Ice Cream Tasters: Two Dips Ice Cream Tasters

It seems like I have Pennsylvania on the brain this month with Pittsburgh and Philly potentially going to the Super Bowl (against each other) and Turkey Hill with Snyder's of Hanover teaming up to do a feature ice cream flavor! Next thing you know I will be craving a cheese steak or longing to see the Liberty Bell! Fred has a knack for picking flavors that are limited in their availability and I was not surprised to see him arrive with a limited edition flavor this week. I did notice on the label that this is a ghost of feature flavors past. Evidently, it has been sold before and has gotten such rave reviews that the flavor has been brought back.

The container does not look like any other Turkey Hill container I have seen. There aren't any farmhouses on hilltops or green meadows. In their place are mini pretzels covered with chocolate and the Snyder's of Hanover logo printed smack dab in the middle of the yellow container. This was interesting. "Delicious Snyder's of Hanover chocolate covered pretzels swirled with fudge throughout premium ice cream." Stop. What kind of ice cream? What is the base flavor? Descriptions usually say something like, "...throughout premium vanilla ice cream." Was it going to be chocolate, vanilla or something odd like pineapple? As a consumer, I think that this is a fundamental issue that should be expressed by the company selling their product.

Also on the label is a disclaimer mentioning that nuts may be used in the making of this ice cream. Wow, there must be a lawyer at Turkey Hill that is really watching the company's back. For an ice cream that doesn't even mention having nuts in the flavor, this is sure cautious.

The carton was filled to the top, but some shrinkage had taken place around the edges. It looked as though the ice cream had been thawed a little and refrozen leaving a foamy look to the edges where the ice cream had pulled apart from the sides. At first glance, the surface of the ice cream looked well mixed. A soft coffee-fudge color mixed with what looked like vanilla to make clouds of color dabbed by chocolate covered pretzels.

The smell of the ice cream was slightly fudgy. The scoop Fred took from the top was a tad dry. By the ease of which he dipped, I could tell this was not a firm ice cream. This was confirmed on my first bite. The consistency was a bit soft and airy, but still creamy and well flavored. First I tasted the vanilla fudge ice cream leaving the pretzels for later. There was a good vanilla flavor with a touch of chocolate fudge. In sections there were wells of fudge which were runny and tasted more like chocolate sauce. The fudge did not taste like any fudge I had drizzled on my sundaes before.

There were quite a few pretzels in my scoop. I noticed that the pretzel shape on the box and the pretzel shape in the container did not match. On the cover were mini pretzels shaped like a normal twisted pretzel. Inside were pretzel rods covered in chocolate. One bite into the pretzel and I could tell these pretzels had been sealed in chocolate during the peak of freshness. They were crunchy and large; about the circumference of a fat Tootsie Roll. The chocolate coating does not overpower the pretzel, but the pretzel not having salt is kind of muted. I would have liked to have seen a little salt added in to satisfy my sugar/salt internal battle. With that said, I do have to say that if this carton was all mine, I would definitely fish for the pretzels eating those first! They were very tasty and made the flavor.