Ben & Jerry's - Chubby Hubby

Chubby Hubby - Vanilla Malt Ice Cream with Peanutty Fudge-Covered Pretzels with Fudge and Peanut Buttery Swirls

Now for one of Ben & Jerry's stranger flavors: Chubby Hubby.  The origin of this flavor is actually a joke.  Two guys in York, PA convinced a co-worker that a flavor called "Chubby Hubby" existed and sent him out to find it.  While the co-worker was on his futile search, the two men decided to make up their own flavor by mixing peanut butter, fudge and pretzels into vanilla ice cream.  When the co-worker returned and tried the flavor, he loved it so much that he refused to believe it was really all a joke.  The men contacted Ben & Jerry's with their story, they tried the flavor too and liked it.  The rest is history.  Chubby Hubby has turned out to be one of their more popular flavors since it was introduced in 1994.  It has even inspired spin-off recipes for cookies, bars and other desserts using the same add-ins as the ice cream.

With that long list of ingredients, I had no idea what to expect.  Opening the pint I was greeted immediately by a fudge swirl on the top and the vanilla base was a bit darker than normal.  I did not know if this was due to the malt in the vanilla or the peanut butter swirl.  Digging into the pint, I did notice the effect of the malt in the vanilla base.  It was not as bright of a vanilla flavor as what you get in something like "Milk & Cookies" or "Americone Dream" but it was not a caramel or peanut butter flavor.  It was a subtle base meant only to serve as a vehicle for the fudge-covered peanutty pretzels.  These pretzel pieces were much bigger than I expected!  They were quite numerous as well.  More than once I was crunching a pretzel piece in my mouth for a few bites after I had swallowed the ice cream that was accompanying it on the spoon.  I think I expected the peanut butter flavor to be more noticeable, but it wasn't like I missed it with all of the pretzel pieces in there.  It was a salty pint of ice cream as well, I had to drink a bottle of water afterwards, so yes these pretzels did indeed make me thirsty.

All in all, it was a very interesting flavor.  It is certainly much different from almost all the other flavors I've tried so I'm glad I had it.  Whether or not you love this flavor would depend on how much you like pretzels and how much you like salty ice cream. 

Ben & Jerry's - Mint Chocolate Cookie

Mint Chocolate Cookie - Peppermint Ice Cream with Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

Today we review an old standby, Mint Chocolate Cookie.  This was the first flavor of Ben & Jerry's that I ate regularly.  For several years, this was the only Ben & Jerry's flavor that I ate.  This was back when I was less adventurous and didn't even look at all the other flavors with weird names in the Ben & Jerry's section of the freezer.  

Mint Chocolate Cookie was created in 1991 as "Mint with Oreo Cookies".  After Nabisco was acquired by RJReynolds, Ben & Jerry's wanted to distance themselves from Big Tobacco so they unbranded the flavor and switched to a generically implemented sandwich cookie.

This is a simple hybrid flavor of Mint Chocolate Chip (or Peppermint Bon Bon as I knew it growing up in Minnesota) and Cookies and Cream.  It is a very successful mix and has been done elsewhere.  I believe Dairy Queen often has a "Mint Oreo" Blizzard.

Opening the pint, you first thing you notice is the white color of the base.  The green color of most mint ice creams is done with artificial food coloring.  I guess natural white mint ice cream is becoming more common these days.  Then you also see small black cookie pieces blended into the base with a couple of larger pieces visible on top.  As you dig into the pint, you notice the strong mint flavor right away, a very bright mint flavor which is strong enough to clear the nasal passages at first but not so strong that it becomes too overwhelming as you get to the bottom of the pint.  The large cookie pieces become more numerous as you dig deeper into the pint.  In fact, there were a couple of pieces down near the bottom which were quite large -- almost full cookies. 

Even though I have since graduated to more exotic flavors, I still enjoy this oldie-but-goodie.  

Ben & Jerry's - The Tonight Dough starring Jimmy Fallon

The Tonight Dough starring Jimmy Fallon - Caramel & Chocolate Ice Creams with Chocolate Cookie Swirls & Gobs of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough & Peanut Butter Cookie Dough

I finally found a pint of the brand new The Tonight Dough after a few weeks of scouring stores for the flavor.  The dark blue Tonight Show logo background of the carton really sticks out in the freezer case.  To get you psyched for the review, here are a couple of videos from the Tonight Show.

