Haagen-Dazs "reserve series"

[jende]

Haagen-Dazs is the latest food manufacturer to slap a "reserve" label on their product, even taking it a step further by providing "flavor notes," "food pairings," (is the suggestion to "serve a scoop [of Toasted Coconut Sesame Brittle] atop a banana leaf for the perfect ending to a Thai dinner" even a food pairing???) and, god no, "wine pairings."

As a side note, I bet it's delicious.

click

[Ktepi]

Pomegranate Chip sounds like a fantastic idea, but yeah, that really is a whole lot of noise where "hey, we thought of a cool flavor, come and get it" would do just fine.

They don't carry it here -- they say they're adding online ordering in the near future, but you know, if I'm going to buy and ship ice cream online, I'm going to get Capogiro Gelato.

[Rebecca263]

Nothing against the conglomerate here, but how Thai is corn syrup?

And, please, someone, help me get over that psuedo Euro name, Haagen-Dazs? It's always irked me to no end. I've never cared for folks pandering to perceived pretentions and that one takes the crown! If Breyers can afford sugar as opposed to corn syrup, why can't the US$4 a pint Haagen Dazs? Oh, and don't tell me the old chestnut about manufacturing and corn syrup, it doesn't fly, factually.

edited:ie,ei, it's all the same on a morphine drip!

Edited March 30, 2007 by Rebecca263 (log)

[KOK]

Nothing against the conglomerate here, but how Thai is corn syrup?

And, please, someone, help me get over that psuedo Euro name, Haagen-Dazs? It's always irked me to no end. I've never cared for folks pandering to perceived pretentions and that one takes the crown! If Breyers can afford sugar as opposed to corn syrup, why can't the US$4 a pint Haagen Dazs? Oh, and don't tell me the old chestnut about manufacturing and corn syrup, it doesn't fly, factually.

edited:ie,ei, it's all the same on a morphine drip!

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Not that it will make it any better, but I saw a show on TV where the owners of Matteus' (sp?) ice cream also made Haagen-Dazs and Reuben Matteus, who seemed like a regular joe type guy, and not pretentious, made up the name because he and his wife thought it sounded exotic and he thought that would justify the higher price to consumers.

You are 100% right in re the corn syrup/sugar!! just use the darn sugar for goodness sake.

Thanks,

Kevin

[Tess]

Blech on the corn syrup.

I think the food/wine pairing is just another thing to make people feel like they are cooking when they are not.

[Pan]

Haagen-Dazs is the latest food manufacturer to slap a "reserve" label on their product, even taking it a step further by providing "flavor notes," "food pairings," (is the suggestion to "serve a scoop [of Toasted Coconut Sesame Brittle] atop a banana leaf for the perfect ending to a Thai dinner" even a food pairing???) and, god no, "wine pairings."

As a side note, I bet it's delicious.

click

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I really don't care what they call it, as long as it's delicious! But what annoys me is that the "selected areas" where the series is available include "Nassau-Suffolk areas; and New York City suburbs," but not the city itself.

[Mikeb19]

Nothing against the conglomerate here, but how Thai is corn syrup?

And, please, someone, help me get over that psuedo Euro name, Haagen-Dazs? It's always irked me to no end. I've never cared for folks pandering to perceived pretentions and that one takes the crown! If Breyers can afford sugar as opposed to corn syrup, why can't the US$4 a pint Haagen Dazs? Oh, and don't tell me the old chestnut about manufacturing and corn syrup, it doesn't fly, factually.

edited:ie,ei, it's all the same on a morphine drip!

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Corn syrup is basically glucose, which has moisture retaining properties - this is very important for keeping a uniform, soft texture. Many pros also add pectin mixtures (aka. sorbet stabiliser) to sorbets and iced creams to help retain moisture.

In professional fine dining kitchens, the top pastry shops in the world, the top commercial iced creams, all use corn syrup/glucose. I recently purchased Pierre Hermé's newest encyclopedia "ph10" (as far as I know it's only been published in europe, and only in French), and every single sorbet and iced cream recipe contains glucose (as do most of his ganache recipes).

Strait up, the use of corn syrup/glucose in iced creams has little to do with cost, and much more to do with creating a better product. Sure, some people like to use sugar only because it's "more natural" (aka has less scary names attached to it), but it's an inferioir product.

[Rebecca263]

Strait up, the use of corn syrup/glucose in iced creams has little to do with cost, and much more to do with creating a better product.  Sure, some people like to use sugar only because it's "more natural" (aka has less scary names attached to it), but it's an inferioir product.

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There is nothing scary about it, corn syrup is a cheap form of sugar, and simple syrup has become an almost extinct idea. Too bad, because if you do a taste test, other glucose syrups do far better on the tongue than corn syrup. Glucose, fructose, it's all SUGAR. Natural means nothing. Cobalt is natural, but I'm not eating it!

[Malawry]

The Haagen-Dasz sorbets have a noticeably superior texture to some of the sugar-only "natural" brands. I eat a lot of raspberry sorbet, and Haagen-Dasz is my choice for this food--especially given the poor selection here on the rural edge of suburbia.

Now, if there was a commercial grapefruit-campari sorbet, I'd switch alleigances in a heartbeat.

[Mikeb19]

Strait up, the use of corn syrup/glucose in iced creams has little to do with cost, and much more to do with creating a better product.  Sure, some people like to use sugar only because it's "more natural" (aka has less scary names attached to it), but it's an inferioir product.

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There is nothing scary about it, corn syrup is a cheap form of sugar, and simple syrup has become an almost extinct idea. Too bad, because if you do a taste test, other glucose syrups do far better on the tongue than corn syrup. Glucose, fructose, it's all SUGAR. Natural means nothing. Cobalt is natural, but I'm not eating it!

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There are big differences between glucose, fructose, sucrose (table sugar), lactose, inverted sugar, etc... Different chemical structures (for instance, glucose and fructose are both C6H12O6, different structures though, and sucrose or table sugar is C12H22O11), different levels of sweetness, etc...

Glucose syrup (aka corn syrup since the majority of glucose syrup on the market is made from corn starch) is ideal for iced cream because of it's humectant properties (inverted sugar - which is sucrose split into glucose and fructose chains - is usually added as well to balance out the sweetness, as well for it's humectant properties).

Iced cream made from sucrose just doesn't compare when it comes to texture (and while making a simple syrup with sucrose does yield a somewhat better result, glucose syrup is better still). Ask any professional pastry chef (which I am, BTW).

[Fibilou]

I wish we could get half those interesting H-Dazs flavours here in the UK - we only get about 8. I'd love to try the pomegranate chip