The days of half a dozen ice cream flavors are long gone, I grew up with the three flavors, strawberry, chocolate and vanilla and never complained. Fast forward to a few days ago, and I was licking up somejalapeno cream cheese ice cream with raspberry, super-rich and surprisingly unspicy. Bring on this olive oil flavor!
I love making ice cream especially a combination of savory and sweet flavors. The base recipe I always use from Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream has some sugar but not a huge amount so throwing some fresh herbs or nuts in to the recipe balances it out perfectly.
The Varietal Collection consists of thee different kinds of oil- mild, medium and full bodied. The Koroneiki is the full bodied and you can tell. It has a strong smell like fresh grass and the taste reminds me of arugula. I knew there'd be no doubt about being able to taste the olive oil in the ice cream and that's exactly what I was looking for!
A really cool aspect of the Varietal Collection is that you can go to the Pompeian website and enter a special lot number which can be found on the back of your bottle. This number will give you information about that particular harvest used and it's journey from the tree to your table.
When people drink wine I think they automatically realize that producing it can be a labor intensive, old school process despite the technology available now. But making olive oil is the same hands-on way of life, with so much love and attention going into making the oil and all of the different blends. So how does olive oil ice cream taste?
I'm really pleased with the flavor, the sweet creamy ice cream cuts the strong Koreneiki flavor but you can still taste it. The thyme and pine nuts add another woodsy level...this would be a perfect dessert after a largefamily style pasta dinner!
As a Pompeian Pantry Insider, compensation was provided for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
