Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream

As you probably realize by now, I eat a lot of ice cream.  At least once a day, as part of a dessert pairing after lunch or dinner.  I'm partial to local brands, but from time to time, I try nationwide grocery store brands that are more readily available, such as Jeni's.

"Our ice creams have a uniquely smooth texture and buttercream body, with bright flavor and clean finish. We’re here to set new standards for ice cream classics and to create our own. At Jeni’s, you’ll find flavors inspired by our curiosities—art, history, pop culture, and beyond—that simply don’t exist anywhere else."

Jeni's is a mass produced but premium brand, distributed nationwide through grocery stores, direct shipments, and their own scoop shops.  It seems to be generally well loved, particularly for some of their more unique flavors. They have a very extensive product line up, and introduce new flavors constantly, including many seasonal specials.  Yes, you can get vanilla, chocolate, cookies in cream, cookie dough, or other common flavors if you like, but, why would you pick those when their regular lineup includes options like Gooey Butter Cake, Sweet Cream Biscuits & Peach Jam, Boston Cream Pie, Powdered Jelly Donut, Maple Soaked Pancakes, etc, etc. They have some that sound amazing, some that sound ... curious, and many that are just slight upgrades on classic flavors (e.g. even the cookie dough flavor, "Double Dough" has a brown sugar custard base).

I've tried a few pints over the years, and generally found the flavors to sound better on paper than they were in practice.

Brown Butter Almond Brittle.

"Brown-butter-almond candy crushed into buttercream ice cream."

"Made with rich buttercream ice cream and golden pockets of handmade almond brittle, this sweet, salty, crunchy ice cream quickly became a menu mainstay."

This was the first Jeni's flavor I tried.  I was so excited, having heard so many accolades of Jeni's, and, um, I love almond brittle (if you've been the Ferry Building Farmer's Market in San Francisco, you likely know the "almond brittle people", and, seriously, it doesn't matter how often I have that stuff, I adore it).  I imagined something like that, paired with good quality ice cream.  It sounded glorious.

The brittle was well distributed throughout.  It was extremely sweet, had a bit of crunch.  But I didn't taste the "salty" element as described.  Bites that got a lot of brittle really were too sweet for me.

The base ice cream was ... kinda boring?  I didn't taste something that called out as "buttercream", just kinda plain, not even vanilla.  Vanilla at least, um, has vanilla flavor?  Looking at the ingredients, the base is just milk, cream, and sugar, so, yeah, plain.  It was nicely creamy, clearly a decent product, but, just boring.

This flavor really trended too sweet for me most of the time.  I love everything in it, but, I found myself never really wanting it, and it certainly didn't wow me.  Plain ice cream, decent brittle, but, nothing particularly special about it, and, just too sweet overall.

3/5.

Brambleberry Crisp.

"Oven-toasted oat streusel and a sweet-tart brambleberry jam layered throughout vanilla ice cream."

"Brambleberry Crisp is like a slice of fresh berry pie mixed with a scoop vanilla ice cream in every bite. Sweet vanilla ice cream made with high-quality vanilla from Madagascar. A regal purple jam swirl inspired by the blackberries and blackcurrants that grow wild all over the hillsides of the Appalachian foothills — the kinds of brambly berries Jeni would pick. And a brown sugar oat streusel crumble with just a kiss of cinnamon inspired by Jeni’s family recipe. It softens a little in the ice cream, just like on a real crisp."

Next up was Brambleberry Crisp.  I always add a scoop of ice cream to any fruit crisp/cobbler/crumble/pie, so this sounded like a great flavor to me, all integrated into one.  A complete dessert.  It looked great when I opened it, the visible mix-ins drawing me in.

And ... I thought it was ok, but I certainly wanted to like it more than I did in practice.  The base ice cream I again found fairly boring (although here it was at least vanilla).  It was reasonably creamy, but not really notable in any way.  Ho-hum.  

But of course, this flavor was about the jam and the streusel after all.  The jam was sweet, and fruity, and there was a nice swirl of it throughout.  But it didn't really draw me in for more.  It almost seemed too sweet.  The streusel was well distributed throughout, but I didn't taste the brown sugar, nor could I tell it was oat really, it mostly was just slightly soggy grit.

It was all "fine", but not a pint I found myself reaching for, given my fleet of other brands and flavors in my freezer.  Low 3/5.