REVIEW: Tillamook Oregon Marionberry Cheesecake Frozen Custard

July 19, 2017July 18, 2017 / seansskillet / 2 Comments

If there’s one thing Oregon does really well, it’s probably craft beer. And if there’s something else they do really well, and my personal favorite, it’s gotta be the harvesting and utilizing of the marionberry. Developed in Corvalis, Oregon in the 1940’s, the marionberry is essentially the biggest, juiciest blackberry you’ll ever eat, and its use in pies, cakes, and ice creams gets me completely amped every – single – time. No stranger to cranking out some of the Pacific Northwest’s finest dairy, Tillamook use the berry for a flavor in their premium custard line that highlights this wonderful fruit in Oregon Marionberry Cheesecake, which combines a chunky marionberry swirl with graham cracker pie crust in a mascarpone custard.

Diving into this glisteningly gorgeous white base let me tell you this stuff is CREAMY. The texture of the mascarpone custard is rich, decadent, and buttery with a fatty dairy mouthfeel that is divine. Those extra egg yolks drive this ice cream into overdrive with a decent amount of sweetness but nothing that’s too over-the-top. Unfortunately I’m not getting any kind of cheesecake-y tang that I want from a flavor that calls itself cheesecake, and instead the gentle only slightly cheesy flavor of mascarpone takes over and I find myself really wanting a bit more funk to make the profile more interesting and engaging.

The pieces of graham cracker pie crust are very ample, popping up in small chunks in almost every bite, but again, the flavor is a little lackluster. The taste is less reminiscent of a golden graham cracker and much closer to standard pie crust, which is fine, but against the not-too-tangy base, they leave a bit to be desired in terms of the ideal balance a great cheesecake can offer. They’re relatively soft and chewy, and without any sweet honey or buttery aspect I find myself getting tired of them pretty quickly. While they definitely channel “crust”, my favorite part of a good cheesecake is that rich, crumbly graham base, and I simply want more from these pieces, even though the density is on point.

Where this flavor really sings is the marionberry swirl, which is thick, chunky, juicy, bright, and sweet. Marionberry’s have a amazingly sweet and tart flavor that are on full display in this swirl, and work wonderfully in conjunction with the very rich and succulent base custard. There are actual giant chunks of marionberry’s hanging out in the jammy ribbon that bring a huge sugary acidic pop that is undeniably Oregon and undeniably delicious.

While the swirl is top notch and near perfect, it simply cannot carry the flavor to a full on victory, and as a result this Tillamook custard is a textural dream and a bit of a tasting miss. It’s luxurious and at times delicious, but overall falls a short of a triumphant addition to the custard chronicles.

Rating: 7.5/10
Found at: Safeway ($4.99)

REVIEW: Steve’s Ice Cream’s Southern Banana Pudding

July 14, 2017July 13, 2017 / seansskillet / Leave a comment

The modern age of gourmet ice cream can be highlighted by one dense, intense, and hopefully ample, element: the mix-in. Yes, a super premium base is still key, but all of the things that compliment it are what separate many brands killing it or falling short in the gourmet game. Chunks of this and gobs of that all define the evolution of what craft ice cream has become – but where did it all begin? In 1973 in Somerville, Massachusetts, Steve’s ice cream was the first shop to use the term mix-in, and rather than have the classic array of strawberry or chocolate chip, Steve allowed customers to choose whatever they wanted to mix into their ice cream and create flavors as simple as Heath bar and vanilla (the original) or as insane as their mind could dream up. Of course, this concept is much more reminiscent of what would become Dairy Queen’s Blizzard and McDonald’s McFlurry, but the idea of putting multiple, possibly contrasting, elements into an ice cream base was born in the 70’s by Steve Herrell.

Now that you’ve had a brief history lesson, I’ll share the good news that Steve’s is still making premium ice cream with mix-ins galore, and my first taste of his innovation cream-age is Southern Banana Pudding, which combines banana ice cream with banana pudding and a vanilla wafer crumble.

The banana ice cream is of great quality, with a smooth and creamy mouthfeel that melts effortlessly and leaves a nice velvety feeling on my tongue. The banana pops through very organically without any strange artificial notes and has a flavor that is strong enough that it doesn’t fade too quickly and leaves a lasting banana flavor in between bites. It’s one of the most enjoyable banana ice creams I’ve had and reminds me a lot of a milkshake made with just vanilla ice cream, milk, and bananas – minus the chunkiness.

