I’ve been on a few cruises, but being packed on a ship with drunk adults, screaming kids, and various communicable diseases that are likely to cause gastrointestinal distress is not really my thing. One of the only positives I can say about cruising is the availability of unlimited chocolate lava cake. So, I was excited but also dubious when I saw Blue Bell’s new Chocolate Lava Cake Ice Cream.

My first reason for dubiousness is that the base is vanilla ice cream, which seems odd for chocolate lava cake. The second reason is the presumed lack of hot lava in something I got from the grocery store freezer. But my concerns were unfounded. It turns out that Blue Bell, which has been making ice cream for well over 100 years, knows more than I do about making said ice cream, because this flavor is simply magnificent.

Casting vanilla ice cream in a supporting role with the chocolate cake pieces, chocolate sundae sauce, and dark chocolate fudge swirl was a smart move, because using chocolate ice cream might have resulted in a chocolate overload and probably wouldn’t have allowed the other components to shine. The vanilla flavor is almost imperceptible, and that lets its chocolate friends do their thing. And they do it well.

Even using my spoon as a dissection tool, it was tricky to tell what’s what between the three types of chocolate in here. At first, I thought it was the chocolate cake pieces that were tremendously dense, chewy, decadent, and delicious, but the fudginess of it seemed to indicate it was actually the swirl. The cake pieces don’t impart much of a cakey consistency, but I didn’t mind that. The end result was a surprisingly complex mix of different chocolates that I don’t recall getting from any other ice cream. Of course there was no oozing, warm chocolate like in an actual lava cake, but you can’t expect Blue Bell to defy the laws of physics.

Sadly, I did not have any chocolate sauce on hand at my house because the kids would just guzzle it for breakfast, but I might have to get some and hide it behind the vegetables because the only way to make this better would be to warm up a bit of that and drizzle it over the top.

This truly is one of my favorite ice cream flavors, and I don’t have to live in a tiny room for several days to enjoy it.

Purchased Price: $3.99
Size: One Pint
Purchased at: Brookshire Brothers
Rating: 10 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 300 calories, 15 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 40 milligrams of cholesterol, 95 milligrams of sodium, 37 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 25 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein.