REVIEW: Ben & Jerry’s The Tonight Dough Ice Cream

Ben & Jerry's The Tonight Dough Ice Cream

You may think it’s harmless, generous even, to share this pint with your friends.

Don’t.

It seduces and, thus, accumulates a distressing number of amorous relationships. Give a bite here, share a bite there, and suddenly you have callers all over you, ringing you at 2 in the morning to explain their dreams and tugging your arm to elope with them in Vegas. Go through all this and then where will you be?

In Divorce Court. That’s where.

You’ll have to deal with all that paperwork, the taxes, Judge Mallory. Take it from me: avoid Divorce Court. Don’t share. Save the whole pint for your awesome self. Here’s why:

Ben & Jerry's The Tonight Dough Ice Cream Top

Creamy and smooth with a melt slower than Blue Bunny, but not as creamy as a small-batch Gelato Fiasco, the ice cream stands up to the Ben and Jerry standard I’ve come to know: mild, sweet, and inoffensive, if a bit bland. The caramel portion is milky and sweet with the tang of cooked sugar coming in at the end while the milk chocolate portion leans strongly toward the milk with a dry, cocoa-forward finish.

For those looking for dynamically punchy bases, the ice cream alone is not something you’d hoard in your underground nuclear bunker. But then the mix-ins arrive and explain everything: the base is but the palate cleanser. The humble binder of goods. The tabula rasa for a dairy-inspired art installation worthy of the MoMA.

Ben & Jerry's The Tonight Dough Ice Cream Spoon

And it all starts with the cookie dough chunks. There are gobs of them. Everywhere. Gobs of salty-sweet-and-gritty peanut butter dough. Gobs of familiar, sugar-forward chocolate chip dough. Big gobs. Little gobs. Standard gobs. But mainly big gobs. I eat the gobs. You should, too.

Then there’s the cookie swirl: a thick ribbon of gritty dark chocolate wafers so delightful, it may sully forth magical woodland creatures to Twitter about you. With its taste of Oreos and firm integration of bitter-laced sugar throughout the pint, this is the slightly liquefied embodiment of childhood nostalgia. Aside from a snowplow that harnesses the energy of three Hadron Colliders, I can’t think of anything I’d like more.

Ben & Jerry's The Tonight Dough Ice Cream Empty

And after all that’s over, the bowl’s empty, and it was worth it to not share. It was creamy with a mild base that allowed for those excellent mix-ins to shine like so many sequins on a WWE Wrestler at a European discotheque. Sure, the base is mild and the whole thing is composed of already-existing mix-ins, but these elements are combined in a such a way that allows the Whole to be elevated to a new level: gritty, sugary, chewy, melty, salty, bitter, chocolate-y, and peanut buttery. All the elements of the food pyramid.

If you find the chocolate/caramel base too mild, maybe finish it off with some caramel or fudge. If you miss Fallon’s old iteration, perhaps top it off with potato chip chunkies. Or just scoop-scoop it into your bowl and never look back. I know I didn’t.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 310 calories, 140 calories from fat, 16 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 55 milligrams of cholesterol, 100 milligrams of sodium, 35 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 26 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein.)

Item: Ben & Jerry’s The Tonight Dough Ice Cream
Purchased Price: $5.19
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Food Emporium
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Creamy. Chocolate-y. Peanut-butter-y. Balance of bitter, salty, and sweet. Gobs of cookie dough. The pint is all yours. WWE wrestlers decked out for the disco. Hadron-Collider-powered snowplow.
Cons: Caramel and chocolate bases are mild. No potato chip clusters. Divorce Court. Deluded lovers you don’t love who explain their dreams to you at 2 in the morning.

22 thoughts to “REVIEW: Ben & Jerry’s The Tonight Dough Ice Cream”

  1. I’ve seen Late Night Snack at my Grocery Store…not even a week ago…I was going to pick it up but was unsure how old it was.

