Ben and Jerry are game changers.
As far as the most innovative people of the last 200 years goes, I’d rank them fourth behind the guy Edison stole his ideas from, the inventor of basketball’s three point line, and Tony Stark. Also, I have Ben just behind Mr. Franklin in the “Best Ben’s” category, and Jerry tied for first with Seinfeld.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t skeptical when I first heard of Ben & Jerry’s Core ice cream line. They already had plenty of choices on the market. I just assumed they were repackaging old flavors with a shiny new gimmick.
For the very first time in my life, I was wrong.
Enter Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core Ice Cream.
Sure Ben and Jerry messed around with a cheesecake flavor in the past, but not like this.
The base ice cream flavors here are chocolate and cheesecake. Chocolate is, well, chocolate. Don’t expect them to reinvent the wheel there. The cheesecake ice cream wasn’t really all that strong either. If I didn’t know, I would have said it was just vanilla. It was subtle, almost giving off a malt flavor, but I think that was intentionally done to not overpower the star of the show – the core.
It’s perfect.
I think cheesecakes are one of those foods that are either incredibly delicious or downright boring. There’s no in-between. No core, if you will. For me, the sign of a good piece of cheesecake is when I don’t even remember it’s actually a cheese-based dessert. That’s what you get here. It’s perfectly sweet without being cloying like a lot of Cheesecake Factory’s fare. The soft texture was exactly what it should be. It gets cold, but not quite as cold as the ice cream surrounding it, so there’s a nice difference in flavor and texture. I would have thought cheesecake à la mode would be overkill, but now it’s all I want.
That’s not to say this concoction is perfect. The chocolate cookie pieces, while necessary to make a “cookies and cream” ice cream, brought little to the table. They tasted more like brownie pieces and were somehow dry despite being speckled in ice cream. I would have liked it if they went a little wackier with it. Perhaps a play on a chocolate chippy topping may have suited this better, but that’s just a nitpick.
Cutting the carton in half results in something that looks like a delicious seismic chart. The core and the cheesecake ice cream are kind of indistinguishable in color, so any time I tasted the core it was a pleasant surprise.
So while it was basically a normal swirl ice cream with boring cookie pieces, the core was so damn good. I kind of understood Ben & Jerry’s choice to go that route. This flavor is a one ingredient CORE-de-force. Eh? Right?
That being said, I did get the urge to buy this flavor again and perform ice cream Frankenstein surgery. I want to de-core it and swap it into various other Ben & Jerry’s varieties. Imagine the possibilities! Phish Food with a cheesecake core. Chubby Hubby with a cheesecake core. Americone Dream with a…oh, who am I kidding, I’m far too lazy to do this.
I’ll just stick with their Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core as an enCORE. Eh? Right?
(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 270 calories, 15 grams of fat, 10 grams of saturated fat, 65 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 24 grams of sugars, and 5 grams of protein.)
Purchased Price: $3.00
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Stop & Shop
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Perfect cheesecake core. Nothing wrong with a swirl. Good balance of ingredients. Game changers. Cheesecake à la mode. Steph Curry from downtown. Puns.
Cons: Uninspired cookie pieces. Destroying the package and forcing yourself to eat the entire thing in one sitting. Thomas Edison is a thief. Puns.