The pint of Jeni’s new Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tarts Ice Cream says there’s only one way to enjoy the toaster pastry: “It has to be brown sugar cinnamon, frosted—served buttered, warm, soft, and gooey right out of the toaster.” Those are fighting words as people eat Pop-Tarts microwaved, frozen, or straight out of the foil wrapper – which is my preferred method.
This new limited time collaboration flavor is a tribute to what is the “…best thing to spring out of a toaster.” It’s remarkable and should be a permanent flavor.
Jeni’s didn’t just break up a bunch of Pop-Tarts and drop it into vanilla ice cream. Instead, it crafted a brown sugar-cinnamon ice cream with crumbled pastry and a caramel swirl.
First off, Jeni’s always passes the texture test, which is critical as no one wants to arm wrestle rock-hard ice cream before enjoying it. I was joyfully able to take a room temperature spoon and scoop it right out of the pint. This texture also translates to how the ice cream ate: super smooth and creamy. Gotta love that high butter fat content!
Fat also equals flavor, so it was also so dang flavorful. I could taste that ooey gooeyness with just a hint of cinnamon for that toasted Pop-Tarts quality. Cold ice cream is obviously the very opposite of being toasted and ooey-gooey, but I reveled in the delightful mind trickery.
This epicness was also largely because Jeni’s only uses high quality ingredients – from the grass-fed milk sourced from local suppliers to each component carefully curated to replicate the toaster pastry’s flavor.
It visually looked like a light brown ice cream with light brown pieces, which was the crumbled pastry part. But, of course, Jeni’s also elevated said pastry to shortbread for a more buttery deliciousness. The only ding was the caramel swirl. What swirl?! That would have added a nice visual touch to the pint, but it didn’t affect how much I enjoyed it.
But, per the ingredient list, she made this magic with cream, milk, cane sugar, cinnamon caramel sauce – made of cream, brown sugar, sugar, and honey – and Madagascar Bourbon vanilla. That build is night and day compared to the Pop-Tarts’ ingredient list of corn syrup, dextrose, high fructose corn syrup, and caramel color.
I also tried this head-to-head with a buttered Pop-Tart (My first ever! Also, Pop-Tart ice cream sandwich, anyone?!), and it made me marvel again at the astounding attention to detail. I tasted that hint of salt crucial in all sweet goods, but the ice cream also replicated the pat of salted butter on top of my freshly toasted Pop-Tart. Chef’s Kiss.
This limited time flavor dropped online and in scoop shops on 6/22, so get yours ASAP. If you haven’t had Jeni’s and you’ve been thinking about it, this is your sign!!
Purchased Price: $12
Size: One pint
Purchased at: Jenis.com
Rating: 10 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 Cup / 127g) 340 calories, 22 grams of fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 65 mg of cholesterol, 250 milligrams of sodium, 37 grams of carbohydrates, 29 grams of total sugars, 0 grams of fiber, and 5 grams of protein.