Okay, I had it out for half an hour from the freezer, and it didn’t look significantly better, so I left it, and accidentally left it for half an hour more… so an hour out of the freezer. I was skeptical, scooping, because it didn’t look significantly changed, except for the large melty amount around the edges. Scooped just like real ice cream.
Taste is pretty good. A bit sweet for my palette, but I’m 10 months in, and I tend to get more sensitive to sweetness as time passes on LC. I portioned out the ice cream, put the pint back in the freezer, and this is probably the key to not going face down in a pint and turning up with sugar alcohol induced rumble guts.
Since the visual appearance in the pint case didn’t change with additional time, it might’ve been fine at half an hour. Something to check on the final serving in my first pint. But the extra half hour allows the satiety to really kick in hard, which might also be key to not going face down in the stuff.
I rate this much better when properly defrosted. It’s still not super premium, like B&J or HD. It’s got too much air. But the mint chip isn’t a bad replacement for Talenti Mediterranean Mint, which is pretty airy for a super premium (if you’re curious, next time you’re at the store, pick up a B&J pint, a HD pint and a Talenti pint, all similar flavors, ideally without mixins, and see how much lighter the Talenti is… then put them all back, faithful ketonaut). I rate it as pretty dangerous though. High temptation for doing a whole pint. Fortunately, the only real downside to that is about 30 grams of sugar alcohol.