  2. Its chocolate based which means all you taste is chocolate ice cream no matter what else they put in. Being a chocolate ice cream hater I will pass on this (I took 2 bites and gave it away to my family). Easily one of the worst ice creams I’ve ever had.

    1. There’s no way you really had this ice cream, because it’s not just “chocolate based” as you falsely write. It contains plenty of caramel flavored vanilla ice cream in it and tastes amazing. You sure you actually bought it? I think you’re lying.

      1. I agree with you. That post let is trippin. Tons of delicious vanilla ice cream! It’s one of my favorites by Ben and Jerrys!

    2. You must have had a terrible accident which altered your tastebuds, leaving you to taste the opposite of what you’re actually tasting. I’m so sorry.

    3. You must have had a terrible accident which altered your tastebuds, leaving you to taste the opposite of what you’re actually tasting. I’m so sorry.

    4. You’re clueless, there is so much more to the flavor profile of this ice cream than just chocolate. Furthermore, if you don’t like chocolate ice cream, why would you purchase a product that has a base of half chocolate and half caramel? To say this is one of the worst ice creams you’ve ever had clearly shows your ignorance and unsophisticated palate.

  3. Ate some of this but my fitness app told me it was not good, it was the first trans fats i had eaten in weeks and the peanut butter dough tasted like sugar, why dont they make plain chocolate without the sugary shit bits, its the second most enjoyed flavor to vanilla. I would be better off eating pet food than this food, its better for our health.

    1. You’re an idiot, just buy vanilla ice cream if you want plain ice cream. First trans fat ?

      1. Come on yall, Jodi, lets give my dude EINHAND a break here. the verbal out lashing isnt helping anyone, and certainly hurting his or her feelings. EINHAND might have even been crying after seeing that idiot remark, just like if i said wtf is an EINHAND?! EINHAND myself every night bc EINSCHLONG has an EINRECTION and EINHAND is the only one that will do it bc im uncool and not pleasant to look at and have a bad personality and dress out of fashion. see what i mean? that would probly hurt their feelings. so be nice guys

      2. I bet you dont even know what ice cream is Jodi, so that would make you the idiot. same with vanilla and trans fat. (fyi trans fat means fat transitioning to something else like a carbohydrate or a protein or even a vitamin, whatever it feels it should be on the inside). you’re welcome for the food knowledge, now read a book or two before throwing out the big idiot claim to others, jerk. Jodi the jerk. Slam!

    2. Ice cream bad for fitness….. No kidding!!! I hope you realized it before you had to refer to the app? Sad

  4. Best ice cream ever. Please don’t discontinue this. I can’t find it anywhere so there it’s flying off shelves or its discontinued. I want it every day. It’s soooo good.

    1. NO Andrew! It is not disgusting, it is heavenly. I am sorry your taste buds cannot experience the pure sensation of just one bite. That is not fair. But you might be a total boner so maybe thats why, who knows.

  5. This is the best ice cream i have ever had in my entire life hands down. I am an ice cream lover to boot. I choose this over larger sizes of ice cream brands at cheaper prices the majority of the time. That is how great this ice cream was put together! So worth the price, please try it if you haven’t and enjoy the ingredients of the category of ice creams’ it falls under, of course. You will fall in love, and somehow even want to thank Jimmy Fallon for some reason as I did.

    2nd favorite ice cream is Great Value brand Smore’s, followed by Great Value brand Cotton Candy. My 4th would be UDF’s Blue Moo Cookie Dough, and rounding out my top 5 I would have to go with the basic cheap but delicious gallon of fudge marble, although i do not know the brand.

  6. NO Andrew! It is not disgusting, it is heavenly. I am sorry your taste buds cannot experience the pure sensation of just one bite. That is not fair. But you might be a total boner so maybe thats why, who knows.

  7. and nobody elses comments are on here since 2016 so that i just noticed and talking to myself has been a blast. i would like to point out that i am a chode and i should be working and i suck

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