Fall Flavor of the Week: Campfire

   It's a pleasant 58 degrees, stars dust the velvety sky, and the swollen moon looks like a rich scoop of marshmallow ice cream. The fire crackles and spits friendly flares into the air that fade into nothingness as they fall back down. Your dad is snoring, wrapped and half-wrapped in a sweater and a sleeping bag; you are the only one still awake, and you listen to the sounds of nature around you. The warmth of the fire beckons you closer, but you know better than to crouch to close. Beside you a pile of thin sticks lay with gooey tips, the satisfaction of roasted 'mallow, melty chocolate, and crunchy graham still lingers in your belly.

  Take this and freeze it.

  This is what I was trying to capture when I thought of this ice cream. Sure, S'mores ice cream has been done before. But not this way. I've had several, and with each one I was left in want, left without that real fireside feeling. Commercialized ice cream, like Ben&Jerry's S'mores, only aims to capture the general taste of what the real treat tastes like.

   I had a different goal in mind.

Campfire - roasted marshmallow ice cream swirled with dark chocolate ice cream, layered with graham cracker

(this is a photo of my chocolate ice cream, though with peanut butter, just to give you an idea of its deep, silkiness.)

   My goal was, yes, to capture the true taste, but to also capture a feeling, a memory, an experience, an emotion that no store-bought ice cream ever can. In fact, I can't stand commercialized chocolate ice cream. Try out Ben&Jerry's S'mores and you'll see what I mean. It's not rich, it's too sweet, it's not dense, and it tastes cheap. I use Dutch processed dark cocoa and a blend of 65% specialty chocolate to create a truly rich, deep, full-bodied chocolate ice cream that has layers of flavor. (For my darkest chocolate ice cream, I use 85% chocolate; but I wanted to slide a bit closer toward the milk chocolate used in real s'mores).
   If you let my chocolate set in your mouth and move it around a bit until it melts, you'll find those layers. It is deeper than any chocolate ice cream I have ever had. It's chalky and bitter, but is balanced with sweetness and milkiness. After molding in the freezer for several hours, it still scoops like butter. It tastes like the inside of a truffle. Melts in your mouth, literally.

   The thing that actually sets this flavor apart from any of the s'mores aspirers is my Roasted Marshmallow ice cream. I don't use the word "roasted" lightly. It is a trendy thing to have "toasted marshmallow" items. I toast coconut. But I burn my marshmallows.
   I like my s'mores to have that charred, black marshmallow as its gooey backbone, not some lightly browned sugar puff that won't melt my chocolate. So, I put the marshmallows in the oven, cranked up the broiler, and let the sugars darken. It was a caramelization process. I then packed them into a blender, and added the hot milk-cream-egg mixture to it, and blended it all together. The liquid turned a dark brown color from the disintegrated blackened sugar flakes. I tested it...campfire.
   Once frozen, the true taste of the ice cream doesn't hit immediately. It's a delayed gratification. Although a hint of marshmallow does appear first, you have to let it sit and then revel in the aftertaste to really taste that roasted marshmallow. It's smokey and sweet. I combo that I am falling in love with. So, when you hear or see "toasted marshmallow" on an ice cream or dessert menu, you know that the people are too afraid to burn a few things to get at real genius. Don't be afraid to burn.

   The pints are my template to which I can craft the ice cream in any form and style I want. I wanted to recreate an actual s'more, so I thought out my layering process sufficiently: graham cracker, chocolate ice cream, roasted marshmallow ice cream, graham cracker, etc, until the pint lid sealed out the air.
   I had raving reviews about the graham cracker. Bready things do wonders to ice creams. They are like little patches of dry land that cause the mind to trip and stumble, forcing the mind to go back and really think about why that happened; and therefore causing an extreme taste invasion onto the palate, which evokes an elating response from the sensory receptors in the mind. (push up glasses)
   I believe in this counter-balancing technique. It is an attention to detail that I highly hone in on. It isn't something that I just throw together to see what happens. The graham cracker was chunky, gritty, and offered a cookie-like taste to balance out the creaminess of the other two flavors. It worked.

