Review: Talenti Southern Butter Pecan Gelato

In the early days of the blog, I hit up Talenti products for reviews quite a bit.  Since then, I've mostly stayed away (it's been almost a year; WOW) for a couple of reasons.  First of which is that my stores just don't change out their varieties very often.  Second, and perhaps most important though, is that that they are seemingly never on sale and their regular prices are just not something I want to pay for a pint of any dessert, no matter how good it may or not be.  So, on a recent trip to Kroger, both of my excuses were blown out of the water as I noticed that for the first time in quite a while, my Kroger had switched out its flavors and added this Talenti Southern Butter Pecan Gelato to the collection as this was a flavor introduced the world this past March.  The sale price for this pint was $3.50 and with four half-cup servings inside, each serving measured in at 210 calories.  It's also all natural, gluten free and kosher, so it's got all sorts of goodness going for it.

This one starts out with a base of a buttery gelato and based on the fact that this one seemed especially smooth and had a slight buttery smell, I'd say it was heavy on that component.  Mixed in with that butter gelato were several pecan pieces, which while not overly abundant, were certainly sufficient enough to announce their presence.  According to Talenti, those pecans were also butter roasted, so there you go with more butter.  I guess the "Southern" part of this pint makes this pretty much like Paula Deen...a lot of butter! Also mixed in with those nuts and all that butter is a smooth ribbon of dulce de leche and it was gooey and amply spread.  These Talenti gelatos obviously come in clear containers, so there's no mystery in what they look like, but I have to give them credit here because this deserved a clear container because it was absolutely beautiful looking on the inside and out.

It was beautiful tasting too.  Ordinarily, I do not like butter pecan ice creams, but this gelato made me completely change my mind because just the buttery gelato alone was incredible.  It was creamy and the buttery accent made it borderline decadent.  The addition of the crunch of the pecans did a great job breaking up the texture, although it really didn't break up the butter any since they were butter roasted.  The one component in here that broke up the butter was the dulce de leche swirl and while it was sweet, it wasn't overly sweet.  Regardless of how sweet it was, the sweetness was needed as something to break up the buttery components of this pint and it did an excellent job.

Buy It or Fly By It?  Honestly, this may make me change my mind on butter pecan entirely because this container was absolutely delicious in my mind.  I often do not like "butter" in my ice creams, but it worked perfectly in this gelato and the addition of the pecans and the dulce de leche swirl just took this one over the edge into being awesome to me.  For this, it get a resounding BUY IT rating and I'm sure that with all the butter included, Paula Deen would probably feel the same way, even with here most recent health struggles.

BUY IT!!

Other Reviews:
*The Ice Cream Informant