Review - Zane and Zack's Hellfire Habanero Cream Cheese
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Sam and Tina McCanless of Zane & Zack's World Famous Honey Co. focus heavily something that's right down my alley...sweet and heat! As much as I am a cheerleader of this heavenly taste combination, I have to with great shame admit that I've never formerly reviewed on of their products on this blog. Until now.
Zane & Zack's have oodles of spicy and sweet sauces, spreads and seasonings from which to choose, but I picked one that was similar a simple recipe I like to use employing habaneros and cream cheese. The subject mater of this review is their Hellfire Habanero Cream Cheese. When I first tried it months ago I wanted to see if it was able to take my homemade concoction to another level. The answer is both yes and somewhat no.
Ingredients:
Cream Cheese (Pasteurized cultured milk and cream, salt, stabilizers [xanthan and/or carob bean and or guar gums]), habanero peppers, carrots, honey, vinegar, garlic, salt, spices.
Label:
2.5 out of 5. Dark and evil looking, fitting for a jarred spread bearing sinister heat. But it's simply difficult to read, especially if someone is doing a quick scan on a specialty store shelf with hundreds of other similar products. Crisper, cleaner graphics and font are needed in my opinion.
Aroma:
3.5 out of 5. Vaguely sweet like honey with a moderate habanero and vegetable smell. If I sniffed hard enough I could detect a faint traces of garlic. Nothing pungent here, and it's about what one would expect when scanning the ingredients list. Overall it's okay yet it's not really mouth-watering.
Appearance and Texture:
3 out of 5. Hellfire Habanero Cream Cheese is a light orange color with tiny fragments of habanero chiles and carrots whirled in the soft amalgamation. It's a bit more spreadable than your average Philadelphia Cream Cheese is when it's straight out of the package.
Taste Straight Up:
3 out of 5. This is a good balance of sweet honey, cream cheese and the trademark habanero fruitiness. It's about as competent and enjoyable as one would expect with these components. Yet when I first tried this, I was mildly disappointed. There's really not a lot of complexity to this and almost seemed too pedestrian and non-additive when licked right off of the spoon.
I think a touch more honey and perhaps a smidgen of ginger might've given this the "oomph" that it needed while still keeping close to that delicate flavor balance.
Taste on Food:
4.5 out of 5. I've tested this on bagels, wheat crackers and even mixed with a small amount of ice cream and Hellfire breaks out of the confines of its "plain" attributes and starts to really rock. Spread some on a club or Ritz cracker with some extra sharp cheddar cheese and Hellfire really, really shines. Put a slice of beef summer sausage on said crackers for a weird but wonderfully scorching taste experience.
It certainly doesn't go well with everything. I thought it fell flat on toast. It's too odd and flavor-clashing on tortilla chips. How 'bout a pretzel dip? Eh, maybe. It may ultimately be up to you to find your favorite savory food combinations, and when you do discover what you think Hellfire Habanero Cream Cheese tastes nice on you'll see why I recommend this stuff.
Heat:
Surprisingly hot. On a heat scale of 1 to 5, this would be an easy 3.5. Even though dairy products routinely subdue the burn of chile peppers, the habaneros are still allowed to scream with incendiary passion in this cream cheese mixture. It coats the tongue at first and then the heat covers the back of the mouth and throat after consuming large quantities of this. If you're not looking for a lot of fire, go easy with this one.
In Conclusion:
It's by no means perfect and it doesn't pair with a number of food items that yell for . That having been said, this is still a killer spread. It may seem a bit pricey at $7.00, but if you don't feel like tinkering with all the ingredients yourself to make a similar spread in the kitchen it may be worth it.
Go to zandzhoneyco.com for more information or to order online.
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