It was frozen s'mores.

It was frozen childhood.

-Reese O'Shirey, Esquire

Fall Flavor of the Week: Caramel Coconut Pie

 

   So, the leaves haven't deepened to their rustic hues and the temperature still has not dipped to those crisper, I-love-this-weather-so-all-my-windows-are-open-kind-of-days yet. But here at Shireshack, we like to think it has, and Fall it gloriously lingering just over the hills.
   When this season annually arrives, an array of desserts appears that we just don't see in any other part of the year. What I anticipate so eagerly are the pies. OH, the Pies! And the Thighs!
   Pies can be done so many different ways, and are truly inspiring. I am a firm believer in the nostalgic and believe we, as humans, are always trying to return to our childhoods. So, I use things from my earlier years, things that brought me joy and fond memories at the table with my family, as inspiration for my ice creams.
   My mother used to make this ice cream pie for my brother's birthdays; it was his favorite. We were not versed in the art of ice cream making then, so she simply used store-bought vanilla ice cream, let it soften, mixed it with cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk; topped it with coconut and caramel. It was a pie. It was childhood. It was ridiculous. It was good.
   Thus, with the colloquialism of the Shirey Brothers, we resurrected a childhood favorite, and froze it; and Caramel Coconut Pie ice cream was born.

Caramel Coconut Pie - perfectly toasted coconut ice cream ribboned with caramel and cinnamon-graham cracker crust and studded with fudge covered pecans

   I recently purchased a book. A magical book. Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home. Slap me on the butt and call me, Charlie! Jeni knows what she's doing. And what she's doing is right.
   So, Jeni does not use eggs in her ice cream like I do. At first I eyed her with skepticism. But that quickly changed when I began to read about why she did what she did, and completely shattered when I tried her method for myself.
   Jeni uses science to make her ice cream perfect. And perfect it is (though I haven't exactly tried it yet, only tried her method). By brother in NYC has tried the real thing, and said it was fantastic. See, in NYC they have all the latest trends. Here in Tuscaloosa we have last year's trends.
   So, this new method uses milk, cream, sugar, corn syrup, cream cheese, and corn starch. Jeni had my same views of Today's ice creams being too sweet, so she reduces the sugar amount. The corn syrup is a way to sweeten the ice cream with less sugary strength. I thought the cream cheese was crazy because it would give the ice cream a cheesecake flavor. But the amount is minimal, and instead it acts as a major emulsifier. The hero is the cornstarch. Corn starch acts as a water shepherd. When it is added it forces any stray water in the mixture to bind with itself, and therefore eliminates all chances for that water to turn into icy particles. How neat is that?
   That's pretty neat.


 

   The process began by toasting coconut in the oven until it golden tipped and its fragrant aroma filled my apartment. That's the best air freshener. I then steeped the coconut into the hot milk and cream for thirty minutes. This allowed the milk to wick out the flavor of the toasted coconut, leaving me with a slightly tan, coconut milk-cream. I could have stopped there and I know everyone would have still been satisfied with the taste.
   But I didn't.
   I strained most of the coconut out before I put it into the ice cream maker. I wasn't successful in straining all of it out, but I thought that the sparsely populated strands would be little flavorful presents for those lucky enough to find them in their pint.
   My new experimental way of making the ice cream turned out far better than I ever expected. If Jeni uses it in her ice creams, then I knew it was good enough for me. The texture and consistency was perfect, better than any store-bought or scoop shop ice cream I've had. It was creamy and smooth and no trace of ice could be found.

   It seems as though I have finally got my foot on my arch-nemesis, Isie. But that does not mean I will let up. I must press on to other flavors, unknown, and untested. Happy Eating and Happy Fall.

