When I look back at the 2010s, I think of the abundance of two food products — Oreo cookie varieties and products made with nuts, seeds, and grains that I didn’t know could be made with nuts, seeds, and grains.
I’m talking about milks made with almonds, cashews, macadamia nuts, peanuts, oats, hemp, peas, flax, and walnuts. I’m also talking about butters made with almonds, cashews, macadamia nuts, pecans, pistachios, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds.
Perhaps the most popular has been almond milk, which Ben & Jerry’s has been using it in its non-dairy varieties so far. But the company’s newest line of non-dairy pints uses the seldom seen sunflower butter, making Ben & Jerry’s the first national brand to offer frozen dessert made with the seed butter.
There are three flavors available: “Milk” & Cookies (vanilla non-dairy frozen dessert with chocolate chip cookies, chocolate sandwich cookies, and chocolate cookie swirls), Mint Chocolate Cookie (mint non-diary frozen dessert with chocolate sandwich cookies), and Creme Brûlée Cookie (burnt caramel non-dairy frozen dessert with brown sugar cookies, and salted caramel swirls).
If you’re a regular peruser of the Ben & Jerry’s section at your local grocery, you’d know two of these are non-dairy versions of standard flavors — Milk & Cookies and Mint Chocolate Cookie. As for Creme Brûlée Cookie, sadly, it isn’t a vegan version of the flavor that sits in Ben & Jerry’s Flavor Graveyard.
With “Milk” & Cookies and Creme Brûlée Cookie, I got a hint that I was eating something created with sunflower seeds. But if I told you these were made with almond milk, you might believe me because they have the same not-quite-as-creamy-as-ice-cream texture, and the flavor from the seeds could be confused for almond milk’s nuttiness.
“Milk” & Cookies and Mint Chocolate Cookie are great non-dairy versions of the popular varieties. Both are loaded with mix-ins. Mint Chocolate Cookie tastes like Thin Mints, but less chocolatey and minty, and only if your spoonful has a nice chunk of the soft cookies.
The photo above of “Milk” & Cookies doesn’t show the mix-in riches I discovered as I excavated more from the container, which I forgot to take a picture of because as soon as I saw it, I was like a gold rush prospector and dug up everything. The sunflower butter is most noticeable in this, which I’m okay with, but most of the time it gets overwhelmed by the chocolate from all the cookies and/or the brown sugar flavor from the chocolate chip cookies.
While both are good and I have no problems recommending them, I’m partial to “Milk” & Cookies because the original version is one of my top 10 favorite Ben & Jerry’s flavors.
Creme Brûlée Cookie was the one I was most excited about, but it’s also the one I ended up have the most concerns about. It tastes more like a blondie brownie than a creme brûlée, which, I’ll be honest, might be a delicious nonissue to many. But with all the components’ flavors being from the same sweet family tree, this pint is a bit one-note to me. Also, I wish there was something in it to replicate the crunch of hardened caramelized sugar, which is THE BEST thing about creme brûlée. Actually, I wish all three pints has something to add some texture.
I’m a fan of most Ben & Jerry’s non-dairy almond milk frozen desserts. Heck, I even wrote that I preferred the non-dairy version over the dairy version of one of its recent flavors. So it’s not surprising to me that I found these pints to be enjoyable.
DISCLOSURE: I received a free samples from Ben & Jerry’s (Thanks, you awesome Vermonters). Getting them did not influence my review.
Purchased Price: FREE
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Received from Ben & Jerry’s
Rating: 8 out of 10 (“Milk” & Cookies), 7 out of 10 (Mint Chocolate Cookie), 6 out of 10 (Creme Brulee)
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) “Milk” & Cookies – 350 calories, 18 grams of fat, 10 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 125 milligrams of sodium, 44 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 29 grams of sugar, and 3 grams of protein. Mint Chocolate Cookie – 300 calories, 14 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 120 milligrams of sodium, 40 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 27 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein. Creme Brûlée Cookie – 310 calories 14 grams of fat, 10 grams of saturated fat, 0 mg 160 milligrams of sodium, 46 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 28 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.
