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?

A Weekend of Creation

   This post has been a bit belated due to some issues with a camera, but that has been resolved, and now I am able to share with the world what happened the weekend of the 9th of July. For the first time since Christmas, I and my two brothers were in the Shoals together, the original headquarters of Shireshack. We knew this to be a rare occasion, so we decidedly made the most of our fellowship. After rummaging through flavor ideas for days (we have a growing list in our Flavor Bank), we finally found two that were both unique and inspiring.

   Bananutella - vanilla bean infused banana ice cream with Nutella covered crepe pieces.

   -This flavor was inspired and endorsed by Austin's adventurous life in NYC, where he consumes crepes by the dayful. The inspiration came from the delicious city delicacy of crepes filled with Nutella, and topped off with banana slices.
   -It began with slicing a madagascan vanilla bean from Beanilla, and scraping its seeds into a pot of steaming milk and sugar. We steeped the seeds and pod for about forty-five minutes to allow that natural vanilla taste to seep into the hot milk. We chose to add the vanilla bean to add more flavor and dimension to the base.
   -We used overly ripe bananas, so ripe that they were given to us for free at our local produce market, Rick's Produce. This gave us that rich, brown banana flavor tantamount to banana bread. After adding the pureed bananas, and chilling the base overnight, it came out as thick as pudding. As I've stated before on a previous blog, when an ice cream base is like pudding before it is put into the ice cream maker, then that is a very good feat.
   -The crepes were made the same as pancakes, but less flour was used to foster a more viscous mix. We laved the crepes in Nutella, and set them in the freezer to harden, so that they would be perfect for adding into our ice cream.
   -The banana ice cream was one of the creamiest I have made. It was replete with flavor and balance. It was a smooth texture and taste until one of the crepe pieces was found. The crepe pieces were like small islands of chocolatenut bliss. This ice cream proved that banana and Nutella are perfect counterparts. Bananutella will definitely be a scoop shop flavor in the future.

   Boy Scout - sweet corn ice cream with a salty caramel swirl.

   -This flavor was inspired by our days of scouting, and hot summer days of selling Boy Scout popcorn door-to-door, and being chased off by dogs...

   -It was the famous Trail's End caramel pop corn that inspired me to attempt its conversion into ice cream. Yeah, now that it is explained like that it doesn't sound so bad, does it?
   -It all began with fresh sweet corn from Rick's Produce. We shaved off the kernels, and steeped them and the cobs into a pot of steaming milk and sugar for an hour to allow the milk to soak up that distinct corn taste. It tasted similar to a creamy, corn pudding. Very good.
   -We added salt to our homemade caramel to counter-balance the natural sweetness of the corn and the added sugar of the base, and also to emulate that popcorn taste, which always has a tinge of salt.
   -The base was super creamy, and refreshing. A great summer flavor. The salty caramel was a perfect asset to the ice cream, and the two flavors came together in an explosion of flavor in the mouth.
   -We do not have a final picture of Boy Scout because our ice cream maker decided not to cooperate, and we were left with a slightly-thicker-than-normal milkshake...even after hours of freezing...
   -Not sure what happened there, but I will be making it again to get a good hero shot, and to experience its tastefulness again. There is no doubt that Boy Scout will be a future scoop shop flavor. It is a very unique flavor combination, and inspires creativity and open-mindedness.

   We will be reviving these flavors soon so that more of you can test them out for yourselves. Thanks for reading.

-Reese O'Shirey Esq.