 
-Reese O'Shirey, Esquire

Fall Flavor of the Week: Beenut Butter Crunch

   In anxious anticipation for the leaves to fade to golds and reds and browns and fall from their canopy homes to garnish the lawns and sidewalks, which we traverse to class everyday, I have decided to pay tribute to my favorite season with flavors that evoke such feelings and responses as the cool, crisp weather and rustic colors so do.

   This week I created an ice cream inspired by a pie, which I saw in a magazine. When I saw the recipe, my mouth watered; and I then knew that I had to recapture that flavor in frozen form. And thus, Beenut Butter Crunch was contrived.

Beenut Butter Crunch - smooth, creamy peanut butter ice cream swirled with fudge and studded with crunchy honey comb

   As I have stated many times before, Peanut Butter ice cream is my ultimate favorite--it's what I fill out in response to those 'Last Meal On Earth' questions. However, until I made my own, I was left in a depressing state of want for better peanut butter flavor in my ice creams. I found none that captured that potent, salty flavor I so desired--the potency which gives you that burn in your throat as you eat it (ask any Shirey about that peanut butter burn and they'll tell you all about it). And that is what, in turn, lead me to begin creating my own peanut butter flavors.
   Unlike most ice cream duds, I add salt to my peanut butter base, otherwise it loses that real peanut flavor (that 'burn'). This creates a whole new experience with my ice creams; reduce the sugar, and increase the ingredients that matter, the ones that get at the realness of what flavor recreation is all about.

   I homemake everything that I possibly can. So, naturally, I had to create my own fudge sauce recipe. I wanted it to be thick, pungent, and fudge-y, not a basic chocolate sauce. I used brown sugar instead of white sugar, which I thought captured a completely different flavor base; cocoa; corn syrup; heavy cream; and a...pinch of salt...Oh?! After this melted together, I added butter and quality bitter-sweet chocolate, not that cheap waxy stuff. In contrast with most other recipes I've seen, I refused to add vanilla to my fudge sauce. What's with this ceremonial addition of vanilla in everything? What does it do? I don't add vanilla in anything that isn't supposed to be vanilla flavored. I was rewarded with a thick, dark, fudge that had a bitter-sweet flavor. Just what I wanted.
 
   What I was most looking forward to was the honey comb. I did not buy real honey comb, though that would have been really cool, and I highly doubt that honey comb can be found anywhere in Tuscaloosa. "What's Honey Comb?" I can hear them say. Well, you might find it at Homegrown Alabama on Thursday nights. Regardless, I made my own. Yeah, I did. I can't? I did.
   After looking over the recipe, I realized it was identical to making a 'brittle'. Sugar, corn syrup, honey, and baking soda. Boom. Boil it, let it expand (when the baking soda is added it gets feisty), pour it out, and let it harden.
   I am going to show you something. But don't jump out of your seat. You might think it's weird/frightening/alive, or like something the Ghostbusters would tackle down in a sewer somewhere.

 

   It was actually rather good. In fact, it was the key element to this ice cream being labeled as "better than my Salted Caramel" by 90% of those who had both. I was worried about making another flavor in the shadow of such a huge hit with Salted Caramel, but apparently I "knocked it out of the park" as they say.

"It was a smashing hit with the ladies" - Phil Deaton

"This is unbelievable. Is this real?" - Jake Reynolds

"Reese, I believe you have outdone Salted Caramel" - Joe Ziegler

  The proof is in the magic. And the magic is in the ice cream.

   The flavors worked exceptionally well with each other, all three highlighting their own uniqueness, but also accenting on the strengths and tastes of the others. The salty-sweetness of the peanut butter matched well with the fudge, obviously (peanut butter and chocolate is the best combination since Earth and Oxygen), but it went perfectly with the sweet, sweet honey comb. After eating the ice cream, Joe Ziegler pondered about what he was tasting that was so unique in the pint. I let him try some leftover honey comb, and he immediately said it was the X-Factor. It was super crunchy, like brittle, and added huge, unique flavor to the creamy peanut butter base.

