Talenti - Southern Butter Pecan

Southern Butter Pecan - Buttery Gelato with Roasted Pecans and Swirls Dulce de Leche

Today's flavor comes from Talenti Gelato.  I have been eagerly scanning freezer cases for the new layers flavors and I occasionally see a flavor in their regular line up which I have not reviewed and looks intriguing.  This is one of those flavors.  This is Southern Butter Pecan.  Butter Pecan is one of the most common and traditional flavors.  What looks intriguing here is the extra swirl of caramel (or more precisely here: Dulce de Leche).

Let's check it out!  Unscrewing the lid, I see the off-white beige color of the butter gelato base with some speckling of the dulce de leche swirl.  Digging in, I can taste a little bit of the butter flavor in the base.  I do not usually associate buttery-ness with gelatos, but this works pretty well.  I encounter the pecans next.  These are fairly substantial in size -- not too small, about the size of 'halves' -- and taste quite good.  They are roasted and provide quite a bit of crunch.  The dulce de leche swirl looks like it has mostly blended into the base.  I see bits of it from time to time but there is nowhere near as much of it as I would have guessed from looking through the clear container.

This is a decent implementation of a butter pecan.  I am not sure that this flavor lends itself to Talenti's gelato texture, though.  When I think of a butter pecan, I think of ice creams from Häagen-Dazs and Graeter's where the buttery-ness adds to the creamy texture.  The mostly disappearing dulce de leche swirl keeps this from being a 'butter pecan plus' flavor like all the bourbon pecan implementations out there.  Don't get me wrong, it still has good flavor and Talenti fans may still want to check it out.  It's just that I don't think this particular flavor combination is in Talenti's wheelhouse.

Van Leeuwen - Brooklyn Brown Sugar Chunk

Brooklyn Brown Sugar Chunk - Muscovado Brown Sugar Ice Cream with Cookie Dough Bites, Candied Walnuts and Fudge Brownie Pieces

I found that Kowalski's on Grand carries Van Leeuwen Ice Cream.  This is a Brooklyn-based brand that I often have when I visit my sister in New York City.  I believe I had found a pint at Tim & Tom's Speedy Market in Saint Anthony Park a while back (see review here) but I have not seen any there recently.  It's good to know there is a place nearby where I can sample this interesting brand.  The flavor for today is called Brooklyn Brown Sugar Chunk.  It is a muscovado brown sugar base with a lot of mix-ins: cookie dough, brownies & candied walnuts.  I had not heard of muscovado brown sugar before.  I guess the word comes from the Spanish/Portuguese words mascabado/mascavado which mean lessened or diminished.  What it means for brown sugar is that it is not completely refined, so it has more of a molasses flavor than normal brown sugar would.

On to the ice cream!  Removing the lid, the brown sugar base has a light tan color which is consistent with brown sugar.  It is a light color but a browner hue than a light caramel, but not as brown of a hue as a light coffee.  I do not see much for mix-ins just yet.  Digging my spoon in, the base is thick and creamy.  I read an article recently saying that what makes Van Leeuwen bases different from other brands is that they use more egg yolks than anyone else.  So, it creates a custard-like texture.  This particular pint does not have quite as much of a mousse-like textire as the previous pint that I had but it is still easy to scoop.  The brown sugar flavor is good but mild.  I guess I taste a bit of molasses in there, but I believe the point of the base here is to be a vehicle for the mix-ins and not have its own flavor stand out too much.  The first mix-in I encounter is the cookie dough.  It is a small nugget of chewy dough (no chips) and it is pretty good.  Next I found one of the candied walnuts.  These are crunchy, sweet and quite tasty.  Not as thick of a candy coating as a praline pecan but the coating was definitely noticeable.  The walnuts appear to be peeled as I did not notice any of the bitterness that can come with walnut skins.  On a subsequent scoop, I found some of the brownie.  These brownies are swirled a bit, so they form a thick and gooey ribbon of chocolate rather than a chunks that you bite into.  The chocolate was tasty here, but it doesn't stick out texturally as much as some other brownie mix-ins do.  Eating my way down the bottom of the pint, I think I noticed more walnuts than the other two.  I did not mind that as that was my favorite of the mix-ins.

This is a fun flavor from Van Leeuwen.  The brown sugar base was quite good and the mix-ins were well distrubuted throughout the pint.  Sometimes pints with too many mix-ins can feel a bit overloaded and the flavors blend together too much.  Here, they dial back a bit on the mix-in density a bit and let you enjoy each type one at a time.  So, it's not the densest of pints mix-in-wise but it is a good mix.  I especially liked the candied walnuts.

