** ~ Ice Cream Eating Now Thread -- Round 4 ~ **

[AdamWW]

Oh yeah! That and the hazelnuts were literally everywhere and almost in every bite. This is why S&S will always be king!

My freezer is set at 0 deg F and it works fine. Mine are always solid and I always let them temper before scooping. Depending on the density of the base, I will either let it temper in the refrigerator (if a lighter base) or straight on the counter top (if it's a premium or more dense base).

Hopefully Tyler comments on this. I know he stocks his pints for his 402 Creamery company at a much colder temperature than he does at his house just cause he likes his pints to be "softer" immediately upon pulling them from the freezer for scooping.

I agree... salt & straw holds both my #1 brand spot for regular as well as vegan options. I haven't There's a couple local shops near me that come close, but salt & straw wins on the base alone honestly. I think the local ones have a slight advantage simply because they have fresher mix-ins... but even then, S&S is my choice.

Interesting on the temperature front. Maybe I'm just a picky person when it comes to texture

[Tyler2106]

I'm curious: what temperature do most of ya'll keep your freezer? I like my ice cream to be less tempered and it seems like even at -6F it's not super-firm.

I've found 5-8F to be ideal scooping temp and by the time you sit down and eat it's at its most flavorful. The colder the ice cream the less flavorful tasting it is #science

All Vice Cream and New Orleans ice cream was clearance at Harris Teeters. $2.50-3 per container. Picked up a couple of each, Beignets au lait and Chocolate City for NOLa and Higher Grounds and Bourbon Mash for VG. VG base was terrible last time, hopefully these are better.

I want to try more of the New Orleans ice cream. I hear they have a few good flavors, but never cared to order online.

[ugasar]

Graeter's Chunky Chunky Hippo


It's been way too long since I have scooped a Graeter's pint and this one definitely delivered. Of course, the premium base is creamy and dense, but the flavor is what really makes this one unique. The toffee base is replicated to perfection. It is full of sweet brown sugar flavor, but also has a strong buttery taste to it that adds a bit of saltiness.



The mixins are plain and simple, but they work. The salted roasted peanuts have the normal texture of a peanut amidst the ice cream. They were scattered evenly from top to bottom of the pint. Each peanut is halved and has a hard chew to it.



The flavor of the peanuts is great, but isn't exactly as described. It lacks the roasted flavor, but the saltiness could not have been any better. Every bite is full of peanut flavor that has a strong salty aftertaste.



The milk chocolate caramel truffles have a crunchy outer shell that gives way to a gooey and chewy center. I was impressed with the amount of them, as well as their distribution across the pint. They were pretty dense too, which is a great thing when it comes to mixins.



The combination of the milk chocolate and caramel is a great duo. The shell has a classic milk chocolate flavor that melts away into the caramel center. It wasn't quite as sweet as the base, but the caramel had just as much butter flavor as the toffee base, which is usually hard to execute.



Graeter's is normally hit and miss with me, but this pint was easily one of their better ice creams. The base is easily one of the best toffee flavors I have ever scooped in an ice cream. The peanuts weren't roasted, but did make up for most of that with their saltiness. To top it off, Graeter's added truffles that combined sweet milk chocolate with even more buttery caramel. I guess it sold so well for a summer limited batch that they decided to bring it back again. And trust me, it is worth a purchase! B+

[ADD61]

Salt & Straw Apple Brandy & Pecan Pie:

Much better effort, but the description is once again deceptive.


The large chunks (think almost half your thumb) were nicely chewy with an balanced nut/molasses ratio.

Shortbread crust is minimal in thickness and doesn't play a significant role overall.

However, they are not pieces of pecan pie (grew up in the South unlike these hippies). Much closer to a Pecan Caramel Cookie Bar.


Base is really tasty. By the description, you'd expect a very boozy vanilla ice cream since S&S "spike(s) it with lots and lots of Clear Creek apple brandy".

Far from it. What alcohol notes are present are very mild. Quite enjoyable tho.

Tbh, as good as the "bars" are, this custard's combination of flavors was my favorite aspect of the pint.

Will get back to Philly in Jan to keep going through the Dec. shipment, but stick to previous advice: not a "bad" month, but perfectly skipable.

