Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby

Digging in to a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby is a lot like embarking on a treasure hunt. With full-sized pretzel bites covered in chocolate and buried throughout the pint, this flavor has the largest chunks of any B&J's ice cream that I have sampled thus far, and you really do have to dig for those pretzels to get them out of there. While some people may mind that the pretzels make Chubby Hubby fairly difficult to scoop, I enjoyed the experience of having to put a little more of my muscle to work in order to retrieve my buried treasure from the pint. Once extracted from the vanilla malt ice cream with fudge and peanut butter swirls, those pretzel bites are a great reward. They remain surprisingly light, airy and crisp in the ice cream, and provide just a hint of salty flavor to complement all the sweetness. Given my opinion that the chunkiest flavors provide the quintessential Ben & Jerry's experience, I consider Chubby Hubby to be a paragon of the brand.

And then there is the ice cream itself.  While I'm not a fan of plain vanilla ice cream, this vanilla malt has enough fudge and peanut butter swirls to satisfy my craving for something rich, without being overpowering in its decadence. In my first few months of taste testing ice creams, I've learned that I passionately love any flavor with peanut butter chunks, cups or flavor swirls, whether or not the PB is combined with chocolate. It should go without saying, though, that chocolate is an added bonus, and so Chubby Hubby gets a high rating in huge part because of the tasty peanut butter and fudge swirls.

I have to note, however, that at 340 calories per serving, Chubby Hubby is one of the Ben & Jerry's flavors that you have to work even harder/longer to burn when it's time to exercise. Many of my favorite B&J's flavors run from 260 to 290 per serving, and that difference in calories can really start to add up, especially if you want to enjoy more than one serving. As my husband pointed out, Chubby Hubby is aptly named, because "that is what you are going to have if you keep buying all this ice cream!" (The poor man has it so hard, putting up with a wife who constantly wants him to sample yet another delicious Ben & Jerry's flavor.) But because of the higher calorie content, I found that one of the advantages to having to dig through the pint of Chubby Hubby for the pretzel bites is that it takes longer to eat a single half-cup serving, so I felt more satisfied after eating a smaller amount of the ice cream. So the treasure hunt when eating Chubby Hubby is more than just a fun experience - it can also help you stretch that pint across an extra day or two and consume fewer calories at one sitting. At least in theory.

Overall, I give Chubby Hubby a four star rating, which for me is based primarily on the combo of peanut butter and fudge, but also on the satisfying reward of crunchy pretzel bites. I just don't think I'll be buying this flavor quite as often, since on a bad day, I may not be able to resist eating more than one serving.