Bebe Zito - Marvelous Mrs. Hazel

Marvelous Mrs. Hazel - Chocolate Hazelnut and Coconut Cream Base with Vegan Chocolate Cookie Dough

 

Today is a vegan flavor from Bebe Zito in south Minneapolis called Marvelous Mrs. Hazel.  The flavor name is a reference to the excellent Marvelous Mrs Maisel series on Amazon Prime.  They usually release seasons around this time of year, but it looks like shooting has been delayed by the pandemic.  Maybe this ice cream will tide me over until then.  The base of this flavor is chocolate hazelnut -- same ingredients as Nutella -- and vegan chocolate cookie dough is the mix-ins.  Sounds chocolatey.  Let's check it out.

Removing the lid, the chocolate hazelnut base is very dark and I can see a couple of large cookie dough chunks on top as well.  Digging in, this is actually quite 'creamy' for a non-dairy flavor.  The flavoring ingredients help out here -- nutella is creamy after all.  Coconut cream is used to help in the base as well, but the chocolate flavor here is so strong that you do not notice.  The cookie dough chunks are a lot like brownies -- or vegan brownies, I guess.  They are soft and chocolatey and my spoon slices through them quite easily.  This is a very chocolatey point.  It is delicious.

I enjoyed this pint from Bebe Zito.  It reminds me a lot of chocolate fudge brownie flavor.  I have had their chocolate fudge brownie before and it did remind me a lot of it (without the gochujang spice, of course)  There is hazelnut in the mix, but I never taste hazelnut in these chocolate-hazelnut blends, it just adds a creamy texture for me.  The cookie dough pieces here were thick, chocolatey and chewy -- very brownie-esque.  If you're looking for a well done non-dairy version of that flavor, this is it.  It's so thick and chocolatey, you forget that it's not dairy.

 

Milkjam Creamery - Duuude

 

Duuude - Cookie Butter Ice Cream with Chocolate Covered Munchies

Today is the third of the four January flavors from Milkjam Creamery.  This was is called Duuude (instagram link here).  It is a vegan flavor (so it is non-dairy) and features a cookie butter base with chocolate-covered munchies.  As mentioned in previous reviews, cookie butter is fully baked cookies which are crushed into a powder and them mixed with something to make it a spreadable paste.  Often, sweetened condensed milk is used for this, but since this is vegan flavor, they must use something else.  For the mix-ins, they are fairly vague on what kinds of "munchies" are used, but the instragram link says that potato chips are involved.  Let's check it out.

Opening the pint, I see the off-white-beige color of the cookie butter base.  I can tell it is non-dairy right away by how solid it looks.  Digging my spoon in, it has a dense and grainy texture to it.  That's all the sugar and the crushed cookies.  The taste is quite sweet.   It tastes like cookies.  It's a lot like cookie dough, but I understand that cookie butter is cooked and then crushed.  As I scoop my way down, the mix-ins are quite large and chunky.  The instagram link above mentioned potato chips but they are not too salty and there are other chunky treats involved as well.  Some of them taste a bit like no-bake cookies.  All of these chunks are covered in quite a bit of chocolate so there is a lot of chocolate flavor to them.  Texture-wise, they are more crumbly-chunky than crunchy.  I quite like these mix-ins actually.

This is an interesting vegan flavor from Milkjam Creamery.  A non-dairy cookie butter churned into a non-dairy base is quite creative and takes some skill.  It is quite sweet which I guess is understandable considering all the cookies involved.  Cookie lovers looking for a non-dairy pint could give this a try, but personally I think this one might be better as a dairy flavor.  These fun mix-ins in a creamy cookie-butter ice cream sounds quite good.