  I am most assuredly going to make this flavor again, though not sure when. It will definitely be set in the Flavor Bank for future Scoop Shop usage.

  Thanks to all those who tried it, and thank you for your helpful, generous, praising comments about my ice cream. I love to share my creations with you, and I look forward, with eager anticipation, to next week's flavor. Until then,

Reese O'Shirey, Esquire

Fall Flavor: Salted Caramel

   I have been around. I've seen some things and some stuff. This summer I did some coast-to-coast travel, and had the ability to taste some of the best ice cream in the country.
   I was in San Francisco, California for a day. Prior to my trip I throughly searched for the best spots in the NoCal area. I had only heard of two: Bi-Rite Creamery and the infamous Humphry Slocombe. I only had time to hit one, so I chose the legendary Bi-Rite, for its heralded Salted Caramel.
   When visiting my brother, Austin Shirey, in New York City, he knew all the places to hit. He's conquered ice cream in the City, leaving no shop untested. So, we did it. We went hard for 5 days, eating every ice cream we came across. But two stood out among the best ice creams I have ever eaten: Milkmade (see previous blog) and the new Ample Hills Creamery in Brooklyn. I had Salted Caramel from both, and, although Milkmade's was the best I've ever had, both were "out of this world".
 
   So, having tasted and tested the best in the country, I returned home with a mission: to match them. The first flavor I made was Salted Caramel. I knew what the best tasted like, and that set the bar at a lofty level. But I'm not out to just make mediocre ice cream. It has to equal or surpass anything I've tasted, or what's the point of making my own?

   I developed my own recipe, though recipes are hardly original these days, for the Salted Caramel, measuring out what I thought to be the appropriate proportions of each ingredient. I have seen many recipes that use more milk than cream, and I think that is a cop out. I go for the thick stuff. I have also enhanced my base with an exponential increase of egg yolk addition, which has rewarded me with a much thicker, creamier, not-icy-when-frozen-for-days ice cream.

   I started the base by making the caramel. Poured the sugar into the pan on high heat. It began to melt quickly in geysers of molten sugar sprouting from the field of whiteness. Once the white darkened to a deep amber, I removed the pan from the heat and added the butter and salt. It fizzed angrily at having the cool butter encroaching on its lava pit. Stirring to melt the butter, I then replaced it over a slightly lower heat.

   Next came the heavy cream. (CAUTION: caramel is easily angered, approach with vigil and wariness). With my sword and shield, I went into battle. The pan was a pit of boiling lava from the fires of Mordor, but it was not a ring I had to cast into its smoking bowels; it was heavy cream, a much mightier foe, one equipped with a cold outer defense and a thickness unlike any other ingredient to enter the pit that day. Caution to the wind I began to pour. In a hellish uproar the caramel vomited upon encountering the cold cream, a most defying defense mechanism. But I pressed on, attacking the lava caramel with pints and pints of cream. With a chilling scream it relinquished power and gave in...
   Ok, this might have gone too far.

   Once the cream had been incorporated into the melted sugar, butter, and salt, the caramel was complete (this is where I would normally stop for a caramel sauce). To complete the base I added the milk. Due to the addition of multiple items out of the refrigerator, the temperature of the caramel had drop dramatically. I stirred it over medium heat until it resumed its simmer.
   Meanwhile the eggs, that had been previously separated (I separate the eggs before anything else is done, so that when the time comes for their addition I can just whisk them in), I whisked, then slowly poured some of the hot caramel into the bowl of yolks, whisking vigorously. After tempering the yolks, I added everything back into the pan over medium heat, stirring constantly to avoid my other dessert "salted eggs and caramel". Once it became even thicker, I set it in the fridge to chill before pouring it into my new ice cream maker.

