Tag: Ben & Jerry’s

Perusing through the frozen foods section of a grocery store – specifically the ice cream section – is a joyous activity indeed, yet sometimes it can be overwhelming. Like, for example, when you see Ben & Jerry’s just dropped not one, not two, but three new flavors on you, and you’re presented with a conundrum: which flavor is right for me? Then you have to look deep inside yourself and do a quick cavity search on your soul to come to a decision.

I settled for Coconuts for Caramel, one of the most recent additions to the ever-expanding Core line. Well, I wouldn’t call it settling. It sounded scrump, and my older brother did send me a text along the lines of, “OMG YOU MUST TRY COCONUTS FOR CARAMEL IT IS SO GOOD (SNOWMAN EMOJI)” So, it was a pretty easy choice. Wait, why snowman emoji? There are like, three different ice cream ones.

So you probably guessed the ice cream contains coconut and caramel. I hope you did, otherwise you’ll never be a detective. A core of gooey caramel sits in the middle, surrounded by sweet cream coconut and caramel ice creams. Yes, it’s a much less obvious concoction than the early Core entries the flavor team probably spent all of five minutes on – Peanut Butter Fudge Core, ahem – so that’s pretty neat. Good to see them continuing in a less played out direction.

The caramel side of things is amazing. The core is real rich, resembling caramel you’d normally find residing in a truffle. The caramel ice cream is more mellowed down than the core. The flavor reminds me of a caramel macchiato. If you scoop it along with the core, which you will, it’s like collecting a caramel power up in a Super Mario game. Or going down a random pipe and collecting caramel coins? You get the idea. Either way, yes.

The sweet cream coconut ice cream can complicate matters a bit. It has so much coconut in it, plus chocolate chips, I had trouble discerning the taste of the actual ice cream. It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack that is made out of the filling in a Mounds bar. It can get frustrating. Much like watching the slow, clueless contestants on the old game show Supermarket Sweep. It’s like, “come on, go get the Farmer John Hams!” But no! They’re dilly-dallying in the personal care aisle.

Ben & Jerry’s is famous for having lots of mix-ins in their ice cream – they used to have a fan club called “Chunk Spelunkers,” which is sadly now defunct – but this was coconut overkill. The texture is not like normal ice cream, it’s more gritty than creamy, and was tough to eat on its own.

Your best bet is to combine the two ice creams together and scoop out some of the caramel core in the same bite. This is where the pint is money. The caramel from the core and the creamy caramel ice cream cover up the overabundance of fillings in the coconut ice cream and combines into something like a caramel covered Mounds bar.

It would have worked better if the chocolate chips were in the caramel ice cream and there was half the amount of coconut. That may just have balanced things out. Plus, caramel has to be lonely over there. Sweet cream coconut has ice cream and two fillings. That’s not fair at all. Why does the coconut side get everything?

Another minor issue I had was the core basically disappeared towards the bottom quarter of the pint, which I have pointed out in other Core flavors. I wish they would get the cores to reach the bottom more consistently. But not everything can be perfect.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 280 calories, 150 calories from fat, 17 grams of fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 65 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of total carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 25 grams of sugar, and 4 grams of protein..)

Purchased Price: $3.99
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Wegman’s
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Sweet, different caramel flavors. Snowman emojis. Going down pipes and collecting things.
Cons: Coconut overkill. Bad texture for ice cream. Awful “Supermarket Sweep” contestants.

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.

Okay. Ben and Jerry’s has an ice cream name that includes number six on AFI’s 100 movie quotes, Dirty Harry’s “Go ahead, make my day.” Let’s see how I fare with the rest of the top six:

“Frankly, My Dear, I Don’t Give a Graham” — Ground up graham crackers, pieces of Clark bars in a vanilla Confederate base.

“An Offer He Can’t Re-fudge” – Orange ice cream swirled with fudge and bits of cannoli.

“I Coulda Been a Gum-tender” – Bubble gum-flavored bits for chewing scenery in a Terry-misu ice cream.

“Not in Kumquat Anymore” — Technicolor swirl of various fruit flavors in a lollipop candy base, conspicuously no kumquat (we’re not in kumquat).

“Here’s Looking at You, Squid” — Squid-flavored ice cream, with squid ink core.

Good job, Kevin. No, great job. So how’s Cake My Day? It’s vanilla cake batter ice cream with vanilla cake pieces, buttercream frosting and raspberry swirl. And did it “cake” my day? “Pie” will “tart” you — and “donut” “streusel” — but it’s a “lemon meringue” “babka” so when there’s “muffin” left, it’s “flan.”

Oh gosh. Sorry about that. Clears throat.

“I will tell you — and do not stress — but it’s a limited batch so when there’s nothing left, it’s gone.”

The cake is in tiny off-white balls, scattered amongst the creamy, soft ice cream. The buttercream frosting gives it a rich kick and makes the entire thing smell like a frozen cream puff. The raspberry swirl surfs on a wave of cake-y undertones. It features that unmistakable raspberry-in-form-other-than-whole-fruit taste. Is there a word for that phenomenon, like in German?