The swirl of banana cream pudding brings more solid banana flavor with a sweeter presence than the base and a jelly-like consistency that seems perfectly accurate for a frozen pudding. The two components play off of each other really well, heightening the banana effect and giving the pint more depth than if they were trying to operate on their own. The flavors don’t seem redundant and operate more like a team, delivering the big bold tropical fruit flavor very successfully.

The final piece of the banana pudding puzzle are the vanilla wafer cookies, which are integrated very well all throughout the ice cream and have softened even more than their usual self with a texture that feels somewhere in between a cookie and a cake. The subtle vanilla flavor of the cookies is indistinguishable amongst the huge wash of banana, but the textural contrast is great and as well executed as I would expect from the company that started the mix in revolution. All of the components work harmoniously on the spoon and channel the indulgent Southern treat with success.

Rating: 8/10
Found at: Grocery Outlet ($2.99)

REVIEW: Ample Hills’ The Munchies

July 12, 2017April 6, 2018 / seansskillet / 2 Comments

The munchies. A term often associated with the insatiable hunger that comes along with getting mega-baked – a sensation I learned a whole lot about in my teenage years. I remember those gripping moments of hunger that simply could not be stopped, and every single flavor was amplified in a way I never thought was possible. Now when I hear the term I tend to think about the great Flamin’ Hot mix of chips, or creating my own munch-able bowl of sweet and salty goodness. In an attempt to channel the epic-ness that is experiencing the munchies, Ample Hills have crafted a signature flavor baring the same name, which combines a pretzel-infused ice cream with clusters of Ritz crackers, potato chips, and mini M&M’s.

The pretzel-infused base is impressively on point. It’s creamy and smooth with just a hint of gumminess that I’m guessing comes from the gluten, and a flavor that reminds me of the tough, dark exterior of a giant soft pretzel. I know this ice cream is channeling hard pretzels, and that’s how it was made, but it speaks so truly to genuine pretzel flavor that I’m reminded of the similarities that good quality small hard pretzels have to the big soft ones, and not just little crunchy salty sticks. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact profile but you know when you taste it there’s an essence that makes a pretzel a pretzel and that essence is in shining form here. The one element I wish came through more prominently is saltiness, as the base has pretty much zero salty presence, and that’s a defining characteristic of the twisty snack that would have worked really well to liven the whole experience up.

The caramelized clusters in here are really great, and the caramelization aspect is key to keeping the crunch in tact in the frozen abyss. Little pieces of crumbly pretzel and the bigger balls of Ritz and potato chips add a great salty pop to the experience with a wonderful buttery chew. As good as these pieces are, I wish there were more. Throughout the container there were only a handful of the caramelized balls, and beyond that it was mostly small pieces that didn’t live up to the big satisfying crunch that the larger ones delivered.

The mini M&M’s don’t really work for me. While I know regular M&M’s can have a problem with hard-freezing in ice cream, the mini version seem to have nearly evaporated into the ice cream and I never got any bites with a good chocolate flavor. The color of the shell bleeds into the base and is very visually appealing but does nothing to add any depth of flavor or texture to the ice cream, which is a bummer given the less than desirable amount of clusters.

I love the innovation that went into this ice cream but the execution left something to be desired. With a name like the munchies it needs to bring a swift kick of sweet and salty satisfaction and the disappearance of the chocolate and lack of saltiness in the base didn’t give my tastebuds the ultimate thrill they were seeking. With a better mix in density and more prominent chocolate this flavor could be a true classic, but as it stands it’s just good, but still more impressive than most pints you could pick up at the grocery store.

Rating: 8/10 initially, 9/10 now (see below)
Found at: amazon.com via Ample Hills

UPDATE: after reading my review and seeing pictures, Ample Hills reached out and sent me a new pint that had much better quality control and way more mix-ins, which bumps the flavor up to a solid 9/10.

