Klondike Mint Chocolate Chip

Still hot out, in fact much warmer than earlier in July when National Ice Cream Month began so we'll continue with more ice cream features and spread them out into August since the folks from Unilever sent us five free coupons for five different brands they own.  Today we'll look at Klondike and if you thought in the past we covered a lot of these you are right but today we have a different flavor: Mint Chocolate Chip that comes in packages of six individually wrapped bars.  These are not ice cream sandwiches, these are chocolate covered squares of ice cream and the different will be come important in a moment so please keep reading.

The box the bars come in proclaim "Now Better Chips!" but I haven't had this variety before, haven't seen it in our stores before so I can't honestly say if these are better or not but I can say that the chips taste different from the chocolate coating.  Be careful because as soon as you pick one up your body temperature will start it melting so these are eat them fast treats.  The bar has a slightly mint scent but mostly a light chocolate fragrance.  As you can see in this second photo the bottom of the bars are not smooth as the tops and sides are suggesting they are moved along on the bottom as the coating hardens.

The green of the ice cream is more intense on the box than in the actual product.  Getting a photo close enough to show you the chips inside was a challenge so I hope you'll forgive this quality, Sisters and Brothers, but the bar was melting and I needed to work fast.  As you can see there are tiny chocolate chips in the ice cream.  When I bit into them and they melted very quickly the type of chocolate was clearly not the same as the coating.  Cool can play tricks when it comes to chocolate.  Milk chocolate often barely tastes like chocolate at all as an ice cream and darker chocolate can taste very creamy.  To my mouth the coating seemed  more creamy that the little bursts of chips but the label tells me that the cold and ice cream had me fooled.  The coating is listed as dark chocolate while the chips are semi-sweet.  The mint was barely there to my taste buds but there was a definite extra level of cool that was beyond what the ice cream was offering.

Ultimately the chocolates were the dominant flavor that that makes this a winner for The Chocolate Cult.  But it is Sacrament level winning?  This is where we have to think about the ingredients.  The chips are made with unsweetened chocolate and cocoa butter; the coating has chocolate liquor and cocoa both processed with alkali. This is real chocolate, thus Sacrament worthy.  But there are also added fats beyond what ice cream or chocolate requires as well as some chemicals so that's a negative. The end result is leaning a bit more toward the Sacrament side but you tell me, Sisters and Brothers: Is this worthy?