Jeni's Launches Appalachian Acorn Pie Ice Cream Made With Ohio Acorns

Columbus-based Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams is betting that acorns — yes, acorns — belong in ice cream. The company has launched Appalachian Acorn Pie, a limited-edition new flavor made with flour milled from foraged Ohio acorns. The dessert arrives in October 2026 just in time for fall, drawing inspiration from Appalachian food traditions.

Photo: Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams (jenis.com)

The Flavor

So what does acorn ice cream actually taste like? According to Jeni's, it's nutty and sweet — somewhere in the realm of hazelnut, coconut, and chestnut. The fragrant acorn flour is folded into sweet cream and finished with a graham cracker swirl, calling to mind a nutty cream pie with a graham cracker crust.

What Makes Acorns Work in Ice Cream

The idea took root about five years ago, when the Jeni's research and development team asked a simple question: could acorns become an ice cream? Acorns are abundant across the United States and historically served as a food source for Indigenous Americans, yet they aren't regulated or distributed commercially as a food ingredient here. Early experiments with imported acorn flour showed promise — fragrant, nutty, and unlike anything the team had tasted — but overseas sourcing didn't work out.

So Jeni's did something it had never done before: it built its own supply chain from the ground up. The company signed grant letters for the Route 9 Action Network, an Ohio agricultural cooperative, to expand its work from chestnuts into foraging and processing acorns. That process includes washing and leaching the acorns' bitter tannins so the nuts are safe to consume. Then a nearby Amish farm — contacted the old-fashioned way, by snail mail, a community phone, and in-person visits — mills the prepared acorns into flour for the ice cream.

Where to Get It

Appalachian Acorn Pie launched on October 1 in Jeni's scoop shops nationwide and online. The company describes the release as a "very limited supply," so fans should act fast. As of this writing, the flavor is already listed as sold out on Jeni's website — your best bet is checking a local scoop shop before the season's most unusual pint disappears.