Ben & Jerry's - Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core

Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core - Chocolate & Cheesecake Ice Creams with Chocolate Cookies & a Cheesecake Core

After the pleasant surprise of finding the new  Brownie Batter Core flavor on a random trip to the supermarket, I of course went home and checked the google to see if there were more flavors coming.  The official Ben & Jerry's website had not been yet updated but I did see reports of a new Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core flavor.  After some searching, I found a store which had it in stock and scooped it up.  As mentioned in previous reviews, a 'core' flavor where there has a inner cylindrical core of a non-ice cream mix-in with ice cream surrounding the inner core.  Other core flavors have had a thick and goopy mix-in such as fudge, caramel, jam, brownie batter or cookie butter.  Here the core is cheesecake!  You don't get much thicker than that.  I can't wait to see how this is done.

Opening the pint, the top shows the two base flavors are split -- chocolate on one side and cheesecake ice cream on the other.  Most of the core flavors feature split base ice creams likes.  A couple of the chocolate cookie pieces are visible right away on top but I do not see the cheesecake core as yet.  Digging in, the cheesecake core reveals itself quite quickly.  There is a big block of cheesecake in my ice cream!  Its actually quite a sight to see.  As cores go, it's a fairly solid block, but as cheesecakes go, its a bit softer than the cheesecake you get for dessert at a restaurant.  I found that to be a good thing because I want my spoonful to be able to deform in my mouth as I'm eating it.  The chocolate base on the one side was a very good contrast to the cheesecake.  The cheesecake base on the other side was not as noticeable.  Ben & Jerry's has used cheesecake bases before -- often to mute a very sweet flavor such as strawberry and I often side a bit of a cheesecake aftertaste but not much more.  Here the cheesecake base is no match for the cheesecake core.  The chocolate cookie mix-ins are very good as usual.  One thing worth noting is that it is not really a 'cookies & cream' implementation where the cookies are blended into the base.  They're yummy, but they're just mixed in here.

All in all, it was a surprisingly enjoyable pint.  I'm not a super connoisseur of cheesecake so I admit I was at first intimidated by having a big block of cheesecake in my pint, but it was quite good.  It is similar to the Cheesecake Brownie  flavor with its mixture of chocolate and cheesecake flavors but I think it is a bolder and more successful implementation.  Cheesecake lovers will at least have to try this.