   Ok, to keep up with demand and to improve efficiency at Shireshack, I purchased a Cuisinart ICE-50BC. Don't let the BC deter you or impede your thoughts of it. It was not before Christ. It is actually quite modern. What makes it so special is its ability to churn out batch after batch without the hindering freezer bowl. And it makes the best homemade ice cream to date. I renamed it Merlyn. It does that kind of magic.

   So here I am with my new found love Salted Caramel. When Kyle Weeks tasted it (Kyle was with me when I was in San Francisco to try Bi-Rite's famous Salted Caramel) he immediately let out a whale. Yes, a whale. Not a wail, for that would be most unmanly. And he said it was the best ice cream he has ever had. So did Jake Reynolds, and Brandon Lowe, and Phil Deaton, and...me. That's right. The guy who is on a mission to find gourmet ice creams that are truly inspiring and make one giddy like a Reynolds' boy. Well, my quest is not over, but I have found Arda.
   It was a perfect blend of saltiness with sweetness. And how often do I harp on how magical a combo these two things make? Often. It makes the world go round. Whoever decided that salt would be good in caramel was a genius, and a madman because it gets people hooked. Good.
   Caramel makes the creamiest base I have had yet in ice cream form. Every type I tried, from East to West coast, were all the creamiest flavors there. Mine was no exception. Creamiest yet. The addition of more eggs made a major impact on this, I am convinced. Texture is everything. But Taste is King. Work that out.
   Thick and creamy. Smooth and frozen. Sweet and salty. These are just a few of my favorite things...



   I will not abandon my quest for the best ice cream in the world, though I have made major progress. I may have found Arda, but Eden still awaits discovery. I hope all of you who tried it throughly enjoyed it. I enjoyed making it, and put a whole lot of passion into it.
   I am basing my flavors on seasonal themes this go around, beginning with Fall. So, more great flavors to come in the near, near future. Keep reading, keep eating, keep ice creaming.

-Reese O'Shirey, Esquire
 

                                              (homemade apple pie and salted caramel)
 

Lunch with the Milkmade

   It is not everyday that you get to visit New York City. But those days are not such a fantasy far away when one of the Shirey Brothers, Austin, our Head of Research-NYC, Special Ingredient Curator, and Head of Networking, lives there, working there full time for Shireshack and only part-time for his real job. 

   It is also not everyday that you get to meet, let alone sit down with, someone who has cracked the impermeable pages of the New York Times.



(photo by John Makely - MSNBC)



Meet Diana Hardeman. She is the founder/operator of the New York City-based ice cream biz, Milkmade. But she does not run the typical ice cream shop with white walls, colorful design schemes, freezing air, and the smell of vanilla waffle cones. In the summer of '09, Diana purchased a small ice cream maker (a Cuisinart like the one I use), and talked with local farmers and businesses about partnerships. She set up a subscription-based ice cream business, meaning you sign up for a three month subscription and receive three pints of ice cream hand-delivered to your door; she makes two different flavors for each month (flavors that reflect the season: i.e. Red Velvet Cake during February/Valentine's Day), of which you get to choose one. 

   To say it blew up would be an understatement. She currently has a waiting list of over 1,500 people in the NYC area. Unbelievable. Recession? Ice cream does not know what the word means. Nor do I.

   Although other businesses boast their "hand-crafted" ice creams, Diana is the only true claimer of this. Still, with people beating down her door to get her ice cream, she makes her flavors in small batches, and everything sourced locally and naturally. All her ice creams are rooted in creativity and nostalgia, the very two points upon which my own ice cream is based.

   One other thing that sets Milkmade apart and makes her so unique is her faithfulness to local businesses. She lives by the motto "keep it local". And this promotes partnerships and interconnected opportunities for success. She sources most of her chocolates from Mast Brothers in Brooklyn; homemade pop tarts from Pies 'n' Thighs also in Brooklyn. It is this kind of thing that unites a business community, providing everyone involved with advantages.

