Unless you're a history buff on the origin of late 19th century food, I'll assume you need some enlightment when the topic is Peach Melba. A quick Google search enlightens me that this classic dessert was invented by the famed French chef, Auguste Escoffier at the Savoy Hotel in London to honor the Australian soprano, Nellie Melba. Combining peaches and raspberry sauce with vanilla ice cream, Escoffier presented the dish to Melba at an event that The Duke of Orléans was hosting in her honor. Despite it's prestigious past, I'm still hesitant of any ice cream revolving around a piece of fruit.
Although I'm worried about the fresh, but still frozen, peaches and tangy swirl, the thought of getting my first taste of New Orleans Ice Cream's vanilla bean base keeps me optimistic. I can't recall coming across non-coated, toasted nuts in a flavor, so I'm also interested to see what these almonds are able to add to the equation. Tossing the lid aside, an off-white ice cream specked with vanilla bean and sporting vivid stripes of orange and orchid are revealed.
Scooping a big portion of the base onto my spoon, I was taken back by how complex New Orleans Ice Cream Company's vanilla bean was. The influx of vanilla beans adds a boldness I hadn't anticipated, creating a sweeter-than-normal base ice cream to showcase their other ingredients. The consistency lands somewhere between Blue Bell's homemade vanilla and the denseness of Graeter's vanilla. My skepticism subsided for the time being, but little did I know that the vanilla bean base was going to be the best part of this pint.
The tangy raspberry swirl was so prevalent that it came into play nearly immediately. Usually timid about tangy fruit filling in ice cream, this was one of the nicer fruit swirls I've seen. It wasn't nearly as tangy as advertised, but instead came through thick and sweet. Lacking a large quantity, the toasted almonds added a unique chewy texture. Not crunchy like I had imagined, these simple slivers ended up being the deciding factor on whether or not this would be added to the recommended ice creams of the blog. Then came the first real downfall of flavor.
Incorporating their method of large pieces of the main mix-in along with smaller ones, a few of the peach chunks were left in full length slices. Sharing the consistency of steel, these huge hunks take up way too much real estate with little benefit. The more petite pieces were fine, but the full-sized fragments ruin it for the rest. Although the peaches were better than your standard frozen strawberry, it still brought the overall rating regressing down the rating scale.
Where I Found It: Ice Cream Source
Grade: C
