Contents
Brand
Flavor
Rating
7 of 10
Review
Pineapple Buttermilk Cream Base: A brazenly bold, terrifically tart pineapple base, and for a fruit-based flavor, remarkably free of ice. The ingredients include both yogurt and buttermilk—so those may be contributing to the extreme tartness here. Reviews on Amazon/Whole Foods are somewhat divisive: some love the tart pineapple flavor, others are offended and even outraged by it. For us, it mostly worked. We’re big pineapple flavor fans, and go big on this flavor profile Jeni’s very much did. The problem with such an overwhelming flavor is that it tends to obscure the other elements in the pint. Toning down the pineapple ever so slightly might have allowed the other flavors to shine through.
Golden Cake Pieces: So Jeni’s has a problem with their cake pieces as we’ve noted before in several reviews—see for example Jeni’s Blackout Cake, Jeni’s Boston Cream Pie, Jeni’s Skillet Cinnamon Roll, and Jeni’s Sweet Cream Biscuits and Peach Jam. The cake pieces lack flavor, are often slightly soggy chunks of dough, not really reminiscent of cake. These contribute a hint sweetness at first, but overall add only texture but not flavor. There’s a moderate to generous amount throughout the pint, in a variety of sizes, some large, some small, creating a very effective contrasting texture. The issue appears to be that the base seeps into the cake pieces. Protecting the cake pieces with a coating of some kind and pre-freezing them prior to inclusion as a mix-in might improve the results here.
Michigan Red Cherry Sauce: It was difficult to find any cherry sauce in the pint. After much hunting, we did locate one tiny, somewhat icy cherry swirl. It provided a slight cherry taste, but it was difficult to distinguish against the powerful pineapple flavor.
Dark Caramel Sauce: A thick, rich, caramel swirl is obvious from the top of the pint. Below that, there wasn’t much more caramel sauce. It added an extra punch of decadent sweetness to the pint, but left us wanting more.
Overall: Jeni’s Pineapple Upside Down cake is an inspired pint concept that didn’t quite come together for us. We love pineapple upside down cake, and we think an ice cream pint version would be wonderful. This pint is definitely worth trying as a bold flavor experiment—so grab one from Whole Foods before it disappears. But we think there is some room for improvement: coating the cake pieces to protect them from fusing into the base; adding more cherry sauce and caramel swirl throughout; and most importantly, toning down the overwhelmingly tart pineapple base.
Home Delivery
Front Blurb
Tart pineapple with red cherries, golden cake, and a gooey caramel swirl.
Back Blurb
An homage to a perfect American dessert (and one of Jeni’s favorites). We start with ultra tart pineapple-infused buttermilk cream (made just for us on an old family dairy) that is so lush, it would be mistaken for creme fraiche in France. Of course, we’ve dotted the cream with plenty of golden cake pieces. But the real showstopper is, not one, but TWO sauces—a dark, devilish caramel sauce and a pop of sweet-tart Michigan red cherry. This one is perfect at the table with guests or in a more intimate setting. It’s likely to become a new favorite.
Calories
- 3 servings per container
- Serving size: 2/3 cup
- Calories per serving: 320
- Calories per container: 960
Ingredients
Nonfat Milk, Cream, Cane Sugar, Caramel Sauce [Cream, Brown Sugar, Sugar, Honey, Corn Starch, Butter(Cream, Salt), Water, Sea Salt, Lemon Juice], Cake(Unbleached Wheat Flour, Sugar, Palm Oil, Skim Milk Powder, Salt, Natural Flavors), Pineapple Puree, Yogurt(Milk, Nonfat Milk, Cultures), Cultured Buttermilk(Cultured Reduced Fat Milk, Salt, Vitamin A Palmitate, Vitamin D3), Tapioca Syrup, Red Cherry Sauce(Red Cherries, Sugar, Corn Starch, Water), Citric Acid, Sea Salt, Natural Flavor. Contains: Milk, Wheat
Purchase Location
Whole Foods via Amazon Prime
Price
$8.99
Books
Need to know how Jeni’s Ice Cream does it? Get Jeni’s cookbooks:
Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home and Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream Desserts.
Related
Psst! You can make ice cream like Jeni’s at home. Here’s Jeni’s secret ice cream base recipe! (Spoiler: her secret ingredients are cornstarch and 3 tablespoons of cream cheese!)
Read all the Jeni’s Ice Cream pint reviews.
Last Updated on October 9, 2022 by Ice Cream Admin
