Baked Ice Cream Kit Kat

So this I believe marks the first Japanese exclusive Kit Kat flavor I've had and boy is it a flavor. For those who don't know Japan has tons of exclusive Kit Kats. It's actually not fair. If I knew this I would've gone back in time to tell mama wolf to swim to Japan before having me but nooo, that's an impossibility. So it's still possible to get them here, but it's more inconvenient for sure. I'm interested to see how they get an ice cream flavor in this, and you can bake them! Luckily Japan Crate provided two so I will be trying one as is and one baked.

I open it up and it smells as expected, but the appearance is wildly different. The color is right, but I wonder what the specks are? Maybe chocolate chips? That can't be right, the packaging shows plain vanilla. Maybe they forewent appearance on this one to get the flavor accuracy and there's some other ingredient in there. Anyways, the smell is on point, I definitely get that vanilla ice cream flavor with a little graininess of the Kit Kat added in. Probably closest to soft serve. Heh, how I loved pawing at those machines when the humans weren't around.

The flavor though is absolutely delightful. I don't know what those flecks are but they really do wonders recreating the ice cream flavor and the wafer crunch is exactly what a vanilla ice cream needs. The part without the wafer is exactly on point with the flavor, it's actually crazy. I daresay it gets the flavor better than actual ice cream. It's a very cream-like taste, moreso than the vanilla, which I am totally okay with. Like imagine half n half frozen just slightly in a chewy form, and that's this. There's also kind of a flavor that resembles salt, maybe to represent the rock salt used to form ice cream? Anyways, it's really good.

After baking the other one, the smell gets even stronger and is positively tantalizing. I never thought baked and ice cream could go together but here I can smell how they work so perfectly. Imagine a freshly baked cookie with vanilla ice cream flavor and that's what this smells like, and really strong. I don't get to go use an oven often, but whenever I do, my tail wags so impatiently waiting for the thing to cool so I can eat it, just like now! As for appearance, the flecks are still there, but the outsides have taken on a lovely golden brown color and the candy has partially melted and reformed, leaving it rough and with some bubbles.

Taste-wise the texture got even crispier which is lovely. Reminds me of ice cream sandwiches with fresh baked cookies! The ice cream flavor does seem to deteriorate a bit in flavor of the baked "cookie" flavor but it still works very very well. I just wish there was a way to get both sensations. Just make these bigger I suppose? I certainly wouldn't complain. Overall though a fantastic treat, I don't have a preference for either method, I get different things from each. So if you want to try these, try them both ways!

Rating: 9 - Arooooo!