Review: Turkey Hill All Natural Chocolate Peanut Butter Gelato

Gelato used to be the domain of just a few select companies, but now even the fringe (or smaller) players are getting into the act.  I noticed on when of my recent trips to Kroger that Turkey Hill has joined the foray and created their own gelato line underneath their all natural umbrella, some of which I've reviewed previously.  Always loving a sale (and coupons), I picked up this quart (32 ounces for the mathematically challenged) of Turkey Hill All Natural Chocolate Peanut Butter Gelato at a sale price (with coupon) of $2.99.  The quart packs in eight half-cup sized servings with each serving coming in at a moderate (for dessert) 230 calories.

As you can see from the picture above, there's not a ton of great designs here.  That would also apply to the description of this on the Turkey Hill website which sticks straight to the facts:  "MILK, CREAM, SUGAR, COCOA, CREAMY PEANUT BUTTER."  They didn't even try to make it sound appetizing with some marketing-spun description.  Here's what it is and that's that.  Hilarious.  Anyway, this is a base chocolate ice cream that carries a somewhat chocolate smell and it is smooth and airy like gelato.  Within that chocolate gelato is a hardened, frozen peanut butter swirl that is not gooey, but instead hard and brittle.

My first attempt here was at the chocolate gelato.  Honestly, it was kind of flat.  Not particularly sweet or rich, but it did taste like chocolate, albeit an extremely mild flavored chocolate.  I've had that experience with Turkey Hill's chocolate (and other manufacturers) chocolate ice creams before, so this really didn't come as a surprise to me.  As much as I love chocolate, it's really tough to nail a chocolate ice cream (or gelato).  Next up was tasting the peanut butter swirl (brittle) and the peanut butter was rich, hearty and extremely sweet.  Clearly the sweetness in this quart of gelato was intended to come from this.  Finally, I put the two together and the brittle peanut butter provided some nice snap and crunch to break up the texture of the smooth, light and airy chocolate.  That peanut butter also saved a tame chocolate and turned this into kind of a rich treat, which was nice.

Buy It or Fly By It?  Ultimately this was just a standard chocolate peanut butter combination.  A solid performer and deserving of a BUY IT rating.  I spelled out countless times that I typically think the chocolate and peanut butter combination is overrated (don't get me wrong, it's still very good), so this wouldn't be high on my list of purchases.  That said, if you are a person that loves that flavor combination, you'll want to grab this given the chance.

BUY IT!!