REVIEW: Salt & Straw’s Birthday Cake & Blackberries

July 10, 2017July 9, 2017 / seansskillet / 3 Comments

It should be pretty evident by now that ice cream is one of my absolute favorite foods, and when it comes to desserts, cake isn’t too far behind it. One of the best things about cake is that it instantly screams “celebration”, and whether it’s celebrating another year in the books or capping off a fantastic meal out, if there’s cake in my mouth, I’m feelin’ like a party. I also love it when the two worlds collide, and any number of birthday cake, funfetti, frosting, or otherwise cake-oriented ice cream flavors tend to be go-tos for me in scoop shops, and usually I swoon over the sickeningly sugary, indulgent, sweet-tooth collaboration. For this month’s homage to the berry bounty of the summer, Salt & Straw are attempting to swoon me into submission with Birthday Cake & Blackberries – which combines a vanilla frosting ice cream with blackberry jam swirl and chunks of three-vanilla cake.

The ice cream has a light frosting flavor that is surprisingly and pleasantly not too sweet. The base channels the frosted outside of Mothers Circus Animal cookies and cereal milk, with gentle vanilla notes that are rounded out and ultimately taken over by a general sweetness – but not a cloying one. The sprinkles add a nice pop of color but don’t add anything by way of texture, as it seems that they’ve been chopped up even smaller than their usual mini-rainbow selves.

The blackberry swirl is less prominent than I’m used to from Salt & Straw, and definitely much thinner. The consistency of the swirl reminds me more of a sauce than jam, with no chunks of fruit or heaviness to be found. The flavor is also a bit thin, not particularly sweet or carrying any of the tart notes I usually associate with blackberries. When my spoon gets some of the swirl it does add a little more sweetness, but without any acidity to balance it out it doesn’t really add much to the experience. I wish it had the brevity of the jams found in Roasted Strawberry Tres Leches or even this month’s Fresh Cheese and Strawberries, which would bring some more depth to an otherwise pretty “vanilla” scoop.

Where this flavor really makes me scratch my head is the cake pieces. The pieces themselves are fun-looking – classic funfetti style cake decked out with sprinkles in a vanilla sponge – but they’re very small, and as a result, crunchy. Although they pop with a nice vanilla and slightly buttery flavor, they have none of the squishy bounce or chew that I want from cake, and ultimately feel and taste much more like cookies. More than stand out as pieces or chunks they integrate themselves into the ice cream as a crumble, and do work well in tandem with the frosting flavor from the base.

Between the more subdued milky frosting notes in the base and the small crunchy cookies, this pint feels more like a nice afternoon at grandma’s house than a celebratory birthday party. Had the name of the flavor been “Sprinkle Cookies and Blackberries” I might have been more prepared for what I encountered, but as it stands this pint left me with little reason to don my pointed party hat. For those seeking a cakey scoop this summer I would recommend Baskin Robbins’ America’s Birthday Cake over this one in an instant, and you won’t have to pay to ship it.

Rating: 7/10
Found at: Salt & Straw ($11.00)

REVIEW: Little G’s Triple Cookie Dough

June 30, 2017June 28, 2017 / seansskillet / 2 Comments

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. A now scoop shop staple available at nearly every standard ice cream shop in existence, and brought to life by Ben & Jerry’s in 1984 via an anonymous flavor suggestion in their original Burlington store. Generally combining pieces of cookie dough with a vanilla base, leave it to Little G to kick it into hyper speed and take the classic to new, bold heights. For their version of the iconic concoction, Little G takes a vanilla bean base and loads it with a triple threat of chocolate chip cookie dough, double chocolate chip cookie dough, and sugar cookie dough.

The vanilla bean ice cream is absolutely spot on. Smooth and creamy with solid sweetness and a density that feels tremendously rich and buttery. I’m always a big fan of ample vanilla bean dots and the little black specks are noticeable from the jump and add a delicious authentic vanilla flavor that balances the amount of sugar beautifully. While this pint is absolutely loaded with dough, the mix in density is spot on and the base has room to breathe (“base breathability) so you can appreciate the wonderful craftsmanship that went into the ice cream itself – something I always enjoy no matter how good the mix ins or swirls may be.

Each of the three cookie doughs in the pint have a distinct flavor and they’re all delicious. My favorite of the three is the sugar cookie dough, which cuts through the base with a prominent saltiness that plays with buttery notes and is purely fun to eat. It’s decadent and naughty and feels every bit as bad boy as eating a stick of butter dipped in sugar. The double chocolate chip cookie dough is a chocolate explosion, with a good amount of chips stuck into a solid brick of cocoa laced doughy goodness. I don’t love the cookie dough as much as Grace’s brownies, but as far as a double chocolate dough goes this is up there with the best I’ve had in ice cream, not to mention it’s far less common, so bonus points for that.

The standard chocolate chip cookie dough has a more golden flavor than the sugar dough from the use of brown sugar, and has little pieces of chocolate that give it a bit of a boosted crunch. It has the perfect cookie dough essence I want inside of ice cream and it’s like all the other doughs I’ve had but just executed perfectly. I was kind of disappointed I only had two pieces of CCCD in this pint, and I wanted a bit more of balance, but I was happy with the way the dough was able to differentiate itself on taste alone, and will take more sugar cookie over chocolate cookie any day.

The only thing I would change about this flavor is making the dough pieces a bit smaller. This is easily amended with some side of spoon cutting action, but I like the dough in tandem with the ice cream and when taking the chunks as they’re presented they dominant the bite in a way that makes it challenging to get a balanced spoon. As with all Little G ice creams this one is high quality and really fun to eat, and if you gravitate towards cookie dough at your local scoop shop you’ve gotta put this on your list when you order.

Rating: 9/10
Found at: http://www.goldbely.com (use code seanpancake0 for $25 off of your first order!)

REVIEW: Phin & Phebes Peanutty Pretzel

June 23, 2017June 22, 2017 / seansskillet / Leave a comment

Life is all about second chances. After a very lackluster experience with Phin & Phebes’ Vanilla Malt Cookie Dough, I thought I would give them another shot with a flavor profile I love – sweet, salty, and nutty. Simple enough, Peanutty Pretzel combines peanut butter ice cream with chocolate covered pretzels. How could I lose?

Going in for a scoop the aroma is solid with a great peanut aura that has my hopes up. Getting a taste the peanut flavor is decently pronounced and tasty with a good balance of sweetness and a hint of salt but the texture is just…off. It’s grainy and almost sandy in a way that I haven’t experienced with ice cream before. It’s not the kind of icy freezer burn or re-freeze texture you get from an unfortunate freezer accident but feels more like the base was simply made improperly or with a powdered peanut butter instead of the real thing (which it wasn’t, I checked the ingredients). When the ice cream softens, and even approaches melting, the problem doesn’t get better, but actually worse, and feels like tiny grains of sand inside the base – not appealing.

The chocolate covered pretzels are also a miss. The first two pieces I got were completely stale and soft with another undesirable texture that just adds to the overall off-ness of this flavor. Since I’m not a quitter I kept digging and managed to get a couple good pretzels that were properly preserved and popped with a salty crunch that was really tasty. Unfortunately that success was short lived as my next two pieces were once again soft, stale, and straight up not good, which is a big bummer because the bites with the good pretzels actually offset the weird texture momentarily and achieved a pretty solid bite.

While this pint had moments of quality spoons, my overall impression is once again very low of this up-and-coming and now distributed by Walmart company. While the first flavor I had from them suffered in balancing flavors and depth, this one had straight up miscues in quality that lead to an unenjoyable experience that left me not wanting to dig in for more. I’m not going to completely write P&P off of my list for tasting in the future but I’ll need to do some research on what their strongest flavor is and see if I can find any redemption.

Rating: 5/10
Found at: Grocery Outlet ($2.99)

REVIEW: Ample Hills Ooey Gooey Butter Cake

June 16, 2017June 17, 2017 / seansskillet / 2 Comments

Ample Hills are a Brooklyn based ice cream company churning out some of the finest gourmet custard (egg yolk heavy ice cream) in the United States. They pasteurize their cream on site and bake almost all of their mix-ins in house, creating inventive and delectable flavors from top to bottom that can be ordered online or scooped at one of their seven shops in the New York area. Recently some of their flavors have been made available on Amazon, which cuts down on some of the very high shipping costs associated with ice cream and has made cream-heads like myself jump and salivate with joy. My first rendezvous with Ample Hills is Ooey Gooey Butter Cake, which combines vanilla custard with pieces of gooey butter cake – a short, dense, butter-heavy cake that originated in St. Louis in the 1930’s.