   Well Diana is extremely busy, what with her growing fame, meeting with people from the New York Times, local businesses, making 20 different flavors in a weekend just to test them out, and let alone crafting 150 pints a month. But she found time in her schedule to sit down over lunch with Austin and I in Hearst Tower, where Austin works for his real/not as important job.

   She began by asking us questions, probably to see where exactly we stood in terms of ice cream making and our knowledge of the art. I like to think we surprised her a bit with how well informed and well versed we are in the art and the processes there of. She did this, I think, to determine whether or not she could talk about why honey makes ice creams icier, or how to make fruit ice creams less icy. Thankfully we passed the test because we did eventually tackle those topics.

   Diana answered all of our questions without a trace of snobbishness or a you're-just-a-small-ice-cream-maker-who-doesn't-know kind of attitude. She was very helpful, and explained different techniques that I am anxious to try this fall. And what I am still most impressed with is the fact that she was willing to sit down with us for over an hour, to explain certain things that will help me in furthering my own flavors and recipies.

   We had the same view and ideas about what and how ice cream is and shoud be. It is about the ingredients. It is not a cookie-cutter recipie that can be applied to every flavor. Fruit ice creams have to be made differently than more substantial ice creams (i.e. chocolate or peanut butter). 

   She was generous enough to bring us two pints (that equallys about $34 for members): Salted Caramel with chocolate cookies and Strawberry Shortcake. The Salted Caramel was a flavor she made for a Google meeting that hired her as one of their daily chefs. Most impressive. 

   The Salted Caramel was one of the best flavors I have ever had. Last week I was in the San Francisco area, so of course I tried the local fare. I went to Bi-Rite Creamery, a nationally famous ice cream shop, and got five flavors (I couldn't leave without getting a complete experience). But what I was most interested in trying was their Salted Caramel, which is their most famous flavor and is what they are nationally known for. Milkmade's blew it away. Bi-Rite's was a bit too burnt and tasted a tad bit smokey because of it. There is a fine line between caramel and burnt caramel, and Diana found this line and now walks it, never straying into burnt caramel or undercooked caramel. She nailed it. It was the perfect blend of sweet and salty, which is one of the greatest combinations known to food. And unlike Bi-Rite, who thought their flavor was well enough on its own, Diana threw in homemade chocolate cookies for a much-needed, well-thoughtout crunch. As I always say, "A crunch in ice cream does wonders for how well it is recieved." It makes all the difference in the world.

   Oddly, I did this same thing several weeks ago before I had tried either of their flavors. With my pint of Salted Caramel from Talenti, I threw in pieces of crushed up Oreo cookies. This is essentially the same thing Diana did. Her homemade chocolate cookies were basically Oreos. A very good combo.

   As I have stated before, I am not big on fruit ice creams. I find them less satisfying than denser, more substantial ice creams like Salted Caramel or Peanut Butter. But Diana gave me something unlike any other fruit ice cream I have ever had. Her technique is simple: more fruit, more fruit, more fruit. Fruit ice creams often come out weak, but by her philosophy, that is impossible. She dumps loads of strawberries into a pot on a stove, pours in cups and cups of sugar, and cooks it down to a sweet, thick, fruit syrup, and then blends it into the cream base. She is rewarded with a deep reddish-pink ice cream that knocked my socks off. (I mean, have you ever seen strawberry ice cream with that kind of color?)

   After retrieving my socks, I dug back in. It was the densist, richist fruit flavor I have ever had (I know that phrase keeps coming up, but I can say nothing less about this ice cream). The shortbread pieces, from SCRATCHbread in Brooklyn, were like little pockets of dry, crumbly gooness that balanced out the fruity sweetness. Sure it was icier than the Salted Caramel. That is unavoidable unless a bunch of unatural things are thrown in. But I would by no means call it icy.