Anyway, some people might not like that pseudo-pungent, nose-twisty taste, but I think it gives it a decent personality. In fact, it is the only personality in this ice cream. The cake bits give it a good counterbalance of flavor but ultimately the raspberry is the prevailing taste. It’s swirled in there nice for a great visual and is also present in every bite, which gets a tiny bit repetitive as the plainness of the cake batter plateaus out into normal.

It’s a solid, if not sweet, bite of ice cream though. You ever have a birthday cake for an aunt who collects spoons from around the world? She watches Supernatural. She roots for Tom Brady. Her favorite movie is The Notebook and her jeans ride high on her waist. Well, that birthday cake is mashed into an ice cream and it’s this ice cream right here.

Come to think of it, maybe Ben and Jerry aren’t into movie quotes. “Ben and Jerry” rhymes with “Dirty Harry.” Maybe they’re into Clint Eastwood, and will continue Clint Eastwood-related flavor names. I just really hope one of his movies rhymes with “squid.”

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 280 calories, 16 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 55 grams of cholesterol, 65 milligrams of sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 23 grams of sugar, and 4 grams of protein.)

Item: Ben & Jerry’s Limited Batch Cake My Day Ice Cream
Purchased Price: $3.49
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Ice cream balances raspberry flavor well with buttercream base. Tasty and evokes a cake well.
Cons: One note.

Usually when I go get a pint of Ben & Jerry’s it’s because I’m in a state of hunger or self-loathing. Either way, it always makes me feel better. But when I saw the new flavor, Save Our Swirled, I felt horrible and wasn’t sure the ice cream could make me feel better. The container is so bleak, showing a cow on a melting piece of ice, wearing an SOS sweater, holding a sign, which reads, “if it’s melted, it’s ruined.”

That’s messed up! I was already in self-loathing mode, and now I have to think about global warming and sweater cows falling into the cold arctic waters and there’s nothing I can do to stop it! Well, I could stop throwing Styrofoam burning parties, but damn those are always a great time.

If they keep going in this direction the next new flavor may as well be called “Swirled War 3,” and the cow on the container will be standing in some post-apocalyptic scene similar to Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” wearing a tattered sweater, holding a sign that says, “This is the end!”

The thoughts of Swirled War 3 and ceasing my infamous Styrofoam burning parties made me sob uncontrollably in Wegmans. So, it was just like every other trip to Wegmans. But the sobbing stopped once the ice cream eating began.

A light, airy raspberry ice cream makes up for the base of Save Our Swirled. It had a different flavor than recent raspberry ice creams, like the one in That’s My Jam. It’s not too strong but at the same time it isn’t too weak either. It’s the Goldilocks of raspberry ice creams.

Complementing the raspberry ice cream is a raspberry swirl. It’s unlike the raspberry jam that was in the aforementioned That’s My Jam, and more like a raspberry… goo? Whatever the proper term is, it has a stronger raspberry flavor than the ice cream, and when you get them both in one bite it’s a ras-gasm.

Also joining the mix is a marshmallow swirl, which I personally didn’t think was going to get along with two flavors of raspberry but it does, and it excels.

Lastly, and absolutely least, are the chocolate and white chocolate fudge cones. At first I thought these were fudge covered waffle cones, but they are simply half chocolate/white chocolate ice cream cone-shaped chocolate. They are tasty, but for me personally they were too constant throughout the pint. And when you consider the fact the ice cream is called “Save Our Swirled,” wouldn’t you think ice cream cones are kind of irrelevant?

If Ben and Jerry want to get their point through, the fudge cones should be fudge melting polar ice caps. Then when people eat the ice cream and really look at what they’re eating they may think, “Oh my god, what have I done! I’m devouring the world!” and change their Styrofoam burning party ways.

See, when I saw the ice cream cones I just thought of a hot, carefree summer day, where I don’t think about saving our swirled, er, I mean world. But if I saw a fudge melting polar ice cap I would actually be concerned.

I know Ben and Jerry run an ice cream company, but ice cream isn’t the answer to everything. If it was, I’d be a happy billionaire who lived in a mega tower and hang glided to work everyday. But alas, I’m just a poor salaryman who eats way too much ice cream.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 250 calories, 110 calories from fat, 12 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 55 milligrams of cholesterol, 50 milligrams of sodium, 33 grams of carbohydrates less than 1 gram of dietary fiber, 27 grams of sugars, and 4 grams of protein.)

Item: Ben & Jerry’s Save Our Swirled Ice Cream
Purchased Price: $3.99
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Wegmans
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Raspberry ice cream is delicious. Swirls blend really well together. Styrofoam burning parties. Hang gliding off a mega tower.
Cons: Too many fudge cones. Sobbing in Wegmans. Swirled War 3. Helpless sweater cows.