Ben & Jerry's - Marshmallow Moon

Marshmallow Moon - Vanilla Ice Cream with Marshmallow & Graham Cracker Swirls & Fudge Chunks

In addition to the new limited batch flavor for fall,  Ben & Jerry's has announced what they are calling "Secret Stash" flavors.  These flavors are not distributed to grocery stores.  They will only be online and from scoop shop freezer cases.  They say that these recipes cannot be mass produced and distributed for some reason.  I think the intent might be to lure people to their new online store, but if it means new flavors then I am on board.  I went down to my local scoop shop and picked myself up a pint.

They used Jimmy Fallon to launch the new flavor.   This is Jimmy's third flavor.  The first was Late Night Snack (discontinued before my reviews started but bring back those potato chip mix-ins!) and the second flavor, Tonight Dough, was released when Fallon moved to the earlier time slot.  There has been teases of the flavor both online and on TV for the past few weeks and last week they finally announced the release of Marshmallow Moon.  

The new flavor is essentially an implementation of a moon pie ice cream.  MoonPies were first created by the Chattanooga Bakery back in 1917 -- a hundred years of MoonPies!  For some reason, there are not one but two songs about eating these MoonPies while drinking RC Cola.  I am not sure what is up with that.  Since MoonPie's originated in Tennessee, perhaps it is a Southern thing.They consist of a layer of marshmallow between two graham-crackers with a chocolate coating around the whole thing.  It is sort of a pre-packaged version of a s'more but with untoasted marshmallow and with the chocolate on the outside rather than the inside.  That said, the MoonPie appears to pre-date the s'more by a few years so perhaps the s'more is a handmade campfire version of a MoonPie.  It must be a southern thing.  Anyhow, chocolate, marshmallow and graham cracker work well together any way you combine it.  Here, Ben & Jerry's uses vanilla ice cream as a base for all the mix-ins.

The new packaging is beautiful.  Removing its lid shows the vanilla base with quite a lot of marshmallow visible up top.  It almost looks like a frosted ice cream cake.  Some of fudge chunks are also visible.  Some lighter beige colored strips could be evidence of the graham cracker swirl as well.  Digging in, the marshmallow swirl is quite thick and pasty.  It is delicious, but it is also quite sweet.  I see the role that the vanilla base will play here -- balance.  One could easily overload on this much marshmallow.  The fudge chunks were the standard chunks that Ben & Jerry's usually uses.  I like these chunks for being crunchy and chocolatey.  The flavor of the graham cracker swirl is not as obvious.  Sometimes I would notice the gritty texture of the shredded crackers but the flavor did not stick out as much as the marshmallow and chocolate.

This was a good and fun flavor.  It is an extremely sweet flavor, so be prepared for that.  The different here was thick and pasty marshmallow.  In previous flavors, Ben & Jerry's either goes for a gooey marshmallow (Phish Food, One Sweet World) or the marshmallow ends up being well-blended into the vanilla base as with a couple of previous limited batch flavors (Baked Alaska, Save Our Swirled).  Here it stays thick and distinct from the base which makes for a very sweet pint.  Give it a shot, if you'd like a sweeter version of a s'mores-type of flavor.

I really like the idea of having Secret Stash flavors.  I wonder how often they will come out.