   After having Milkmade's ice cream, I will use it as a metric with which to compare all other ice creams to. It was super creamy. She nailed the texture, and that is crucile in this line of work.

   She is working on shipping her pints with dry ice, so if she ever stars shipping nationwide, I would highly recommend signing up. I know I will.

-Reese O'Shirey, Esq. 

Talenti - Sea Salt Caramel

   As promised, here is the second of my Talenti flavor reviews, albeit delayed.

   Sea Salt. That is what caught my eye with this one. It is a BIG thing these days if you use sea salt in anything, even more so if you use it in a dessert. But wait. Salt in something sweet? Yes. Adding a touch of salt, especially high quality salt like sea salt, will enhance the natural sweetness of the dessert. If you say 'Made with sea salt' on your ice cream description, page, label, whatever, then people will flock to it "like the salmon of Capestrano".

   As with the previous Talenti flavor, this one was exceptionally smooth. I have never had a store-bought ice cream (gelato) with this kind of quality and texture. Cuts like butter. (I have to test that guar gum out for myself to see if it will work for me)

   The caramel base was a bit like sticking your nose into an oven that has charred food droppings lying in the bottom. It tasted like burnt caramel. That should be saved for the creme brulees of the dessert world. Yuck. Now, this ice cream was not quite that bad, but it did have hints of smoke. But you might ask, 'That's what caramel is, isn't it? Burnt stuff." No. It is burnt sugar, but you can burn caramel too. This is done by allowing the sugar to burn, making an amber caramel; then letting that caramel sit in the pan even longer until it too becomes burnt and a deeper brown color. That is when the taste becomes drastically different.
   The salt did add a great flavor to the caramel though. It was the saving grace. I am a huge fan of adding salt into my ice creams whenever I can. I think ice creams today are far too sweet, so I counter balance all mine with a touch of salt (a little more than a touch in my flavor 'Roasted Honey Nut'). The initial notes are of sweet, and partially burnt, caramel, but then the saltiness flows in like the great flood of Noah's day. Salt is where it is at.

   Ok. I thought the ice cream stopped there. No, sir. Unlabeled and unseen, these dark squares appear in my scoop. I checked the label again. 'Sea Salt Caramel'. Alright, then what is this?

   That, my friend, is a chocolate truffle. Very tasty little devils, I might add. They too had a touch of sea salt, and it worked marvelously with the dark chocolate. Sweet and salty: the greatest combo since peanuts and butter...
   Peanut butter.
   What I mean is, they were good. But only by themselves. The flavors clashed horrifically. The flavor of the salty caramel was powerful and potent. The salty chocolate truffles were equally powerful, though on a smaller scale. This gave rise to a epic war inside the mouth. A battle for top taste. As a result, I was the one wounded, and confused about which taste I wanted. I had no other choice than to take them together, which led to a re-battle!
   The caramel should have been the only thing in there. There was no need for them to add those chocolate truffle squares. That pushed this flavor over the top, and flew me over the cuckoo's nest.

 

  So, naturally, I crushed up some Oreo cookies for a little more action (expelling the white stuff). Talenti gelato is so incredibly smooth that is became obnoxious. I had to do something to balance it. CRUNCH. Ice creams are made to have crunchiness in them. Oreos are perfectly crunchy. Caramel and Oreo? Yeah, much better.

Thanks for reading. I now have another Talenti flavor in the freezer, so watch out for it.

-Reese O'Shirey, Esq.

P.S. Can anyone name the movie I quoted at the end of the first real paragraph?

Flavor Review: Talenti - Cappuccino

   This week found me in foreign worlds. The world of gelato. Gelato is becoming quite a trendy thing in America these days because it is Italian and cool and new. It is actually not new. In fact gelato has been around much longer than our ice cream. Gelato is just the Italian word for ice cream. So, intrinsically the two are not so different.

