their namesake MilkJam flavor the next time I visit.  Enjoy.

Museum of Ice Cream - Vanillionaire

Vanillionaire - Vanilla Ice Cream with Wafer Cookies

We return to the Museum of Ice Cream today for a review of their Vanillionaire flavor.  This is one of the more basic flavors from this youthful brand.  It is a vanilla base with vanilla wafer cookies.  I just reviewed a pint which contained vanilla wafers.  In that review, I noted that all of the times that I have encountered that mix-in, it has been paired with a banana base.  This pint breaks that streak.  A vanilla base is used here.  I am actually surprised that more brands have not tried this.  It seems like an obvious way to spruce up vanilla.  Let's dig in.

First, I note that the carton features a whitish grey on yellow color scheme.  You can read it in person, but I always have the darnedest time trying to get my camera to deal with this lack of contrast.  Just a pet peeve there.  Opening the pint, the vanilla is the expected off-white color but instead of bean specks being visible I see crumbs on vanilla wafers.  Digging in, the vanilla base is decent.  The wafer cookie pieces are a bit small.  Perhaps I am spoiled by the large pieces of my previous pint.  They are still good, though.

This is a simple and decent pint of vanilla.  The idea of using vanilla wafers as a mix-in is a good one and I wish more brands would try this.  Perhaps most people thing people want to add their own toppings to vanilla?  The amount of wafers here is a bit light, though.  When the mix-ins are sugary, sometimes the Museum of Ice Cream overdoes it, but here I think more wafers would have been fun.