Alden's - Caramel Macchiato

Caramel Macchiato - Coffee Ice Cream Swirled with Sweet Cream Ice Cream and a Ribbon of Salted Caramel

I am trying a new brand today.  This is from Alden's Ice Cream of Oregon.  Many local grocery stores stock it (I got my pint at Lunds in Highland Park) and it is mid-premium priced.  At the moment, I am not able to trek around the cities looking for pints as much as normal, so it seems like a good time to try new things (or at least new to me) that are available at the stores that I am shopping at.  The carton says that Alden's has been around since 2004, but some digging shows that they are a subsidary brand of Oregon Ice Cream that has been around since 1938.  Recently, the parent company merged the Alden's and Julie's Organic brands into a single line of flavors. 

Today's flavor is called Caramel Macchiato.  It is a coffee ice cream swirled with a sweet cream a ribbon of salted caramel.  I have seen this flavor combination a couple of times before.  Recently from a 7-11 exclusive Ben & Jerry's flavor Cold Brew Caramel Latte but also older flavors such as Häagen-Dazs' Sweet Cream Coffee Caramel (discontinued) and Ben & Jerry's Coffee Caramel Buzz (discontinued).  Let's see how Alden's compares.

Opening the pint, a hunk of the ice cream stuck to the lid.  That usually does not happen.  Next I noticed there is some frost in the area where the ice cream broke.  My first thought is that I wonder if the pint partially melted and then was refrozen.  My next thought is that I wonder if this brand would be helped with those foil seals between the lid and the ice cream that are growing in popularity these days.  I guess I have to plunge ahead here.  The base is a light brown color -- it looks more caramel colored than coffee colored.  I do notice a nice thick caramel swirl on top near where the lid ice cream broke off.  Digging in, I unfortunately do notice the ice crystals in the cream when I eat it.  I can hold the ice cream in my mouth to melt the ones on the top but I also notice smaller crystals throughout the rest of the pint.  It is giving it a grainy texture.  The caramel swirl tastes fairly good despite this.  The base coffee ice cream is more blended with sweet cream rather than swirled with it giving it a very muted coffee flavor.  The caramel flavor goes well with it.  It wouldn't be a bad pint if it wasn't for the crystallization.  That's a substantial 'if' though.

The ingredient mix seems promising but I can't get past the crystallization issue here.  It is especially frustrating because this is my very first pint from Alden's.  Is this just a fluke?  I got a bad pint which was sitting in a warm spot on a truck?  Or is this a quality issue with the Alden's brand.  Has anyone else had issues with Alden's?  I guess I'll have to try another pint at some point to see.  Interestingly, this did happen with my very first pint from Graeter's a few years ago -- with the famous Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip no less!  That one was a total fluke and I never had an issue with Graeter's again.  I'm not sure what to think here.  Stay tuned for future Alden's reviews (although I do not have another pint in my home freezer just yet).

Häagen-Dazs - Vanilla Chocolate Chip

Vanilla Chocolate Chip - Vanilla Ice Cream with Chocolate Chips

Häagen-Dazs pints were on sale at Lunds in Saint Paul recently.  I know I have reviewed most of the extant flavors of Häagen-Dazs but not quite all of them.  I did some research to figure out which flavors were left and found three of them!  The first of those flavors is Vanilla Chocolate Chip.  It is a simple flavor.  I can see why I had not gotten around to it yet.  I like to focus on the new or the limited batch and then I'll gravitate towards the unique.  A while back I did compare their vanilla and vanilla bean flavors -- which was interesting!  This is just their vanilla with chocolate chips.

The top of the pint has a bright white color with several of the large chocolate chips visible right away.  These chips appear to be the same rectangular chunks used in their Mint Chip implementation.  The ice cream itself has a bright vanilla flavor which I have enjoyed in other Häagen-Dazs pints.  The chips are thick and require some biting but deliver quite a bit of chocolate once you do.

This is a solid implementation of a vanilla chocolate chip flavor.  It's got a bright vanilla and chunky chocolate -- as opposed to the melt-in-your-mouth chocolate of some brands (like Izzy's).  This is a perfectly good flavor, but I don't know if I would ever get it knowing that this is so close in the ingredient list to a classic flavor like Vanilla Swiss Almond.  But if you can't have almonds for some reason, then this flavor will do.

Tillamook - Sea Salt & Honeycomb Toffee

Sea Salt & Honeycomb Toffee - Honey Frozen Custard with Honeycomb Toffee & Sea Salt

Today's flavor comes from the Tillamook Creamery in Oregon:  Sea Salt & Honeycomb Toffee.  I bought it at Kowalski's on Grand in Saint Paul.  When I first saw this flavor, I thought it might be a renaming of their Salted Caramel Toffee flavor, but I checked their website and saw that these are two distinct flavors.  Both have toffee, but today's flavor is honey-based instead of caramel-based.

