McConnell's - Peppermint Stick

Peppermint Stick - Fresh, Central Coast, grass-fed milk & cream and a dash of R.R. Lochhead® vanilla, mated to bracing, organic peppermint and natural, peppermint candy.

After finishing off all of the current Ben & Jerry's flavors, I was going to wait until November to start venturing into other brands, but I couldn't stay away!  Being a big fan of mint, I have had my eye on this McConnell's flavor for a while.  I noticed that the Peterman-catalogue-esque description on the back of the pint touts that this is a holiday-like flavor that you can get year-round and I was thinking to myself that if I waited too long then it would be the holidays, so I had better eat it now while it is still out of season!   With that rationalization, I restart the reviews a week or two early.

Peppermint Stick is a rare mint ice cream that does not feature chocolate chip.  McConnell's Mint Chip has been previously reviewed here and implemented to the mint-chocolate combination to absolute perfection and being a big fan of mint that had me greatly looking forward to this pint.

Opening the pint, I see a light pink base with brighter pink splotches evident in it.  Eating into the pint, it is indeed very minty.  The description on the carton mentions that there is vanilla & peppermint in the base, but I just tasted mint.  I expected the larger splotches of peppermint candy to be hard or crunchy but it was soft and blended in with the base.  It is like the candy is somehow pre-melted, yet somehow freezer cold, yet somehow dispersed in the pint without being fully blended into the base. 
McConnell's has done this before with its mix-ins, the brittle of Chocolate Almond Brittle had a melt-in-your-mouth quality to it as well as the chip in Mint Chip.  So, this was basically a candy-cane flavored ice cream but without the hard candy texture.

I was quite impressed with this flavor.  One minor quibble I had was that the ice cream did not seem to melt evenly has I got into the lower half of the pint.  There was the usual bit of runny-ness as there is in all pints but parts of each spoonful still felt icy and frozen.  McConnell's doesn't use a lot of air when they make their ice cream and depending on how much eggs get mixed in, their bases can have a dense gelato-like consistency.  That in and of itself is a good thing but the extra icy texture requiring extra in-mouth melting gives it a small deduction from this judge.   I do prefer Mint Chip to this flavor.  I think McConnell's uses extra eggs there (the mint base even has a yellowish tinge) which makes Mint Chip extra creamy.   Still, if you are a mint fan like me and are curious about a chipless mint ice cream, you'll want to try this Peppermint Stick flavor.

Ben & Jerry's - Vanilla

Vanilla - Vanilla Ice Cream

Today, the adjective vanilla has become synonymous with 'plain', 'basic', 'unmodified', but the spice is a lot more exotic than I expected.  Vanilla comes from the fruit of a Mexican orchid which blooms for only one day.   Cultivating the vanilla plant is a very labor intensive process so vanilla is actually the second most expensive spice (after saffron).  The fruit is known as a vanilla bean but it is not like a vegetable bean, it is a long dried pod which contains the seeds.  This is where the flavor comes from.  Vanilla is also valued for its pleasant smell which is I suppose unsurprising given its flowery origins.

Brought back to Europe by the Spanish following the conquest of Mexico, vanilla was first used only as a secondary flavor (it was a common additive to chocolate, another Mexican import).  By the 19th century it started to be used as its own flavor -- especially in desserts.  It was around this time that it became a popular ice cream flavor.  Unlike other ice cream flavors such as chocolate or strawberry where the flavor dominates every spoonful, vanilla is much more subtly added.  You notice the smell the most but the flavor is more of an accent and does not distract from the flavors of the milk and cream.  By the 20th century, the vanilla ice cream flavor became so common that it did become the default flavor.  Plain ice cream without vanilla almost completely vanished for quite a while, although it is making a comeback these days as the "sweet cream" flavor.

