Friday, November 30, 2018

Coolhaus Best of Both Worlds Vanilla Ice Cream


[New for 2018] So, what do all us old fuddy duddies say? You can tell a lot about a company by how good their plain vanilla ice cream (or gelato) is. I mean, if you can't do vanilla, should I trust you with anything else? It seems like Coolhaus wants to stay true to this question by having two of the top vanilla bean types in their vanilla ice cream. Will I be amazed? And will lots of people chime in like they did on the churro review? (I hope so!)

Coolhaus Best of Both Worlds Vanilla Ice Cream
"sensational, non-boring vanilla"
featuring Tahitian & Madagascar vanilla beans

Definitely looks great with all those bean flecks everywhere.

Now I'm going to eat this like I eat my regular all natural Turkey Hill vanilla ice cream. That means scooped in to my (espresso shot glass)* as my final snack of the day. Here goes!

You know what the problem with no mix-ins is? If you don't have a stellar texture, it can bring things down. While I do enjoy the creativity that coolhaus puts forth, I continue to not be a fan of their overly smooth texture. To me, it interacts oddly with the vanilla flavoring here. It just tastes wrong to me. No, it feels wrong more than anything.

The container says "cold pressed vanilla beans", I assume that's a good thing....

Ok, I'm going to try and smush this up so that I can get over the texture issue (remembering that plenty of people love coolhaus while I consistently have texture issues with several brands). Ok, that's weird, it's just oddly airy. I scoop up the melting, smooshed sides and put it on my tongue just for it to not feel like it's there. Let me try some more smooshing (not that it wants to smoosh).

It has such an odd mouth feel. It also feels like just a hint of hot cinnamon spice to it. If I said it had an extremely low co-efficient of friction, would you know what I mean? It's just too smooth. It kind of reminds me of a Burger King shake actually (or maybe cool whip?).

So yeah, not wowwed here. Sorry. Fix the texture and we'll talk.

On Second Scoop: I want to like this one, I swear. There are moments were it's at the cusp of winning me over, and then the texture starts bugging me again. People who like coolhaus should like this. People who don't care about texture should too. Everyone else, stick with one of their more busy flavors.

Verdict?  skip!
Buy Again?  nope

*no I don't drink espresso, but I was having trouble figuring out what this particular glass is called.

7 comments:

  1. I don't mind the Coolhaus texture, but I agree that it is unusual. To me, the only other brand with a texture like that is the 7-11 house brand. I think you mentioned something about the texture in those reviews, too. I feel like it's dense, but almost...not dense at the same time. If that makes sense, lol.


    That said, I still really enjoyed this particular flavor. Even if the low coefficient of friction made it too fleeting.

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  2. Yeah, I have texture issues with lots of companies don't I? (though technically I think 7-Eleven texture is too dense)

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  3. I tried two of their flavors recently(Something campfire? and this vanilla) and really didn't care for them. If they were price comparable to B&J maybe? But anywhere between $3-5 more per pint, no way. For supermarket frozen, I'm still just a Ben and Jerrys or haagen dazs boy at heart.

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  4. OMG, I think Dubba and Professor Frink from "The Simpsons" may be the same person with all the hyper-physics talk. Who else would use the "co-efficient of friction"--the ratio of the frictional resistance force to the normal force which presses the surfaces together--to describe ice cream? (I had to look that one up). I don't think my taste buds have that much intellect to contribute to a meaningful discussion on this one, but Coolhaus claims to be "Super Premium Low Overrun"--they churn less air into their ice cream and it is made in gelato-making machines. Maybe it has something to do with going straight from a California cow to the ice cream maker that affects the taste (at least that is what they claim.)

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  5. @Anon: yeah, please don't pay $8 for coolhaus! (you really shouldnt' pay $8 for -any- pint but that's just my opinion)


    @Amanda: Sorry, the engineer in me still sneaks out on occasion :)

    It's possible the lower overrun but use of stabilizers combine in to something that just doesn't click with me.

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  6. You absolutely nailed it on this one. It’s the texture that made me unable to finish my scoop, and that has never ever happened to me.

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  7. Hoo boy, I must be an outlier because the silky smooth texture is the reason that I like this ice cream so much! I live in San Francisco. Safeway has started carrying it within the past few months, and it's not that expensive. I think $5.99 per pint and sometimes it's on sale for less.

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