Vosges Wattleseed and Macadamia Nut Ice Cream

Disappointed by an ice cream? I didn’t think it was possible.

This past weekend I was lucky enough to be invited over to a friends place for some home cookin’. This particular pair of friends is always experimenting with something new and it inevitably turns out delicious. This time I was asked to bring vanilla ice cream to top the peach crumble. How hard could that be?

I headed over to Bristol Farms since I was in the neighborhood and bee-lined for the ice cream isle thinking I would just pick up whatever they had there. Well, the decision became a little more difficult when I realized they didn’t just have one variety. Hm, what to do?

Since I was at a specialty store I figured I wouldn’t go the traditional Haagen Dazs route, although their Hawaiian Lehua Honey and Sweet Cream is just about the best thing I have ever put in my mouth. I did what every person should do when trying to find the richest and most creamy ice cream in the bunch; I looked at the labels. Any ice cream whose first ingredient wasn’t cream immediately vacated my field of vision. Next I looked at fat content. While fat is not all the great for you in large quantity, how much can it really hurt as a single ball on top of your peach crumble? Besides, high fat content means it will taste dreamy.

The finalist was Dr. Bob’s Tahitian Vanilla which was created by a professor from Cal Poly Pomona. I figured with a doctorate in ice cream making (I am sure it was in something else) how could it be bad! The runner up was McConnell’s Vanilla and that was simply because they didn’t have as fancy as a story.

Because C and B always go out of their way to do something special for our family I attempted to play that game by bringing along an unexpected ice cream flavor. In my hunt for high fat content I was seduced by Vosges Wattleseed and Macadamia Nut ice cream. It won the fat content contest hands down with a whopping 24g per ½ cup serving. The others cowered in fear with their measly 13g. The description said that Wattleseed was from Australia and its taste was a mix between chocolate, espresso, and vanilla. I thought to myself, ‘what is this magical food?!’ Since the picture looked like it might be a close match to vanilla because it was custardy in color so I purchased it as well.

Just like their Black Pearl chocolate bar had done, the Wattleseed ice cream let me down. The flavor wasn’t pronounced enough to determine where it was emanating from. Was its origin the tiny black fragments of what I assume were the wattleseeds, or was its source some flavor added to the ice cream base? And, what was that damned flavor anyways?

While I am accustomed to finding most of Vosges chocolate concoctions at least interesting though not often enjoyable, the Wattleseed ice cream didn’t even register on the interesting scale! Weird may be weird, but boring is simply boring no matter what container you put it in…