Celebrity Apprentice Ice Cream Finale with Magic Swirtle and Macadamia Mash-up

[New for 2013, still existed in 2015 without the celebrity apprentice (and OV) branding]
So, do you guys watch the celebrity apprentice? I remember the original season of the apprentice that actually use to teach us about teamwork, marketing, and business.... and I will admit to watching a large part of season 12, but overall I forget about it but I might watch it tonight because apparently the season is ending with an ice cream showdown, how cool is that? Which ever flavor sold more this past week will be crowned the winner tonight. So who did I vote for with my $4.19?

This is Penn Jillette's Vanilla & Chocolate Magic Swirtle Ice Cream benefiting Opportunity Village. It's rich vanilla ice cream with a sea salt chocolate swirl and fudge caramel candy pieces. Sea salt chocolate swirl has your attention doesn't it?

The opening visuals were very tame and digging down doesn't really have me excited either. The base is a pretty standard vanilla ice cream, nothing fancy or crazy. You know, I expected to see some swirl going on but it looks more like chunks at this point. Let's take a quick look at the swirtle turtles.

We've seen chips, chunks, cups, truffles, balls, bunnies, and even cows.... but this is the first turtle I've ever seen and I love it. My word are these little guys cute (and tasty!). Even if these weren't tasty, they'd still be one of my favorite mixins simply for how cute they are. I love how the shell it etched on to them. Man that's funny.

Whoa! Found the swirl!! I started dividing up the pint between myself, my wife and my daughter and I ran smack dab into the middle of one very thick swirl (and took out a few turtles in the process). Man that's a mighty swirl. Just look at how the powdery grit of the swirl has rubbed off on the base (top right of the picture).

Ok, we're getting a big thumbs up from my wife who loves the salty and sweet contrast here. My daughter likes it too. I like it, but I don't love it. It's not a bad ice cream and while it looked tame at first, it's striving hard to be different. My problem is that I need some kind of bonus flavoring to balance out the salt here. It's neat, it's different, but it's just a little too much for me.

The swirl here is what sets it apart. It's like some fancy high end brownie mix that wants to take the center stage, and it does. I just need a hit of something. Give me a spotlight of caramel or sweetness to make this one shine. I have no doubt a lot of people will get a kick out of this one, I just don't think it's complete.

If you are curious, here is the competition. This is the Trace Adkins Maple Macadonia Mash-Up ice cream that benefits the American Red Cross. I give this one kudos for venturing into the rarely touched areas of maple and macadamia. I'll be curious to see how it sold since at my store I grabbed the last swirtle pint while there were still three mash-ups left. [the commercial for both flavors is here]

Verdict?  liked it, didn't love it
Buy Again?  probably not

Finale Update: Ok, so Penn got an extra $100,000 for his charity because he sold more of his ice cream (as predicted). That bonus put him first for fundraising for this round of the competition, but the problem for him is that over the course of the season, Trace raised more money overall, so Trace won the show. That seems a little cheezy if you ask me.