The vanilla custard is insanely creamy, rich, and dense with an absolutely perfect melty mouthfeel that is divine. The vanilla flavor isn’t super pronounced, but instead has a layered cheesecake-y depth that isn’t over the top in terms of sweetness but is through the roof with fatty dairy notes that teeter on savory like cream cheese without the tang. The abundant use of egg yolks gives a different body to the ice cream that is very unique, reminds me of eating custard cones as a youngster, and is overall fantastic. Heavy yet fluid, the only way to truly describe it is succulent.

The pieces of gooey butter cake are ample and diverse, with a rich, buttery, slightly floury presence that really flourish against the base. Some of the pieces are crunchy with a caramelized exterior that give way to a softer cake interior like the lovely edge of a brownie, and some of them are purely soft with the perfect ratio of dense and squishy. The harder pieces almost feel like they’ve been dunked in a caramel and the slightly burnt brown sugar flavor is phenomenal. This is my first time ever having ooey gooey butter cake in any application and I can’t wait to try it again.

With a base that is straight forward yet decadent and a singular mix-in that is executed flawlessly, this is one of the most perfect pints money can buy from one of the most flourishing ice cream companies in the United States. An absolute thrill to eat from beginning to end, I recommend getting your hands on some Ample Hills as soon as possible.

Rating: 10/10
Found at: Amazon.com

REVIIEW: Phin & Phebes Vanilla Malt Cookie Dough

May 29, 2017May 28, 2017 / seansskillet / Leave a comment

Phin & Phebes are a Brooklyn, NY based ice cream company founded in 2010 on the basis of churning out a small-batch product using all real non-GMO and fair trade sourced ingredients with no stabilizers or corn syrup. I’ve been seeing their name floating around for awhile but never gave them too much notice until a couple of flavors popped up at a local store that sounded too good to pass up. The first flavor I decided to dig into is Vanilla Malt Cookie Dough, which simply enough combines a vanilla malt cream with chocolate chip cookie dough.

Immediately the base hits me with a very intense sweetness, which normally I embrace in ice cream but for some reason is coming off as too sweet, almost cloying. The texture starts pretty creamy but finishes really thin and off-putting, like odd tasting cereal milk, and I gotta say I really don’t enjoy it. What I do enjoy, though, is the intense malty flavor, which has just the right amount of funkiness to distinguish it from a traditional vanilla or sweet cream. Unfortunately the malted flavor isn’t intriguing enough to offset the aggressive sweetness and lackluster texture that dominates the overall profile.

The cookie dough chunks are of average good size and have the gritty chew you would expect from this kind of mix in, but again, they taste incredibly sweet and don’t help push the flavor in any kind of enjoyable direction. While there is a nice brown sugar sheen coming from the dough I’m not getting any prominent butteriness or saltiness and the small chocolate chips are the only hint of complexity I’m getting out of this pint at all.

As an introduction to a new company I’ve been left extremely underwhelmed by Phin & Phebes and hope that this is an outlier miss flavor from a brand I was really looking forward to trying. There is nothing about this ice cream that makes me want to eat more of it and the onslaught of sugar without any kind of redemption becomes incredibly single-noted, and quite frankly, boring.
Rating: 4/10
Found at: Grocery Outlet ($2.99)

REVIEW: Little G X MdoughW Peanut Butter Fudge

May 26, 2017May 26, 2017 / seansskillet / Leave a comment

It’s well chronicled and goes without needing any explanation that peanut butter and chocolate are a match made in heaven. Peanut butter is one of the few flavors that can stand up to the big bad bully that can be chocolate, and the richness of the two compliment each other exceptionally in almost all forms of dessert. For the Little G X MdoughW entry into the PB books the two combined peanut butter ice cream with triple chocolate fudge doughies and a chocolate fudge swirl.

This my friends, this is why we Little G. The peanut butter ice cream has a beautiful balance of sweet and salty with a robust peanut flavor that is true to the nut. I’m not sure if it’s the sweetness of the other components but I’m getting a bit more saltiness from the base than I’m used to from Little G and I absolutely love it. It may sound odd, but in the past I felt like Grace’s PB base tasted like Skippy, and this one reminds me more of Jif, with a dash more salt. Lovely.