First is Ben & Jerry visiting the Tonight Show to help unveil the new flavor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTqzeFa2_SI

Second is Jimmy having fun with customers at his local B&J Scoop Shop:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkLZoftCtyI

OK.  On with the review.  There are a lot of ingredients in this flavor.  Chocolate & Caramel ice cream bases, a chocolate cookie swirl and two types of cookie dough -- chocolate chip and peanut butter.  How will they fit all of this into one pint?

Opening the lid, the top was surprisingly dark and chocolatey.  As I started eating my way into the pint, I discovered that the chocolate cookie swirl was the secret weapon of this flavor.  The dough is getting all of the publicity but it is really the chocolate cookie swirl which is the highlight.   It had the pie-crust texture of a graham cracker swirl, but had a strong chocolate flavor.  Note that the two base flavors (chocolate and caramel) are themselves swirled together each individual base flavor is relatively subtle.  The base flavors themselves were not that strong.  As mentioned in other reviews, Ben & Jerry's caramel ice cream serves mainly as a creamy, non-vanilla base and the chocolate base flavor was mild compared to the cookie swirl.

Then on top of this was the cookie dough chunks.  The chunks were relatively numerous, but not overly so.  Having two types of cookie dough did not mean twice as much cookie dough, it was the same amount of cookie dough as is present in other cookie dough flavors.  Having two different types of flavors did add a bit of mystery to the eating experience because when you got some cookie dough in your spoon, you would be like "is this a gob of chocolate chip cookie dough, or a gob of peanut butter cookie dough?" and you would not know until you bit into it which one it was.  The peanut butter cookie dough had a more noticeable flavor.  Perhaps it provided more of a contrast to the cookie swirl.  The peanut butter dough has a nutty flavor (as opposed to a creamy flavor).

I enjoyed this flavor much more than I expected.  I am not really a cookie dough nut, but the cookie swirl made the flavor for me.  I am almost disappointed that I am on this review-writing kick because I feel like I have to eat a different-flavored pint every time and I would not mind having this flavor again soon. 

One final note is that this does official mark the retirement of Jimmy Fallon's previous flavor "Late Night Snack", named after his previous show.  The unique feature of that flavor was fudge-covered potato-chip clusters.  It will be interesting to see if Ben & Jerry's manages to work that feature into another flavor at some point in the future.

Ben & Jerry's - Cinnamon Buns

Cinnamon Buns - Caramel Ice Cream with Cinnamon Bun Dough & a Cinnamon Streusel Swirl

Cinnamon Buns is a flavor that was introduced back in 2007 which was perhaps meant to cash in on the popularity of Cinnabon and other similar pastry items.

Opening the pint, you see a bit of the streusel swirl, and a couple of cinnamon bun dough chunks.  As you start eating the pint, the cinnamon flavor of the swirl and the dough chunks dominates the pint.  The flavor of the caramel ice cream base is very subtle, its purpose is to provide a non-vanilla base. It is a bit darker and creamier and serves as a vehicle for delivering the cinnamon flavor.  The dough chunks are quite numerous and dispersed evenly throughout the pint.  There is a lot of cinnamon flavor in them and a hint of brown sugar in there as well.  The dough is much chewier than cookie dough -- which tends to be grittier.  There was not as much streusel as I was expecting but perhaps that was to prevent the cinnamon flavor from being too overpowering as there was plenty of cinnamon in this pint.  I wonder if it could have been improved with a caramel swirl.

I did enjoy this pint, but I can't help but think that it has been replaced by the Spectacular Speculoos flavor (see previous review) for those that like ice cream with spice.  There are differences with specific preferences -- soft cinnamon dough chunks here versus a pastier cookie-butter core in the other.

Ben & Jerry's - Americone Dream

Americone Dream - Vanilla Ice Cream with Fudge-Covered Waffle Cone Pieces & a Caramel Swirl

Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream was introduced back in 2007 with great fanfare on Stephen's TV show "The Colbert Report".  At the time, it was noted that "dessert had a well-known liberal agenda" and that Stephen was going to "bring some balance back to the freezer case".  Eight years have passed and the flavor is still going strong.  It is still one of B&J's top-ten-selling flavors and has outlasted the two flavors that Stephen "dueled against" on The Colbert Report -- both Willie Nelson's Peach Cobbler and Jimmy Fallon's Late Night Snack have since been retired.

Vanilla, caramel and fudge has always been a winning combination -- Ben & Jerry's even has a flavor called "Vanilla Caramel Fudge" -- but the variation here is the waffle-cone pieces.  It gives you the feeling that you are eating an ice cream cone out of a pint.

Opening the pint, you see vanilla ice cream with several fudge chunks sitting right on the top.  Even some of the caramel swirl is visible on the very top.  As you eat into the pint, the vanilla flavor of the base sticks out, of course, but there is quite a bit of caramel swirl to accompany it.  The fudge chunks were numerous and of healthy size but when you bit into them you got the surprise... each fudge chunk was covering a waffle cone piece!  The cone pieces were light and airy.  The fudge covering must keep them from getting stale.  :-)

A very successful flavor and it is not just the Colbert brand which makes it so popular.  The waffle cone pieces are a nice touch but you really cannot go wrong with vanilla, caramel and fudge.  It will be interesting to see what will happen when Stephen Colbert moves to network television this fall and changes his persona.  Will they give him a new flavor to compete with Jimmy Fallon's new "The Tonight Dough" flavor?  I think they will stick with Americone Dream as long as it remains popular.

McConnell's - Chocolate Almond Brittle

Chocolate Almond Brittle - Mouth-filling, medium dark, pure Guittard® chocolate melted into California Central Coast, grass-fed milk & cream, then marked by chunks of house made, smoky, salt roasted almond brittle.

Another McConnell's pint is being reviewed.  Note that even their drier description of the flavor lays it on pretty thick and for your reading pleasure, I also include a screenshot of the Peterman-catalogue style text from the back of the pint.

The previous McConnell's pint (Eureka Lemon and Marionberry) was very icy and gelato-like in texture, but I wasn't sure if that was an attribute that is true of McConnell's in general or if it was due to the fact that it was a lemon-flavored base.  So, this time I deliberately chose a richer chocolatey flavor.

Opening the pint, the ice cream was strikingly dark.  The darkest chocolate ice cream that I have tried so far.  From the first scoop, I note that it is icier than expected.  Its a richer cream that the lemon was but its still a very dense frozen base with not much air in it.  It almost has the consistency of a fudgesicle but with higher quality ingredients, of course.  The almond brittle was very interesting.  You could see it in the ice cream, but everything except for the nuts melted in your mouth.  It was like the brittle was melted.  It was probably better to have it suspended in the ice cream that way rather than have the teeth-breaking version of brittle that comes in a both.  The metled brittle added a bit of buttery texture as you ate each scoop and then the remaining almond pieces were rather small in size (though not small in number).

I liked it.  I think for the richer flavors like chocolate, I'd prefer a less-gelato-like texture, but the melted brittle was quite a novel add in.  For my next McConnell's flavor, I might try the mint-chip as that's one of my all-time favorite staple flavors and I'm curious to see what they do with it.

Ben & Jerry's - Coffee Caramel Buzz

Coffee Caramel Buzz - Coffee Malt Ice Cream with Whiskey Caramel Swirls & English Toffee Pieces

Coffee Caramel Buzz has a rather eclectic list of ingredients so I was not sure what to expect.  Evidently, it was inspired by the Bonnaroo Music Festival which is held every year in Manchester, Tennessee.  You can see a cartoon of the festival in the artwork on the front of the pint.  Manchester is the county seat of Coffee County which may be part of the inspiration -- although they do not grow coffee there, the county was named after early American military leader John Coffee. 

Opening the pint, the first thing I noticed is that the some of the exposed caramel on the top was spilling off the side.  I was curious as to how whiskey caramel was different from regular caramel and I guess having a more liquid consistency is one of those differences.  The coffee flavor of the base was quite noticeable on the first scoop, but thankfully it was not overpowering.  I think this was the role of the malt in the base.  I didn't really notice the malt flavor in and of itself, but it effectively muted the coffee flavor.  Ben & Jerry's has another flavor called "Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz" which has an extremely strong coffee flavor which was too much for me.  That was not a problem here and I was able to eat the entire pint in one sitting.  The whiskey caramel swirls were flavorful.   I noticed a bit of a kick to the flavor.  I doubt there is any actual alcohol content here, but they did reproduce the subtle burn in the back of the through that comes with a whiskey flavor.  The english toffee pieces were dispersed throughout the pint and were appropriately hard and brittle.  One of the pieces was quite large so they could have broken them up a bit more before mixing them in but otherwise they were quite tasty.

