Ben & Jerry's - Tiramisu

Tiramisu - Mascarpone Ice Cream with Fudge Swirls & Shortbread Pieces Topped with Espresso Fudge Chunks & Chocolatey Ganache

 

Today we move onto the next flavor of the "Topped" line of flavors from Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream.  I bought it at the Ben & Jerry's scoop shop near Lake & Excelsior in Minneapolis.  This flavor is based on tiramisu which is one of my favorite desserts.  The ingredients of tiramisu are generally coffee, chocolate, mascarpone, ladyfinger cookies and sometimes rum, but every restaurant and bakery has their own way of implementing it.  Some recipes are more chocolatey, others have a lot of rum, others focus on the coffee and everyone has their own unique way of incorporating the cookies.  I have reviewed tiramisu flavors from both Talenti and Milkjam and one of my favorite Ben & Jerry's flavors was a Target-exclusive called Volun-Tiramisu which was unfortunately discontinued right before I started writing these reviews.  So, I am excited that Ben & Jerry's has created another tiramisu flavor.  As I mentioned above, though, each implementation is completely different and this flavor is a bit different from the old one.  Today's flavor features a mascarpone ice cream with fudge swirls and shortbread pieces in the ice cream below while the 'topping' contains chocolate ganache and espresso fudge chunks.  Let's check it out!

Removing the lid, I see the chocolate ganache layer covering the top of the pint.  In this particular pint, this layer does not completely cover the top of the pint, but it is close.  Digging in the ganache is tough for the very first dig of the spoon, but after that, it is pretty easy to dig into from the side.  The top layer is quite chocolatey.  Buried within this top layer are the espresso chocolate flakes and those provide quite a bit of espresso coffee kick in addition to even more chocolate.  Down below, the ice cream has a mascarpone base which is one of my favorite bases.  Mascarpone is an extra creamy dessert cheese which goes really well with both fruit and chocolate.  Buried within this base are small shortbread pieces which do not stand out other than to create a bit of a chunky texture from time to time.  The predominant mix-in down below are the fudge swirls.  These swirls reminded me a bit of chocolate syrup -- very chocolatey but also has a bite to it.  Ben & Jerry's used a similar swirl in its old retired Cake Batter flavor.  I did notice that there is no coffee in the 'below' ice cream, all the coffee is delivered by the espresso-chocolate flakes in the 'top'.

This is a fun tiramisu flavor from Ben & Jerry's.  It is very delicious, but how much you like it probably depends on how you like your tiramisu.  As I mentioned above, tiramisu implementations tend to be quite different from each other and this implementation is quite a bit different from its own old Volun-Tiramisu flavor.  The old flavor had both coffee & mascarpone in the base with large, soft ladyfinger cookie pieces and the chocolate is delivered with dustings of cocoa on the ladyfingers.  Today's flavor is much more chocolatey -- thick chocolate topping and thick chocolate swirls below -- while the coffee is only present in the flakes embedded in the top layer and the cookie pieces are a bit smaller.  Again, quite delicious, though!  If you like tiramisu, you'll probably want to check this out.