The triple chocolate fudge MdoughW doughies have a dense brownie-like texture filled with semisweet chocolate chips that give multiple layers to the flavor and added depth to the chew. The chocolate isn’t quite dark but not milky either, it’s just simply deep. Once again the MdoughW is a stellar match for mixing into ice cream, and when combined with the fantastic fudge swirl creates a brownie batter sensation that is beautiful.
Speaking of the swirl, it is thick and dark and goddamn is it good. It’s always a good thing when the clear Little G container has giant black globs along the side of it and this pint is testament to that truth. Fortunately for me, the fudge wasn’t just on the side but I got a beautiful pool towards the middle of the pint as well. As the ice cream melts and the fudge integrates itself into the base, the experience becomes just like eating a peanut butter brownie sundae with every taste and texture accounted for, aka, ice cream bliss.

This is the kind of flavor I want to hoard and never have disappear. It’s incredibly rich and decadent and all the elements are strong enough to stand on their own but work in pitch perfect harmony when eaten as a whole. Sometimes it’s the luck of the draw with small batch hand-packed pints, and for me this one was absolutely spot on. Tasty rich ribbons of fudge and a sturdy amount of MdoughW’s, but the ideal amount of what I’ll call “base breathability”, to get spoonfuls of purely creamy rich peanut butter ice cream perfection.

Rating: 10/10
Found at: http://www.goldbely.com (use code seanpancake0 for $25 off of your first order!)

REVIEW: Little G X MdoughW White Chocolate Macadamia Nut

May 24, 2017May 23, 2017 / seansskillet / 2 Comments

One of my all time favorite creamy sweet treats growing up was a frozen yogurt from TCBY called White Chocolate Mousse. It was succulent and smooth in a way that vanilla could never be, and sadly, I haven’t had that perfectly swirled soft serve in years, but have always looked for a worthy replacement. Additionally, one of my favorite cookies has always been white chocolate macadamia nut, and my love for the cookie and ice cream have very rarely come together. Once again, Little G has come to my rescue. Combining forces with MdoughW, the two have released a pint that combines white chocolate ice cream with roasted macadamia nuts, and MdoughW’s sugar cookie doughies.

The white chocolate base is fantastic. Insanely smooth and creamy, it is decently sweet with a distinct white chocolate finish that’s really hard to describe. There are no vanilla notes, especially compared to Little G’s vanilla bean, and it is less sweet than a typical sweet cream, with less of a pronounced dairy flavor. White chocolate is such a difficult taste to pinpoint, but it can generally be distinguished and attributed to the use of cocoa butter, which gives an added layer of richness that just simply works in ice cream and makes it even creamier than your typical super premium base.

The MdoughW sugar cookie doughies are delicious and taste almost exactly like a more authentic less grainy version of when I eat Pillsbury’s sugar cookie dough before baking them (shhh don’t tell anyone). They are soft and buttery with a lovely saltiness and don’t really taste like they’ve been cooked at all – and I love it. The salty flavor really shines through against the perfectly sweetened and creamy base and if this were a sugar cookie dough ice cream this is all that I would need to be immensely satisfied.

Where this pint suffers is in the execution of the buttery and always unique tasting macadamia nuts. While they’ve been roasted, they haven’t been salted or seasoned in any way and fall kind of flat, even when submerged in the sugary abyss of white chocolate. They are also too big. I appreciate the idea that they should be large enough to give a bold flavor, and they do add a legit crunch, but including whole nuts makes them incredibly hard and almost astringent, at times sucking the life out of my spoon. Had the macadamia nuts been smaller and/or candied, or even just dusted with some decent salt they could have really helped elevate the flavor to its true cookie ice cream potential.

I love the base and the sugar cookies in this one a LOT, but the treatment of the nuts and the amount of them really pull away from how awesome this pint could have been. I would love to see Grace use the white chocolate again in a flavor that doesn’t get weighed down by a hard, mouth-drying component like the macadamia’s, or maybe even just try this one again using half the amount of nuts and throwing in a couple white chips for good measure, because through and through I still really enjoyed eating this.

Rating: 8.5/10
Found at: http://www.goldbely.com (use code seanpancake0 for $25 off of your first order!)

Sean's Skillet

ice cream, snack reviews, and bay area eats

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