Paciugo Gelato & Caffe

While walking around downtown in the rainy cold weather , I was freezing and needed a  cup coffee to keep warm and wake me up.  We wandered into Paciugo Gelato & Caffee.  Our eyes were unprepared for the wide variety of flavors of gelato we were facing.  It was too cold for me to have one of these delightful desserts so I stuck with coffee.

 Gelato is the Italian word for ice cream right?  Wrong. Gelato is Italian but differs from ice cream in that it is more dense than ice cream because it contains less butterfat  4-8 percent butterfat in gelato compared to 15 percent in ice cream.  Gelato has less air whipped into it because it is churned more slowly making it denser and making the flavor more intense.  Thinking I might like gelato more because it has less fat--I had to think again.  It has about 10 percent higher sugar content.  Other than sugar and butter fat differences, both use frozen milk and or cream and flavorings.  

We returned here for my birthday--I chose four flavors--Tres Vanilla, Coconut, Caramel, and Caramel Waffle Cone!  Coconut and Vanilla were the best.