Opening the pint, I see the white of vanilla with little black spots visible on top.  I checked the label on the carton and indeed some vanilla bean is included in the pint.  Digging into the pint, it tasted like vanilla.  The bean specks seemed less common in the middle of the pint.  I didn't notice the beans contributing extra flavor -- they just looked cool on the top.  Eating this pint, I stopped to savor a few spoonfuls to see if there was something extra that Ben & Jerry's was providing here.  Nope.  I noticed the milk, cream & sugar.

There was certainly nothing bad about this pint, but nothing stood out either.  Ben & Jerry's is more known for their add-ins and there was no add-ins here.  A true Ben & Jerry's style vanilla would have a swirl of crushed vanilla wafers or something.  With this pint, I felt like I was supposed to eat it with a slice of pie or add chocolate syrup.  But can you get just vanilla from Ben & Jerry's?  Yes you can.

Ben & Jerry's - Cheesecake Brownie

Cheesecake Brownie - Cheesecake Ice Cream with Cheesecake Brownie Chunks

Back in 1986, Ben & Jerry's pioneered the use of brownies as an ice cream pint mix-in with its Chocolate Fudge Brownie flavor.  These excellent brownies from the Greyston bakery in New York somehow manage to stay soft and chewy despite being embedded in ice cream and stored in a freezer.  So popular was this flavor, that Ben & Jerry's looked to include these delicious Brownies in other flavor.  For example, they are the baked half of Half Baked.  In 2008, the Cheesecake Brownie flavor because the next brownie permutation.  Here, instead of a cheesecake ice cream base is used instead of a chocolate ice cream base.  Also, instead of standard chocolate brownies, these are cheesecake brownies.  I became curious as to what constitutes a cheesecake brownie.

Opening the lid, I see the very pale yellow color of the cheesecake ice cream base.  Indeed is roughly the same color as plain cheesecake -- perhaps a little lighter.    Some darker spots are evident indicative of the brownies that lay underneath the surface.  Digging into the pint, I really do get the flavor of plain cheesecake as I was eating the ice cream.  In the flavored cheesecake bases (e.g. Strawberry Cheesecake) I got the feeling the cream cheese was present not to provide its own flavor but to cut the other strong or sweet flavor of the base (e.g. strawberry) but here you do taste the cream cheese itself.  The brownies pieces are dispersed throughout the pint.  They were soft, chewy and delicious as expected and the rich chocolate flavor provided a good contrast to the cheesecake base.  I did not notice that the cheesecake brownies were any different than the regular brownies, but I really like the regular brownies so I'm not complaining.  There could have been a little bit more of them but that's a minor quibble.  As I was finishing the pint in one sitting, I expected to feel especially full -- a little slice of cheesecake can be super filling -- but I did not.  I checked the side of the pint and 260 calories per half cup is not a lightweight snack but it is about average as far as Ben & Jerry's flavor go.  The flavors with peanut butter or cookie dough can pack in over 300 calories per half cup.

I did enjoy this pint.  If you are a fan of Greyston brownies in Chocolate Fudge Brownie or Half Baked, then you can give this one a try.  I don't expect this flavor will reach the immense popularity of those two, but it provide a niche for those looking for a non-chocolatey base to contrast with the brownies.

Ben & Jerry's - Strawberry Not So Shortcake

Strawberry Not So Shortcake - Strawberry Cake Ice Cream with Strawberries & Shortbread Pieces

Strawberry Not So Shortcake is already the third exclusive flavor that Walmart has had since I've been writing these reviews.  The fact that Walmart cycles their exclusive flavors much more quickly than other stores is the only reason I ever go to Walmart.  Every time I hear that there is a new flavor, I trek to the other side of town once or twice a week to the Walmart Supercenter to see if they've got it in stock.  Last week I hit paydirt and brought home this pint which means I won't have to go to Walmart for a few months.