This is so dead on. I really enjoyed this. My only complaint was I would have preferred the bars be smaller and more spread in the pint. It works e cause the base is so good but with no swirl or true pecan pie element more pieces of the bars would have been the move IMO.

[OT2000]

I've been wanting to try NOLA ice cream for a while now, and I'm pretty sure my Earth Fare just started stocking some of their flavors. Please let me know your thoughts as I'm probably going to pick up a few pints soon!

Base was pretty creamy, not too bad at all. Worth picking up

[AdamWW]

Looks like Ben and Jerry's is releasing a couple new non-dairy flavors: Cinnamon Buns and Peanut Butter Half Baked.

I'm quite curious to see how Cinnamon Buns turns out, given in my experience cinnamon/spice centered non-dairy options are usually the best (ie - snickerdoodle).

Hopefully I can pick some up locally.

[ADD61]

The new B&J flavors don’t sound terribly exciting but at least they went with some different concepts for a big brand. I’m sure one of the three will be a kind of sneaky good. It seems like the initial shipments are usually lacking swirl or mix-in components so I will probably wait a few months before buying them.

[crpav]

Excited for the new flavors just because new but knowing my local option to buy they won't get them or won't get them for MONTHS OR YEARS! If they are limited then I have no chance.

[ADD61]

Excited for the new flacors just because new but knowing my local option to buy they won't get them or won't get them for MONTHS OR YEARS! If they are limited then I have no chance.

I haven't tried it yet but the shipping option from B&J might be worth it if you don't get distribution in your area. $9 shipping for $50 of product is n't solid if you know they won't popup for a while

[AdamWW]

Eric posted a video review on his YouTube for the non-vegan new truffle ones. Seems like at least one of them was decent

[Tyler2106]

I haven't tried it yet but the shipping option from B&J might be worth it if you don't get distribution in your area. $9 shipping for $50 of product is n't solid if you know they won't popup for a while

That's not a bad price at all for shipping. I've never looked at their online store because I've never been interested enough to pay the higher prices for shipping. With the new vegan and truffle flavors, I might have to take a look. It does take a while for new stuff to hit my area and I am too lazy to drive all around town looking to see if stores have them.

[crpav]

That's not a bad price at all for shipping. I've never looked at their online store because I've never been interested enough to pay the higher prices for shipping. With the new vegan and truffle flavors, I might have to take a look. It does take a while for new stuff to hit my area and I am too lazy to drive all around town looking to see if stores have them.

I agree. They have a good amount of flavors that I can't get locally so I might place an order for like 10 pints.

[ugasar]

I haven't tried it yet but the shipping option from B&J might be worth it if you don't get distribution in your area. $9 shipping for $50 of product is n't solid if you know they won't popup for a while

That's not a bad price at all for shipping. I've never looked at their online store because I've never been interested enough to pay the higher prices for shipping. With the new vegan and truffle flavors, I might have to take a look. It does take a while for new stuff to hit my area and I am too lazy to drive all around town looking to see if stores have them.

I agree. They have a good amount of flavors that I can't get locally so I might place an order for like 10 pints.

It may just be coincidence, but.... When I ordered online for Marshmallow Moon, it was arguably the most loaded B&J's pint that I've ever scooped from them!

[Tyler2106]

It may just be coincidence, but.... When I ordered online for Marshmallow Moon, it was arguably the most loaded B&J's pint that I've ever scooped from them!

Interesting. It's $63 for all the new truffle, vegan, and marshmallow flavors plus an ice cream scoop. That isn't bad at all. Might have to pull the trigger.

[crpav]

Interesting. It's $63 for all the new truffle, vegan, and marshmallow flavors plus an ice cream scoop. That isn't bad at all. Might have to pull the trigger.

Wife going to throw me out if I do. I am still working through the Coolhaus order I made. I actually got about 6 extra pints due to them messing up my order so got a ways to go there plus I just got 10 tubs of lion pack edible cookie dough. That is my other addiction now on top of ice cream.

[lazymuchacho]

I agree... salt & straw holds both my #1 brand spot for regular as well as vegan options. I haven't There's a couple local shops near me that come close, but salt & straw wins on the base alone honestly. I think the local ones have a slight advantage simply because they have fresher mix-ins... but even then, S&S is my choice.