   Some of the ingredients used to make gelato differ from those of ice cream, and the amounts they are used in also differs. Guar gum? What the devil is that? Not wholly sure, but I will wager it is used as a stabilizer that prevents it from freezing solid, so that it is smoothly scoopable.  It's possible that it also acts as an emulsifier. Emulsifiers, or thickening agents, vary from brand to brand, and it is not surprising to see that they vary in gelato as well. Eggs are the most commonly used emulsifiers, and, as you can see, Talenti uses them too. Their gelato is also less fattening, lighter I should say, than the other leading brands. They must use skim milk, and other low-fat ingredients.

   I have often seen the sumptuous pint containers of Talenti resting in isolation behind the freezer doors in Publix, but have never been able to scrape up the extra cash needed to purchase one. Their price tag usually bests that of Ben & Jerry's and Haagen Dazs by about $1.40, thus turning me always toward the later two choices. But, this time Publix had it in their parsimonious hearts to discount them. I had to do a double take when I made my routine pass through the ice cream aisle. Two for $7.00? That's $3.50 a piece! After checking to see if my algebra was correct, I hesitated no longer, and grabbed the tastiest looking two of the select few flavors offered at our Tuscaloosa branch (which just stocked B&J 'Peanut Brittle' and 'Late Night Snack' two weeks ago.......over a year late!).
   Feeling thrifty, I left, and consumed them...mostly for your benefit, the reader, so that you can fear the foreign and strange woods of gelato no longer. It is safe.

   My first review is on the first flavor I tested, Cappuccino. The thing that burned its impression into my mind was its consistency and texture. After taking out of the freezer where it had set for a day, my spoon cut through it like a knife through butter (attributed to those unknown ingredients like the guar gum). That is the power of gelato. Its smooth creaminess is what trumps our native ice creams. In this area, I have yet to find a commercial brand that matches Talenti.
   My first bite made me feel like I was walking through a library with a Starbucks over in the corner where little thin guys with beards are nestled with their burnt coffees and laptops and trend-fitting glasses, trying to fit the social standard of their aspiring "group" by writing poetry and looking somber. It was odd, and it took several blinks to let my mind know that I was, in fact, still in my dusty apartment and that I did not have a beard (but my glasses were sitting on top of my book shelf).
   It was the best commercially produced coffee ice cream I have tasted. It beat Ben & Jerry's easily. I could not distinguish the notes of chocolate or coffee alone. It was so well blended together that they arrived at the taste buds as one, inseparable flavor. That is how the taste of Cappuccino should be. But my complaint is this: it was too espresso-y. Though the blend was smooth, it tasted like burnt coffee grounds, and that leaves the off-putting picture in my head of a soggy heap of grounds sitting in that white paper thing in the top of a coffee maker. Not my kind of flavor. The flavor I strive to emulate is that of true brewed coffee straight from the beans. It even says espresso here on their webpage. They admit it. Nay, the real way to create a coffee flavor is to use the actual beans, and the flavor they contain by seeping them into hot milk and cream.
   A good addition to the base were the dark chocolate shavings scattered throughout. They provided a texture difference, when one grows numb to the smooth gelato, and longs for a crunch or a crisp. But they were only slightly better than if they had thrown in Hershey's chocolate chips. They had good taste, but there still lingered that waxy chocolate crap found when cheaply manufactured chocolates are frozen.

   No doubt that Talenti is classy ice cream, and it is better crafted than Ben & Jerry's. On the back of the pint they make the point that it is craft ice cream: "Crafted by Talenti". But they are of a different mold. Talenti strives for that Old Europe style gelato, where the flavors, in their simplicity, get at the real ingredients instead of slapping you in the face with something new in every bite like B&J does. There is nothing wrong with harnessing true flavors, but one does grow bored of the repetition and vapidity experienced near the end of a pint of plain ice cream.

   Look for my next post on the second of my Talenti flavors.

Reese O'Shirey, Esq.