Opening the pint, I see the bright pink flavor of the strawberry cake ice cream base with some darker pink strawberry specks also visible.  Digging into the pint, the base ice cream indeed has a strong strawberry flavor which is quite tasty.  Curiously, it is strawberry cake ice cream and not just strawberry ice cream.  As has been mentioned in previous reviews, strawberry is a very strong and sweet flavor which can be overpowering so it is often cut with something else such as sour cream, cream cheese or in this case cake batter.  I tried to figure out what was cakey about the base.  I guess I did get the sensation of eating angel food cake from time to time but other than that it was just a muted but still very yummy strawberry flavor.  The strawberry pieces were not as prevalent as I expected them to be, but one thing I did notice was that they weren't frozen.  I have complained with previous pints about the unpleasant sensation of biting into frozen strawberries but that was not a problem here.  The shortbread pieces were fairly well-dispersed in the pint but they themselves did not have much of a flavor at all.  Nothing bad about them but for me, they just provided an occasional change of texture as I ate the pint.

All in all, I enjoyed this pint quite a bit.  So many of Ben & Jerry's flavors feature chocolate or peanut butter (or both) and sometimes I'm in the mood for something fruity and a flavor such as this one can really hit the spot.  The only qualm I have is that this flavor is extremely close the previously reviewed Strawberry Cheesecake flavor.  There, the base is strawberry cheesecake instead of strawberry cake and the swirl is a contrasting graham cracker one instead of blending shortbread one.  I really enjoyed the Strawberry Cheesecake pint as well.  If you love strawberries you'll probably want to try this flavor before Walmart cycles to another flavor.  On the other hand, if you don't have a Walmart Supercenter nearby or if you can't stand going to Walmart then the Strawberry Cheesecake flavor is a delicious substitute.

Ben & Jerry's - Salted Carmel Core

Salted Carmel Core - Sweet Cream Ice Cream with Blonde Brownies & a Salted Caramel Core

Salted Caramel Core is the last of the core flavors to be reviewed.  Its hard to believe that the standard core flavors were introduced just last year since its been several months now that the newer cookie core flavors have been out, but indeed this flavor was introduced in 2014.  As you may recall, a core flavor is one where the central cylindrical core of the pint is a solid block of a goopy fill-in such as jam, fudge, cookie butter, or in this case caramel.  With the use of a salted caramel, Ben & Jerry's is both jumping on the big salted caramel craze and is making me ask myself the age-old question "Do I want my ice cream to make me thirsty?"

Opening the lid, I see the bright color of the sweet cream base and a sizeable dollop of the salted caramel core visible.  You can also see little specks of the blonde brownies fill-ins.   Eating my way down into the pint, the salted caramel core revealed itself more and comprised a substantial middle section of the pint.  Was it a bit redder in color than the Karamel Sutra unsalted core, or was that an optical illusion created by the lighter colored base here?  I am not sure.  The blondie fill-ins stayed speck-sized throughout the pint but were fairly numerous.  This may be for the best as I mention in my review of the Blondie Ambition flavor that the blondies did not stay soft in the ice cream the way the brownie fill-ins had.  Large pieces of frozen blondie were not pleasant to eat but smaller specks made the harder texture less worrisome.  They were almost like blondie chips.  Unlike many of the core flavors which use two base flavors splitting the pint in half, only a single sweet cream base was used here.  I think this may be the only Ben & Jerry's flavor to use a sweet cream base.  I think they were looking for a simple contrast to the strong salted caramel flavor.  Simple here meaning the lack of vanilla.  In other flavors, a caramel base is used when they look to avoid vanilla but here they may have thought that more caramel would have been too much.

Did this pint make me thirsty?  Not as much as I expected, though I believe my expectations were high.  I had had this flavor once before about a year ago and I become quite parched while eating it.  This time, I may have been more prepared by making sure I was well hydrated beforehand and by using the technique of eating around the core and putting only a bit of the caramel into each spoonful.  I did enjoy this pint but perhaps not as much as a salted-caramel junkie would have.  Of course if you are into salted caramel, you'd want to check this out and see how Ben & Jerry did.