Interesting on the temperature front. Maybe I'm just a picky person when it comes to texture

Surprised your S&S vegan pints aren't super firm at that setting. My freezer must be in that ballpark and I need to temper those for ~20 mins (not the regular milk flavors) to be enjoyable.

On spread for those reviews. Well done.

This is so dead on. I really enjoyed this. My only complaint was I would have preferred the bars be smaller and more spread in the pint. It works e cause the base is so good but with no swirl or true pecan pie element more pieces of the bars would have been the move IMO.

It's not one that is worth re-scooping. Just enough to keep to hopes up for future "pie" efforts however.

[AdamWW]

Surprised your S&S vegan pints aren't super firm at that setting. My freezer must be in that ballpark and I need to temper those for ~20 mins (not the regular milk flavors) to be enjoyable.

On spread for those reviews. Well done.

Yeah they basically come out at the perfect, tempered texture, but of course... it's ice cream, so it melts, and I like savoring my expensive pints

That being said, what I've noticed with these coconut bases is that they stay in that tempered state longer without becoming liquid than dairy bases... might be due to the high saturated fat content in the coconut milk/cream.

[Tyler2106]

Yeah they basically come out at the perfect, tempered texture, but of course... it's ice cream, so it melts, and I like savoring my expensive pints

That being said, what I've noticed with these coconut bases is that they stay in that tempered state longer without becoming liquid than dairy bases... might be due to the high saturated fat content in the coconut milk/cream.

The fat in milk and cream doesn't affect freezing point and I don't think affects tempering. Sucrose, stabilizers, salt, extracts etc will affect freezing points / tempering etc.

All the reviews of the vegan S&S flavors this month has me really intrigued. Might have to order.

[ugasar]

All the reviews of the vegan S&S flavors this month has me really intrigued. Might have to order.

I think I'm going to have to order myself... Too unique and interesting to pass up!








Coolhaus Buttered French Toast


As stated with the previous few scoops from Coolhaus, the base melts pretty quickly and this is no different. However, it was creamier and not near as gummy so that was a positive this time. With that said, this is still very far from a premium ice cream, especially with only 10g of fat per serving.



Their take on butter pecan, the base is a buttered brown sugar flavor. While it did have some brown sugar flavor, it was very mild in sweetness and somewhat bland. Forget the buttery aspect, as there was no butteriness to it at all.



The pecan pralines were actually sugar coated. It was easy to notice this with their glazed coating. They had a firm chew with each bite and were plentiful throughout the pint. Most of them were chopping into bits, but there were some larger pieces every so often.



Despite the praline coating, they were pretty plain tasting. You might notice a small extra kick of sweetness initially, but for the most part, they just had a normal nutty pecan flavor.



I was most excited for toasty cake pieces, but they were actually the worst mixin in this pint. The reason was because they were absolutely flavorless and there were only a few throughout the entire pint. On the plus side, they had a nice texture that was soft and chewy.



I assumed the maple syrup was going to be a swirl, but that was not the case. Rather, it was in globs scattered throughout the pint. The texture was somewhat like the filling of pecan pie with its thick, gooey and syrup-y consistency. But it was somewhat like jello as well, which just made it a little off-putting for me.



Others may enjoy this more than I did, but something was just off for me. The brown sugar base was mild and lacked the buttery component. The pecan pralines were actually better than other pecan pints I've scooped, but the few cake pieces were completely flavorless. While the maple syrup filling was everywhere in the pint, its globby texture just didn't sit well with me. The bottom line is that this is an awesome sounding pint with poor execution. C+

[ADD61]

Dang, I thought that was supposed to be one of the better flavors.

[lazymuchacho]

The fat in milk and cream doesn't affect freezing point and I don't think affects tempering. Sucrose, stabilizers, salt, extracts etc will affect freezing points / tempering etc.

All the reviews of the vegan S&S flavors this month has me really intrigued. Might have to order.

Assuming he was referring not to freezing point but to consistency once room temp: butter vs oil.

On the fence with S&S this month. $100+ to try two flavors which might end up being less than 10's is sort of cray.

[ugasar]

Dang, I thought that was supposed to be one of the better flavors.

Tell me about it.. I had high expectations myself

[Tyler2106]

Assuming he was referring not to freezing point but to consistency once room temp: butter vs oil.