Let's check it out!  Removing the lid, I see (or am reminded that) Tillamook has joined the chorus of brands that add (a) an extra seal over the top of the pint and (b) put a fun message on it.  "Mine.  All mine."  Yes, yes.  Sorry readers!  I'm eating all of this!  Go buy your own!  Ha ha.  OK.  Peeling back the seal I see the base is an off white color with little crumbs of mix-ins visible.  Digging in, this is very creamy stuff.  I note that this is labeled as a 'frozen custard' which means that there's extra eggs in the mix.  That gives it a softer texture as well.  The flavor is good.  I can taste the honey.  I often have trouble tasting the honey in a honey base (it'll taste good, but like a differently sweetened sweet cream) but I taste it here.  It is not super strong, though.  Immersed throughout the pint are honeycomb candy pieces.  These are excellent!  Sometimes honeycomb pieces can be a little too much like hard candy and sometimes I see the other extreme and it completely dissolves.  These are the perfect texture.  They are crunchy in an almost nutty way. 

I really enjoyed this pint.  It was one of the best honey-based flavors that I have had -- both the base and the mix-in.  It is a frozen custard, so expect it to be a little softer in texture than the usual pint but flavor-wise this is excellent.  If honey & honeycomb is your thing, then check it out.

Häagen-Dazs - Whiskey Hazelnut Latte

Whiskey Hazelnut Latte - Coffee Whiskey Ice Cream with a Hazelnut Fudge Swirl and Chocolate Espresso Flakes

Häagen-Dazs has a pair of new flavors for their Spirits Collection for this year.  I was able to find one of them at Cub Foods in the Midway neighborhood of Saint Paul so I eagerly scooped it up and took it home.  Tonight is the night that I check it out.  The base here listed as "coffee whiskey" while the mix-ins are a hazelnut fudge (that is Nutella-like) swirl and then some chocolate espresso flakes.  This actually sounds quite a bit like one of the other spirts flavors: Irish Cream Brownie.  What is the difference between "irish cream" and "coffee whiskey (ice) cream"?  I guess there is nothing wrong with having two flavors based on similar liqueurs (there are two 'bourbon' flavors in the collection here and here) but I find it interesting that they describe them so differently.  I guess the picture on the side of the carton shows a straight whiskey where the Irish Cream Brownie picture shows a creamed liqueur, but the whiskey is getting blended with milk and cream for the ice cream.  Anyhow, I think I am belaboring a trivial point.  The mix-ins are different.  Here a fudge swirl and espresso flakes are used instead of brownies. 

Enough chatter, let's get on to the ice cream!  Opening the pint and peeling back the label, the base has a creamy flavor a little more cocoa colored than coffee colored and I can see the fudge swirl and a few of the chocolate flakes right away.  Digging in, I taste the whiskey flavor right away.  I do taste some coffee flavor, but mainly my mouth gets flooded with the smell of whiskey.  These Spirits Collection pints do such a great job of capturing the aromatic effect of the liquors used without any burning sensation.  Also, the ice cream maintains its usual consistency -- alcohol can lower the freezing point which can result in a gooey pint.  So, all the flavor without the 'booziness'.  I approve.  The fudge swirl is delicious.  The flakes are crunchy and chocolatey and I can taste a bit of coffee in there as well.

This is a really good spirits pint from Häagen-Dazs.  One of my favorites of the series.  The aromaticity really comes through and accentuates all the chocolate mix-ins.  My opinion is that this one tops Irish Cream Brownie (but that one wasn't too bad either).  Check it out if you are a chocolate fan and like these Spirits flavors.

Grand Ole Creamery - Coffee Break

Coffee Break - Espresso Coffee Ice Cream with Crushed Cookies

I have not reviewed a pint from Grand Ole Creamery in a while, but I recently found a pint I hadn't yet tried at Kowalski's on Grand in Saint Paul and decided to check it out.  This is Coffee Break.  It is basically a cookies and cream with a coffee base.  I have had Izzy's version of this flavor with the same name.  At the time of that review, I noted what a cool idea this was for a flavor but now I realize that Grand Ole Creamery was probably first (the scoop shop is ~15 years older).  It'll be fun to see how these two implementations compare. 

Removing the lid, I see the creamy beige color of the coffee base and then several small specks of cookies in there.  Digging in, the coffee ice cream is good.  It is a good coffee flavor which is not too strong or too bitter.  As for the mix-ins, I can tell that the cookie pieces are from Oreos (I occasionally see some white from the creme filling) but the pieces are quite small.  They add a bit of chocolate flavor and coffee and chocolate go well together.

This is a decent pint of ice cream.  The coffee flavor was pretty good and there are some crunchy cookies in there to make it a little more interesting.  That said, the density of cookies is far less than what I'm used to in cookies and cream implementations.  If you check out the pictures in Izzy's version of this flavor, there are bigger cookie pieces and more of them.  So, I was a bit disappointed here.  I will repeat what I said in the Izzy's review, though.  I think more brands should try a coffee cookies and cream flavor.  Oreos (or imitation Oreos) are a great way of delivering chocolate.