 

Izzy's - Caramel Cookie Crunch

Caramel Cookie Crunch - Sweet Cream with Chocolate Sandwich Cookies and a Caramel Swirl

 

Izzy's Ice Cream has a new flavor!  Caramel Cookie Crunch.  I found it at Widmer's market on St Clair & Prior, but I have since seen it at several Lund's markets in the city.  They also carry them at Hyvee and Kowalski's.  If you've been following the ice cream scene in the Twin Cities area, you'll know that one of the big stories of the pandemic is Izzy's Ice Cream closing both of its scoop shops and focusing on factory-made pints for sale in grocery stores.  Back in December of 2019 (just a few months before the pandemic hit), the founders of Izzy's were featured in a local business podcast called By All Means (link here) where they discussed their goals of increasing their grocery store pint business.  It is interesting how the pandemic greatly accelerated their time scale.  I am a bit bummed that their scoop shops are no longer around because they had a much wider selection available there.  They are down to about a dozen flavors now.  That's just the selfish ice cream lover in me talking though.  I understand the business reasons why they did this.

This new flavor is called Caramel Cookie Crunch.  It is a cookies and cream ice cream with a caramel swirl.  It looks like a re-imagining of one of their old scoop shop flavors called Caramelia Cookie Crunch which I reviewed a couple of years ago.  I debated whether or not I needed to write a new review, but decided that it would be fun to write about Izzy's again.  Let's check it out!

Removing the lid, I see a light colored base with the finely specked cookie crumbs immersed in them -- typical of cookies and cream implementations.  Plus, I see a beautiful single swirl of caramel across the top.  Digging in, the base tastes like a good version of a cookies and cream flavor.  I can taste the sweet milky flavor of the ice cream more than the average rendition. Some versions steep the cookies in the milk for a long time before churning creating a 'cookie milk' flavor.  Here, it is a brighter sweet cream base.  The cookie crumbs are of two different sizes.  There are the fine crumbs which are blended fully into the base and then there are these large chunks which are dispersed randomly throughout like mix-ins.  Back in the scoop shop, they used Oreo brand cookies, but now that it's packaged in stores they use their own imitation chocolate sandwich cookie.  This cookies are good, deliver a lot of chocolate flavor, but you can tell they are not Oreos.  The chocolate that Oreo uses has a very distinctive flavor.  Then, the salted caramel swirl is quite delicious.  I taste it right away on the top of the pint.  The swirl does disappear from time to time -- I was not able to get the caramel on every spoonful -- but it is quite potent and delicious when I do encounter it.  I do not know if this was intentional to keep the caramel from overwhelming the pint or a mixing issue when the swirl was added.

This is a delicious new cookies and cream flavor from Izzy's.  Compared to their old scoop shop flavor, this flavor has a brighter milky flavor in the ice cream and a bit less caramel.  The caramel flavor is still very delicious at the lower levels, though.  Think of it as cookies and cream with a caramel twist instead giving caramel the top billing.  I will continue to follow Izzy's and see if they have any plans on adding more flavors.

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

Talenti - Raspberry Cheesecake

Raspberry Cheesecake - Cream Cheese Gelato with Raspberry Sauce and Graham Crust Pieces

Today I am trying the Raspberry Cheesecake flavor from Talenti Gelato.  This flavor debuted in 2015 and is "recipe #31" on their menu.  That means that it was not one of their original flavors but it came out in the first few years.  I bought this at the Target in the Midway neighborhood of Saint Paul.  I have had a raspberry cheesecake once before -- from Sweet Science.  It was in that review that I noticed that I had not tried this Talenti flavor yet.  So here I am trying it.  I have had Talenti's Roman Raspberry sorbet which has really a intense raspberry flavor.  It is one of those radioactively bright colored sorbets that catches your eye when you walk past the Talenti section of the freezer case.  It will be interesting try this cheesecake flavor where the raspberry is muted with cream cheese.

Unscrewing the lid, I see the creamy off-white color of the cream cheese base with some pinkish hues of the raspberry sauce swirl.  Digging in, I taste the raspberry right away even though the spoonful is mostly white in color.  A little bit of raspberry goes a long way.  The cream cheese base is thicker than the usual Talenti base and serves as a good vehicle for the flavor.  Scattered throughout the pint are little chunks of graham cracker crust pies.  These have a gritty texture, but dissolve quickly in my mouth -- I do not have to chew them.

