Ben & Jerry's - That's My Jam

That's My Jam - Chocolate & Raspberry Ice Creams with Fudge Chips & a Raspberry Core

Ben & Jerry's released its "core" flavors last year where this is a large central core of a thick and goopy add-in.  We've already discussed the "Hazed & Confused" flavor where the center was all a nutella-like hazelnut fudge.  Other core flavors utilize cores of caramel, salted caramel and peanut butter fudge.  What if they made the core out of raspberry jam?  That's the question that this flavor is trying to answer.

Opening the pint, the top contains a look at the two base flavors.  There was mostly chocolate  on the top but I could also see some of the light pink raspberry base with a fudge chip or two visible within the pink.  The jam core could also be seen right away on the very top.  It did not bind the same way to the lid as the ice cream did so it had a different look to it.  Digging into the pint, there was more of the raspberry base than the very top would have suggested.  The chocolate half must of spilled over a bit on the very top.  The raspberry base was subtley flavored and not overpowering.  The chocolate half was simple chocolate ice cream and went well with the raspberry.  The fudge chips were only present on the raspberry half and went pretty well with the flavor of the raspberry base.  What was not subtle was the large core of jam in the center of the pint.  It was thick and had a strong, tart raspberry flavor.  Some seeds were noticeable within the jam but it was not overly seedy.  My standard practice for eating a core flavor is to eat around the core trying to incorporate only a little bit into each spoonful and I had to be very careful to do that here because the jam would have been far too strong to eat by itself.  Doing so, I was able to finish the pint while keeping each spoonful reasonably flavorful, but I did not feel all that well about a half an hour after I finished it.

I really did not enjoy this flavor.  Simply put, it was just too much jam.  If you are thinking of trying this flavor, make sure you enjoy eating raspberry jam by the spoonful first, otherwise the jam core will be too overpowering.  There were some parts that I did like.  The light-pink raspberry base with accenting fudge chips was a subtle and well-done combination.  If they put those together in a future flavor I would probably enjoy it.

Ben & Jerry's - Peanut Butter World (Target Exclusive)

Peanut Butter World - Milk Chocolate Ice Cream with Peanut Buttery Swirls & Chocolate Cookie Swirls

Today's flavor is another peanut-butter-centric flavor, Peanut Butter World.  I looked at the backlog of Ben & Jerry's flavors and noticed that there was a lot of peanut butter ones on the list and I decided to put a dent into that.  Its also a Target Exclusive flavor.  I get worried that some of the vendor-exclusive flavors may cycle out before I get a chance to review them.  One my favorite flavors from the past two years was "Volun-Tiramisu" but it appears that it has likely been discontinued so I fear that I missed out on the chance to write a formal review for the flavor.  I am determined not to let that happen again! :-)

Opening the pint of Peanut Butter World, I see mostly chocolate with some evidence of the chocolate cookie swirls.  The base here is labeled 'milk chocolate' which is different from most of the chocolate bases which are just labeled 'chocolate'.  I'm not certain what difference that made other than it was certainly not a dark chocolate.  Digging in I noticed the peanut butter swirl which was not obvious on the very top.  The peanut butter and chocolate cookie swirls created light brown and dark brown marbling to the brown chocolate base.  The peanut butter flavor was noticeable but not overpowering.  The chocolate cookie swirl is perhaps my favorite type of swirl and gives a strong chocolatey kick to an already chocolate base. 

This is yet another successful mixture of chocolate & peanut butter.  I enjoyed it.  Keep in mind that this particular flavor is more chocolate-centric than its name implies, it is probably three parts chocolate and one part peanut butter, so keep that in mind when you are choosing flavors.  Also, the swirls are just about the most efficient way to blend the flavors which is good but there's no chunks or gobs or crunchy pieces, every spoonful was the same blend of flavors.  If this particular permutation of chocolate & peanut butter interests you, then check it out.

Ben & Jerry's - Roasted & Toasted (Walmart Exclusive)

Roasted & Toasted - Dark Chocolate Ice Cream with Fudge Chunks, Fudge-Covered Roasted Almonds & a Toasted Marshmallow Swirl

I stopped by Walmart to check out their ice cream display -- I only go to Walmart for ice cream -- and I was surprised to see a brand-new Ben & Jerry's Flavor called Roasted & Toasted.  I had not heard anything about a new flavor and there it was.  Unfortunately, this particular Walmart's freezer case had severe frost issues.  So thick was the frost on the outside of these pints that I was concerned for the integrity of the ice cream inside.  After researching online, I found another Walmart location and their freezer case had frost issues too, but thankfully their pints of Roasted & Toasted were freshly stocked and appeared to be unscathed.

This is the first Ben & Jerry's pint I've seen with a dark chocolate base.  McConnell's Chocolate Almond Brittle had a dark chocolate base, but not any Ben & Jerry's pint that I've had.  Opening the pint the first think I noticed was that the dark chocolate was indeed very dark.  Also noticeable were dark golden color of the toasted marshmallow swirls and a couple of the fudge chunks.  Digging into the pint dark chocolate base was very tasty.  The marshmallow swirls did not end up making the pint gooey as it did in the Phish Food flavor, but it did soften the pint up a bit as the dark chocolate base would otherwise be very thick.  The fudge chunks and fudge-covered almonds were generously dispersed throughout the pint.  The roastedness of the almond flavor really stuck out as I was crunching into these fill-ins.

I enjoyed this pint.  Its interesting to compare this to the McConnell's Chocolate Almond Brittle flavor as they are both dark chocolate bases with almond fill-ins.  The McConnell's base was thicker and had more of a fudgesicle consistency and its melt-in-your-mouth brittle softened it up a little bit but not as much as the marshmallow swirls did here.  In the brittle, the almond pieces were small and unroasted whereas here they were larger, fudge-covered and had a strong roasted flavor.

Walmart switches their exclusive flavors fairly frequently so if this flavor interests you and you can find a store with a decent freezer case, then check it out before they swap in a new flavor.

Ben & Jerry's - Peanut Butter Half Baked

Peanut Butter Half Baked - Chocolate & Peanut Butter Ice Creams mixed with Gobs of Peanut Butter Cookie Dough & Fudge Brownies

Last fall, Ben & Jerry's released its latest limited-batch flavor "Peanut Butter Half Baked" to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of one of its most popular flavors "Half Baked".  Half Baked is a flavor which contains both chocolate chip cookie dough (unbaked) and fudge brownies (baked).  This is the peanut butter version so it contains peanut butter cookie dough and also the half vanilla base has been replaced by a half peanut butter ice cream base.  As I write this, I think it may have been a good idea to review "Half Baked" first, but this is a limited-batch flavor and I wanted to make sure I got it before it went away.

Opening the pint, mostly chocolate is visible thought there is a hint of swirl in the base.  Also visible right on top are the gobs of peanut butter cookie dough and the one of the fudge brownies.  Digging into the pint, the base flavors ended up being split down the middle with the peanut butter ice cream on one side of the pint and the chocolate ice cream on the other side.  As mentioned in other reviews the peanut butter ice cream has a nutty rather than a creamy flavor and texture.

The real star of this flavor this flavor are the cookie dough and brownie fill-ins.  I am not a big fan of fully-baked peanut butter cookies, but the dough for these cookies is quite good.  It is a great way of deliverying soft peanut buttery flavor -- such a good way that I don't think there needed to be peanut butter in the base but that may be a personal preference.  Peanut butter lovers may appreciate the double dose.  The fudge brownies are provided from the Greystone Bakery which is located in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.  The bakery is founded and run by a Zen Buddhist and all of their profits go to the charitable Greystone Foundation which seems to fit in with the hippie culture of Ben & Jerry's.  They have built a failure large business with Ben & Jerry's as their largest client and their brownies are quite tasty.  In this pint, both the cookie dough and the brownies stay soft and chewy despite being embedded inside a frozen treat.  With so many fill-ins this ice cream was thicker and slower-melting than most flavors.  I've written in the past about how caramel, marshmallow and fudge swirls can make the ice cream 'gooey', well here the dough and brownies have the opposite effect.

Peanut Butter Half Baked is another successful mix of chocolate and peanut butter.  There are so many ways in which these flavors can be mixed and its always interesting to see what they will come up with next.  If I had to quibble, I think in my particular pint, the cookie dough chunks outnumbered the brownies by a ratio of two to one and I would have preferred a more even split -- although that may be something that may vary from pint to pint.  Remember, this is a limited batch flavor so if this combination intrigues you then check it out before it goes away for good.  My feeling is that this batch served as a practice run for the Tonight Dough flavor which also used peanut butter cookie dough to great effect.

Ben & Jerry's - Cherry Garcia

Cherry Garcia - Cherry Ice Cream with Cherries and Fudge Flakes

On to a review of an old classic - Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia.    Introduced way back in 1987, it was named after Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia and was the first of their rock-themed ice cream flavors (Phish Food, Blondie Ambition, etc).  It has proven to be one of their most popular flavors.  No matter how few flavors are available in a particular freezer case, Cherry Garcia is always one of the options.  Stores with large Ben & Jerry's sections offer it in quarts and in  Frozen Yogurt.  Burlington, Vermont has renamed their Cherry Street as "Cherry Garcia Street" near the local scoop shop.  Jerry Garcia passed away in 1995, but Cherry Garcia has lived on.

But how excited am I about cherry ice cream?  Cherry has a very strong and sweet flavor which can easily be overwhelming.  I can usually take a can of cherry coke about once a year, but I wouldn't be able to have a six-pack in my fridge -- I would have trouble making it through all of them. 

Opening the pint, I see that the base ice cream is very light in color.  Its clearly pink, but it is more of an off-white pink.  Some of the fudge flakes are visible on the top as well.  Digging into the pint, I am pleased by the fact that although the base cherry flavor is quite noticeable, it is not that strong.  Dispersed throughout the pint are both cherries and fudge flakes.  The cherries are more of the darker variety.  Thankfully, these are not maraschino cherries.  Still they pack quite a punch of sweet cherry when you bit into them.  Interestingly, the fudge flakes in this mix provide a bit of bitter to offset the sweetness of the cherries.  I don't think this is bitter chocolate, but it is providing the bitter in this mix.  A very clever and successful combination of fill-ins here.  The fudge flakes seemed slightly larger and harder than the grumbly flakes that were present in the candy-bar-themed flavors Nutty Caramel Swirl and Candy Bar Pie.  

So, a successful flavor.  I don't think I am enough of a cherry-holic to totally *love* this flavor, but I can see why cherry lovers have made this an enduring flavor for the past three decades.

Ben & Jerry's - Chocolate Peppermint Crunch

Chocolate Peppermint Crunch - Chocolate Ice Cream with Peppermint & Fudge Swirls & Mint Chocolate Cookie Balls

Here we continue with the theme where every other review is a pint in the Mint Chip/Peppermint Bon Bon family.  (The pints I have reviewed in between have acted as palate cleansers).  Today's flavor is Chocolate Peppermint Crunch which was introduced by Ben & Jerry's in 2013 as basically the standard Mint Chip flavor turned on its head.  Instead of a peppermint ice cream with chocolate add-ins, this is a chocolate ice cream with mint (and chocolate) add-ins.

Opening the pint, you see the dark brown of a chocolate ice cream base.  You also brown bubbles of the fudge swirl.  You even little white spots from the peppermint swirl?  Digging into the pint, the effect of the fudge swirl in the chocolate base is that it creates a gooier base.  This also causes the mint swirl to blend in more.  The white color is more noticeable in the attached photos than I recalled while eating the pint.  That also helped the mint swirl blend into the base better, so that the mint flavor was noticeable in every spoonful.  It is not as gooey as Phish Food with its marshmallow and caramel swirls, but it is quite a bit softer than the average pint.