All in all, a very eccentric flavor!  I'm not sure when I'll have this flavor again, but it was well executed given the list of ingredients.  If those ingredients intrigue you and you are up for something not overly sweet and off the usual path of chocolate & peanut butter permutations, then give it a try.

Ben & Jerry's Cookie Core - Spectacular Speculoos

Spectacular Speculoos - Dark Caramel & Vanilla Ice Creams with Speculoos Cookies & a Speculoos Cookie Butter Core

In the first few weeks of 2015, Ben & Jerry's premiered its new "cookie core" flavors.  These are similar to the "core" flavors from a couple of years ago where there's a large central section of non-ice cream filler in the pint, but for the "cookie core" flavors, the central section is cookie butter.  Cookie butter is basically cooked cookies (not dough) which are ground up into their crumbs and then somehow liquified into a spreadable paste -- often with condensed milk, but I don't know how Ben & Jerry's does it.  Anyways, cookie butter has grown in popularity over the past few years and Ben & Jerry's has decided to jump on the bandwagon with these new flavors.

With the Spectacular Speculoos flavor, the cookie butter of choice is speculoo cookie butter.  "Speculoos" is a brand of cookie butter popularized by Trader Joe's but a speculoo is also a specific type of Dutch/Belgian holiday cookie.  The speculoo is a spicy cookie (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, etc) so it makes for a flavorful cookie butter.

Opening this particular pint of Spectacular Speculoos, I could see all the ingredients right away on the top.  The split base had caramel ice cream on one side and vanilla ice cream on the other.  I could see a couple of cookie pieces and there was even the start of the cookie butter core visible on the very top.

Digging into the pint, the spiciness of the speculoo cookies and cookie butter dominates the pint. Vanilla is a naturally complementary base, but in this case the caramel was quite subtle as well. I am not sure what 'dark caramel' means, but it doesn't mean stronger caramel flavor.  The subtle base flavors were not bad because speculoos are so flavorful.  The cookie pieces were often soft, also a couple of them were crunchy.  The cookie butter had a thick brown sugary paste consistency.  The cookie butter was good enough to eat by itself, but I tried to conserve it like I do with the other core flavors by "eating around" the core and working a little bit of the butter into each spoonful.

A very successful flavor.  It is my favorite of the three new cookie core flavors.  I already know several people reading this like it, but I wanted to have another pint so I worked it into a review.  :-)  

Ben & Jerry's - Boston Cream Pie

Boston Cream Pie - Boston Cream Pie Ice Cream with Yellow Cake Pieces, Fudge Flakes & Swirls of Pastry Cream.

Ben & Jerry's Boston Cream Pie is one of the flavors that I have had multiple times.  I am a big fan of custard-filled donuts and this pint reminds me of those.  Taking off the lid, you immediately notice the yellow tinge of the base ice cream.  "Boston Cream" is basically a form of vanilla custard and right from the first spoonful you notice a strong custard flavor.  Syrupy yellow swirls are evident as well.  That is the pastry cream.  I was expecting more of a frosting-like consistency instead of a gooey/syrupy consistency but it was still good.  It was roughly the same custardy flavor as the base ice cream but perhaps a bit sweeter.  I had to dig a bit to find the yellow cake pieces as they were not near the top.  The cake pieces were not very moist -- wet even.  They seemed to have been soaked in the pastry cream as you did get an extra injection of flavor as you bit into them.  Its very nice that the embedded bakes goods in the ben & jerry ice creams stay chewable -- they don't freeze.  The fudge flakes were not very numerous, but they did provide a small bit of chocolatey flavor from time to time as you periodically bit into one.  I actually have this pint when I am not in a chocolate mood as the custard flavor dominates the pint.

A successful flavor.  It is a very sweet flavor.  Those used to richer flavors based in chocolate or peanut butter should be prepared for the sweetness.  I have a bit of a sweet tooth myself, though, so I did not mind and I ate the entire pint fairly quickly.  For a similar flavor which is not quite as sweet, you could try Volun-Tiramisu which is a Target Exclusive Flavor.  Instead of a custard base, its a coffee mascarpone base and instead of soaked yellow cake pieces, it is cocoa-dusted ladyfinger pieces.  I've had that one multiple times as well.  :-)