This is a delicious pint of raspberry cheesecake gelato from Talenti.  For those who think the Roman Raspberry sorbet is too intense, or for those who prefer gelato to sorbet, this is a great way to get a raspberry flavor from Talenti.  Compared to Sweet Science's Raspberry Cheesecake flavor, this is not as good.  Sweet Science has more intense raspberry, bigger chunks of crust and a thicker cream cheese base.  That said, Sweet Science is a super-premium local brand so it will cost you more.  This Talenti pint is still quite good if you don't live in the Twin Cities or if Talenti fits your price range better.  Enjoy.

Milkjam Creamery - Bad Grandpa

 

Bad Grandpa - Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

Minneapolis' Milkjam Creamery has four new flavors for January (instagram link here).  I am liking all the pre-packaged pints from Milkjam during the pandemic.  In previous years, I have had trouble finding the new flavors they are promoting in their scoop shop in pints but the takeout/curbside emphasis this past year has changed that.  I picked up all four flavors and will be reviewing them shortly.  The theme this month is old flavors to celebrate their fifth anniversary.  Today's flavor is called Bad Grandpa (instagram link here).  It is a blueberry cheesecake flavor.  I googled the flavor name and I guess it is probably a reference to the movie of the same name in the Jackass franchise.  That movie was actually nominated for an Academy Award for Makeup and Hairstyling for turning Johnny Knoxville into a bad grandpa (it got beat out by the Dallas Buyers Club).  OK, enough about movies, let's get to the ice cream!

Opening the pint, the blueberry cheesecake base has a magenta color and I can see blueberries mixed in already.  Digging in, the blueberry flavor is very delicious!  Not all blueberry bases have a strong flavor, but this one does.  It's very flavorful.  The blueberry mix-ins add to this flavor.  Also embedded in the mix are hunks of graham cracker -- representing the crust of a piece of cheesecake.  This is not noticeably a 'cheesecake' flavor -- no mix-ins or specific cream cheese flavor and it is not super dense.  That said, it is possible that cream cheese blended into the base is making it a bit thicker than it otherwise would be.

This is an excellent blueberry flavor from Milkjam Creamery.  I wanted to say that it is the best blueberry flavor that I have ever had.  I checked my archives and I had said the same thing about Izzy's old Blueberry Cheesecake flavor that I had almost exactly a year ago.  Collecting my thoughts, they are both really amazing.  Izzy's had separated out the blueberry from the cheesecake with a swirl while this pint blends the two into the same base.  But since I wrote that review last year, Izzy's has switched to factory-made pints only with a much smaller flavor list and this flavor is no longer on their menu.  So, if you want excellent blueberry cheesecake ice cream, you have to get this flavor from Milkjam Creamery.  It is so good!

 

 

 

Bebe Zito - Pistachio Almond

Pistachio Almond - Pistachio Almond with Almond Marzipan.

 

Today I return to Bebe Zito of south Minneapolis for their Pistachio Almond flavor.  I bought it at their scoop shop on 22nd & Lyndale.  According to their flavor page, the pistachios are from Bronte, Sicily which is on the west-northwest slopes of the Mount Etna, Volcano.  These growing conditions give the pistachios a greener color.  Instead of almond pieces, the almonds are delivered in the form of marzipan -- a sweet confection made with crushed almonds and/or almond extract.  I have not had pistachio in a while so I am looking forward to this.

Opening the pint, the pistachio has a very bright green color.  It is almost fluorescent.  They were not kidding when they said the pistachios from Bronte were greener.  Digging in, this is a sweeter than usual pistachio ice cream.  There are no mix-ins, so it looks like the marzipan has been ground up and fully blended into the pistachio base.  The pistachio/marzipan blend is still quite delicious, though.  The marzipan adds sweetness and a bit of aroma but it is still primarily a pistachio flavor.

I enjoyed this pint.  I have not had pistachio ice cream in a while, so this was fun.  People should be aware that despite the flavor name, there are no crunchy nut mix-ins.  Pistachio with crunchy almonds would make for a fun flavor (surprisingly I can't find that flavor in my archive) but that is not this.  What the blended marzipan here does is create a twist on the usual pistachio flavor.  This is sweeter than the usual pistachio.  With those caveats out of the way, this is well-done and delicious.  If that appeals to you, check it out.