Then to offset the gooey effect of the swirls, crunchy mint chocolate cookie balls are included.  These are generously dispersed throughout the pint.  They feel like mint-chocolate crutons - that's a fairly precise description of the crunchy texture of these cookie balls.  Of course, the cookie balls served as another way of injecting mint flavor into the pint.

I must admit that I prefer the standard Mint Chocolate Cookie or Mint Chip to this flavor.  Still, if you're a big Mint Chip fan and you want try a unique twist on this flavor combination, then give this a try and see if its for you.

Ben & Jerry's - Nutty Caramel Swirl (7-11 Exclusive)

Nutty Caramel Swirl - Nougat Ice Cream with Peanuts, Fudge Flakes & a Salty Caramel Swirl

This is a 7-11 exclusive flavor which appears to be Ben & Jerry's implementation of a "Snickers Bar" flavored ice cream as its based on the combination of chocolate, caramel, peanuts and nougat.  Its interesting to contrast this flavor with the Candy Bar Pie ice cream that I reviewed earlier.  Here, the nougat is in the base ice cream whereas in CBP the nougat is in a swirl.  Here the nuts are included direction as a fill-in while in CDP they are worked in to the peanut butter ice cream base.  Two twists on the same idea.

Opening the pint, you notice the beige color of the nougat ice cream base and lots of fudge flakes are visible right away as well.  You even see a little hint of the caramel swirl right on top.  I was curious as to how they would pull off the nougat flavor of the base.  Its not a strong flavor, but it really does taste like the inside of a Three Musketeers bar.  As mentioned in previous reviews, the fudge flakes are just the right size and thickness as to mimic a crumbled coating of a nougat-filled chocolate bar.  The peanut halves were generously dispersed throughout the pint.  Although the caramel was visible and noticeable, I think there could have been more.  I've had this flavor before and I seem to remember more caramel last time so it might be something that varies from pint to pint.

I did enjoy this flavor.  As a matter of fact, I enjoyed it more than I did Candy Bar Pie, but if you prefer peanut butter and pretzels to peanuts and caramel you may disagree.  The main problem here is the 7-11 exclusivity.  I have one two blocks from me, but my home state of Minnesota does not have any 7-11's.  Also, the fact that its available only at 7-11 means that you have to pay convenience store prices which is typically a buck or two more than the supermarket.

McConnell's - Mint Chip

Mint Chip - A McC’s classic among classics. Fresh peppermint infused into our insanely creamy mix of fresh, Central Coast, grass-fed milk and cream and organic cage-free eggs, then mated to Guittard bittersweet chocolate.

Time for another McConnell's review.  The words above are there's and not mine.  I always feel like I have to remind the reader of that.  As gushy as they are in their short-description, they really go over the top this time in their Peterman-catalogue-style pint-side text this time.  Wow.  I am being transported through time and space, cursed at, and with the help of Dylan Thomas I am told that this ice cream will help in the fight against mortality.  Can this pint possibly deliver?

Happily, it does!  This is possibly the best pint of mint chip ice cream I've ever had.  Nothing fancy, just high quality mint and high quality chip.  Opening the pint, the first thing you notice is a yellow-ish tinge to the base.  I'm used to seeing the natural white mint or the artificial green mint but this yellow tinge is different.  It tasted great, though.  As with other McConnell's pints, it was a thicker ice cream with not a lot of air, but this time it very creamy and did not have an icy texture.  Double-checking the ingredient list, I wonder if its the eggs.  The other two McConnell's pints I had did not include eggs.  That might also explain the yellow-ish tinge.  It was still a strong minty flavor, it wasn't eggy like a New York Vanilla.  Perhaps the eggs made it more like a mint custard.  Then the chips were generously dispersed throughout the pint.  There were occasionally clustered a bit so that you would sometimes get a mint-heavy spoonful and sometimes get a chip-heavy spoonful.