Rating: 7/10
Price: £3.00 is for a massive litre. I mean a LITRE of ice cream! That should be illegal shouldn’t it?
Pre warning:
Unbeknownst to Kelly’s when they put in the request for a review of their ice cream; I had a bitter taste in my mouth. Having spent every summer throughout the mid-90s with callouses on my hands from scooping gallons of this stuff from enormous slidey freezers to serve to tourists; I was not enamoured by it. To be fair, things have changed since then, especially Boscastle: the village that almost washed away.
What’s inside?
One of the things I remember about Kelly’s ice cream is that it contains more sugar and syrupy stuff than a lot of other Cornish ice creams. Which, to be fair, I loved when I was a kid. The honeycomb flavour, disappointingly didn’t contain any honey! But there is also lashings of Cornish clotted cream, which sort of balances everything out, I guess.
For this reason I enlisted the tasting notes of my nieces aged 9 and 11.
What’s it taste like?
I found the taste of the honeycomb indecipherably sweet. I wouldn’t say it tasted of honey: more sugar than anything else. Which the kids loved! The creaminess of clotted cream gave it a nice flavour.
Texture
The ice cream is ‘soft scoop’ and it did live up to its name; in fairness. I wish it had done more so, circa ’95 when I had an enormous bicep on my right arm from the aforementioned ice cream window serving.
The ‘honeycomb’ pieces were quite small, but gave an effective crunch and texture to the ice cream.
Nose: Again indecipherably sweet. It reminded me a little of being in Ice Cream Land, part of Namja Town in Tokyo, which was a brilliant memory.
Palette: Creamy and smooth, the clotted cream inclusion does make this an easy ice cream to swallow!
Other stuff: When compared with some of the more natural ice creams being made in the South West’s most southerly tip, Kelly’s is disappointingly bland. Don’t get me wrong: it’s above any bog standard supermarket nonsense, but was a little too saccharine-y for my (refined?) taste. Overall, the kids thought it was great and it’s not branded as a luxury item. It’s just that being from Cornwall, I know there are people doing much more exciting things with the peninsula’s provenance.
Also, normally people would buy a cone on a day out, and in this quantity, it does what an ice cream should: tastes delicious, cools you down and gives a sweetness kick!
Where can I buy me some?
If you happen to be visiting Cornwall for a holiday, or better yet, live there: you will be able to get a variety of flavours scooped into your cone. The chocolate ripple is dangerously sweet and there are a variety of other flavours too!
However, if you’re not close by, luckily all major supermarkets countrywide stock this – in its epic litre tubs. I tried smashing mine up with a giant almond meringue from a local bakery. This was sweetness overload, but in for a penny, in for a glucose coma!
Tesco, Adsa, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Morrisons, and the Co-Op
More details
To check out their ingredients etc. Hop over to http://www.kellysofcornwall.co.uk/