If you read my entire post, you'd have seen that I referred to both freezing points and tempering.

[ADD61]

Tell me about it.. I had high expectations myself

I had the Coolhaus Strawberry Cheesecake. Might be the best pint I’ve had from them so far. Creamy base, plenty of cheesecake chunks and the strawberry swirl was really good.

For 190 cal quality, I’m a fan.

[lazymuchacho]

If you read my entire post, you'd have seen that I referred to both freezing points and tempering.

I actually read your reply charitably hence my reply: assuming you were getting at it not affecting the speed of tempering (not that you were asserting it didn't affect the consistency once tempered).

If you meant the second, then that's actually just not believable.

[ugasar]

I had the Coolhaus Strawberry Cheesecake. Might be the best pint I’ve had from them so far. Creamy base, plenty of cheesecake chunks and the strawberry swirl was really good.

For 190 cal quality, I’m a fan.

Great news! Because I believe I only have 2 pints left, and I know for a fact that this is one of them!

[Tyler2106]

I actually read your reply charitably hence my reply: assuming you were getting at it not affecting the speed of tempering (not that you were asserting it didn't affect the consistency once tempered).

If you meant the second, then that's actually just not believable.

I guess I'm not sure what you're getting at anymore. I was just saying there is more to how soft or hard your ice cream might get when in the freezer and there is more to how fast or slow your ice cream tempers than just fat content.

Either way, I'm glad he enjoyed his order. Salt & Straw is the best at what they do. I won't be ordering the vegan flavors, even though I really want to. I'll be waiting until next month. Hope they release flavors worth ordering.

[ugasar]

I won't be ordering the vegan flavors, even though I really want to. I'll be waiting until next month. Hope they release flavors worth ordering.

Bad news my friend... February is generally their worst month. It is their chocolate series, which may sound good at first but it hasn't been worth an order for many years for me. It is usually different types of chocolate combined with order weird spices and sometimes fruits. Never mixing heavy either














Ice Cream Jubilee Sweet Potato Molasses Candy


This pint sounded very unique when I read the description that this ice cream was inspired by fluffy sweet potato pie with handmade molasses candy brittle pieces mixed in.



Just as described, the base in this pint was a little fluffier than usual and tempers rather quickly. I would still consider it a premium base, but not on the level of density as the elite companies out there. Maybe it was coincidence or maybe it was planned, but this base is lighter than my two previous pints from Ice Cream Jubilee.



The flavor of the base is perfection though. Sweet potato pie is the perfect way to describe the ice cream. The sweet potato flavor is mildly sweet, and the spices are well balanced too. Each spoonful is full of nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and allspice flavors.



The molasses candy brittle is really mixed into a swirl as well. The swirl is more prevalent than the actual brittle, but both were lacking for the most part. However, the swirl was dense and thick whenever you came across it. The bigger pools of it had pieces of brittle in the middle that provided a crispy crunch.



The swirl and brittle wasn't as sweet as you might expect. The molasses is definitely a dark molasses that is actually somewhat bitter. It is unique in the fact that it further pronounces all of the spices in the base leaving you with an even stronger fall spice, sweet potato pie flavor with each spoonful.



The take home is that, unfortunately, this pint didn't meet my expectations. The base had a great sweet potato pie flavor that was full of spices, but the density was a little to light. The molasses brittle candy was lacking overall, but did provide a nice crunch at times. It was also just a little too bitter for me. I will say that it's a unique fall ice cream, but you need to have an acquired taste for these specific flavors. B-

[SOH11]

Tyler any word on Goldbely?

[Tyler2106]

Tyler any word on Goldbely?

Nope. Maybe I'm having a bad experience with them, but they're awful. I've emailed them multiple times and no replies. They said I could sell on their website, sent me terms / information to fill out, and then went silent. At this point I am not pursuing selling on their site as I'm focusing on getting the scoop shop up and running so I can establish myself locally before going nationwide.

There are a few people that I'm willing to ship to, but it's not something I'm going out of my way to do. It's still a little too pricey for me to ship to most parts of the US right now. If you're interested in ordering, I'd imagine Ohio is cheap to ship to, so you could let me know what flavors you'd want and I could see what I could do for you.