Haagen-Dazs Artisan Collection Chocolate Caramelized Oat Ice Cream

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During my recent binge purchase of ice cream I picked up a pint of Haagen-Dazs Artisan Collection Chocolate Caramelized Oat Ice Cream.  You Guys! After this I only have two more flavors from this line to try: Banana Rum Jam and Applewood Smoked Caramel Almond.

This flavor is a collaboration with Clairesquares a San Francisco bakery specializing in Irish desserts.  Haagen-Dazs describes this ice cream as

We are proud to collaborate with with San Francisco's Clairesquares to make a truly unique ice cream inspired by her Irish treats.  Together we take chocolaty, caramelized oat clusters and mix them into rich caramel ice cream.



To be honest, when I first tried this ice cream I was underwhelmed.  I thought it was ok, but didn't really hold its own against the other Artisan Collection flavors I had previously tried.  My opinion did improve a bit on my second bowl of this ice cream.

The caramel base was a sweet, light caramel that reminded me of those chewy caramel cubes.  I feel like for the past few years the attitude of the dessert industry toward caramel has been 'salted caramel or bust.'  We have seen darker, deeper, saltiers and more complex caramel flavors.  It was nice to see some ice cream going against this trend and instead offering a clean, sweet, simple and well-executed caramel base.  Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of salted caramel, but I am also a huge fan of regular caramel, and I hadn't realized how much I missed it.

This ice cream had a really nice color.


The chocolate oat clusters were small/medium sized and quite abundant.  I would say I got an average of 2 or 3 per bite.  The chocolate coating was a rich milk chocolate.  Here is my main beef with this ice cream. I couldn't really tell that there were any oats, caramelized or not, inside the clusters.  I'm sure there were, but the chocolate to oat ration was way too high.  I think letting the oats shine through a bit more would have elevated this ice cream to the next level and added another layer of complexity to the flavor and texture profiles.



This was not my favorite from the Artisan Collection, but still a decent ice cream.  It did succeed in making me want to try the original dessert bars from Clairesquares.

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