Talenti: Caramel Cookie Crunch

As you know, not too long ago, I made the trek from Eldon to the Lake HyVee to get some 2nd Street Creamery ice cream which I reviewed here. I also wanted to get some Talenti which isn't sold at any Eldon grocery store. I came to the sad realization that I haven't reviewed any Talenti. That obviously needed to change quickly. I wanted to grab something Madeline hadn't reviewed, since overall there hasn't been that much Talenti reviewed on this blog in general compared to how many flavors they have, which is 30!! Although HyVee generally has a great ice cream selection, they only had 4 Talenti flavors: pistachio, which Madeline had just reviewed, one of their sorbets, and I was looking to review a gelato, their vanilla, which I just wanted something more exciting, and the Caramel Cookie Crunch. In the store, I couldn't remember if Madeline had reviewed this flavor, and I didn't think she had. But when I got home and checked I was a little disappointed to see she had. Silly HyVee not having a big Talenti selection. :(

But whatever, having more than one opinion on an ice cream is always a good thing. To be honest, I do not agree with Madeline on every point on this flavor (you can find her opinion here). 

First, the description: Crunchy chocolate cookies are combined with Talenti's Dulche de Leche and blended in just as the gelato is being hand filled into the jars, transforming standard cookies and cream into a luxurious treat. 

My spoon, and my mouth, was definitely happy eating this gelato.

The description of this ice cream kind of confused me. The ice cream is called Caramel Cookie Crunch while the description doesn't say caramel in it; instead it says it is made with Dulche de Leche. To be honest, before I researched it this hot second, I didn't know the difference between dulche de leche and caramel or what exactly dulche de leche was. I have made caramel sauce before so I know you cook down sugar, a little bit of milk and butter and the more you cook it the darker it gets. Obviously, dulche de leche means the sweet of the milk. So what is the difference? Dulche de leche has significantly more milk than caramel does. 

Well yay, we learned something new. Now does this gelato have caramel or dulche de leche in it? I'm not totally sure, though I am leaning toward dulche de leche because it seemed more liquidy and creamier than a caramel might be. In addition, this was definitely a high quality swirl with a very complex flavor that was sweet, but not sickengly sweet as is often found in caramel swirls in ice creams. Madeline said that she didn't think these swirls were very prominent in her pint, and I kind of thought it varied. I had some very prominent swirls in some parts and some less prominent swirls in others. The base flavor of the gelato did have the caramely flavor infused throughout it, in addition to a vanilla flavor. The texture of Talenti gelato is amazing. It is super creamy and light, but not wimpy, just like gelato should be (while the Haagen Dazs gelato I have reviewed just seemed like a smoother version of their ice cream). 

Lastly, I'll talk about the cookie crunches, which is were Madeline and I disagree the most about this flavor. I really like her analogy for these guys being the same shape as Nerds candy, though I thought they were bigger than Nerds candy. They were amazingly crunchy and their flavor was so rich. They were definitely dark chocolatey cocoa powdery cookies, much more sophisticated than your standard cookies and cream cookies. Also, when you mash up standard cookies and cream cookies, you get some chunks but also some cookie dust, and there was no cookie dust in this, just the little cookie units which I thought was a nice touch. You would get 3-5 of them in each bite, so although they were small, I didn't think they were too small. I thought they were the perfect sophisticated twist on a standard cookies and cream cookie. 

Side note: at the beginning of the month it was announced that Unilever bought Talenti. Unilever owns a handful of ice cream brands including Breyers (ew), Magnum, Klondike, and Ben & Jerry's. I wrote a lot about Unilever buying out Ben & Jerry's back in May when I reviewed Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup.  Because Unilever bought out Ben & Jerry's 14 years ago so I didn't notice any change in the brand. I will be interested to see if anything changes with Talenti, but I'm hoping nothing does. It's a great brand and I'm hoping they can stick to what they are doing, because they do it so well.

Caramel and dulche de leche sauces: http://www.unilever.com/mediacentre/pressreleases/2014/UnileverAcquiresTalentiGelatoSorbetto.aspx
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Homemade-Dulce-de-Leche-395011
http://www.marthastewart.com/343279/caramel-sauce