Wednesday, July 23, 2008

New product Wednesday, at Dallas-area stores: Sheer Bliss ice cream

By Teresa Gubbins

This-here Sheer Bliss ice cream comes in a cayan.

Sheer Bliss ice cream was initially introduced in September 2005 by a couple of businessmen in Florida, but just started showing up in Dallas-area stores. It's a unique item in that it calls itself Ultra Super Premium Ice Cream -- placing itself above regular super premium ice cream, i.e., Haagen Dazs and Ben & Jerry's.

Some other aspects about it that are unique:

1. Packaging. It comes in a tin. This worked better than you might expect; the ice cream didn't leak and didn't have ice crystals or other textural issues that would indicate deterioration. Tins seem bulky and environmentally incorrect, but on this tin, the lid fit snugly and thus the tin will definitely get recycled for other things, like storing sugar, coffee beans, candy, or small batches of dry cat food.

2. Flavor focus on pomegranate. More than half of its seven flavors have a pomegranate connection: Pomegranate, Vanilla with Pomegranate Swirl, Pomegranate with Dark Chocolate Chips, Freedom (Vanilla, Pomegranate, and Blueberry), Mediterranean Coffee, Chocolate, and Vanilla. The company also makes a pomegranate ice cream bar, ice cream sandwiches, and bon bons.

Within the next few months, seven more flavors will be introduced, and the company has hired a new profile-raising celebrity spokeswoman, Kim Cattrall from Sex and the City. So expect to see this stuff more.

3. "Ultra." This chart summarizes the types of ice cream, moving up from "economy" and "standard" to "premium" (Breyers and Dreyer's) and "super premium" (Ben & Jerry's, Haagen Dazs). Premium and super premium ice cream contain higher amounts of butterfat than regular ice cream, and have less air (aka "overrun") whipped in, so they are more dense and creamy.

But if you notice, the chart doesn't list ultra super premium. The two things that might make an ice cream more premium than super premium would be 1. butterfat and 2. overrun. Thus, compare the nutritional figures for Sheer Bliss Pomegranate with Haagen Dazs' Limited Edition Green Tea ice cream:

Calories: HD 250, Sheer Bliss 290

Total fat: HD 17, Sheer Bliss 16

Saturated fat: HD 10 g, Sheer Bliss 11 g

Cholesterol: HD 105 mg, Sheer Bliss 55 mg

Carbohydrates: HD 20 g, Sheer Bliss 32 g

Sugars: HD 19 g, Sheer Bliss 29 g

Note the similarity in calories and fat grams. Thus, it seems likely that Sheer Bliss' "ultra" status is achieved by not whipping much air into it, meaning that the pint tin contained "more ice cream". It sure seemed so in the texture, which was finer, creamier, and less airy than super premium ice cream.

4. Flavor. Central Market had two flavors, Pomegranate and Pomegranate with chocolate chips. What was terrific about them was their distinctive, pleasing lack of traditional sweetness. Pomegranate has an inherent fruity tartness, but above and beyond that, the ice cream had a pleasing sour undertone, like sour cream or yogurt.

Sheer Bliss was named a finalist at the 2005 International Fancy Food Show, and has received other awards for taste and packaging. It's not easy to launch a new ice cream line in a market dominated by super-titans Nestle (Dreyer's, Haagen Dazs) and Unilever (Ben & Jerry's, Breyers). Sheer Bliss would probably like to be a big gun down the road but for now, it's still a little guy. Let's hear it for the little guys.

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• Food and Drink

Comments

Collin Gouldin Verified

you assume that the fat content is all from milk product (butter fat) but my understanding is that a lot of premium and above ice creams have egg in them, which would essentially turn it into a frozen custard..

11 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Teresa Gubbins Staff

one thing that the author of this article fails to mention is that Sheer Bliss proudly touts that its ice creams have no egg.

here's the ingredient list for Sheer Bliss pomegranate: cream, milk, cane sugar, nonfat dry milk, pomegranate juice, guar gum, carob bean gum, carrageenan.

for point of comparison, HD green tea: cream, skim milk, sugar, egg yolks, green tea

11 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Fezziwig Anonymous

Wow. This I have to try. With all the new ice creams out there, it really helps to know which ones are worth the seemingly exorbitant cost these days. ($6 for a pint?!)

When it cools off, maybe you could rate a sampling of some of the exotic chocolate bars at CM. I sometimes gaze at those, but am overwhelmed by the options and end up passing them by. If I'm going to invest the calories, I want the best!

11 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )