Ben & Jerry's Salted Caramel Core

Whoever believes that "you can never have too much of a good thing" has clearly never encountered the paradox of the Ben & Jerry's flavor Salted Caramel Core.  On the one hand, the caramel core running through the center of this pint is like an amazingly delicious gob of the caramel sauce that is used to make caramel apples on a stick. Yum, right? Well, not if you get too big a mouthful. Then it's just overwhelmingly sweet. The kind of sweet that can be headache-inducing. When I first cracked open a pint of Salted Caramel Core, I made the mistake of scooping up a spoonful of the caramel core, and not only did it give me an instant buzz, it dulled my tastebuds so that they were unable to appreciate the more subtle Sweet Cream flavor. I got a mouthful of caramel, followed by what seemed to be bland, almost tasteless ice cream. I guess you could say that my poor tastebuds were in shock.

Round Two with my pint of Salted Caramel Core was a much different experience.  I was determined to fully enjoy Ben & Jerry's combination of "Sweet Cream ice cream with Blonde Brownies and a Salted Caramel Core."  So I employed a new strategy - I scooped out a spoonful of the ice cream and added just a small dollop of the caramel core. As my husband has observed several times, the beautiful thing about Ben & Jerry's Core flavors is that they are customizable - you can scoop up as much (or as little) of the core as you would like to go with your ice cream. Sure enough, once I had the correct balence between the Sweet Cream and the Caramel, this flavor was a very tasty experience.

Final verdict? I give Salted Caramel Core a  4 star rating, although as I am compiling my personal ranking of all the Ben & Jerry's flavors that I have tried, this one ends up on the lower end of the list. I'm a big fan of Sweet Cream ice cream and the caramel is of course quite delicious, but in my opinion, caramel gets even better when combined with chocolate to get the downright amazing Ben & Jerry's flavor Vanilla Caramel Fudge. So this is a solid flavor, but in the end, not one of my favorites.

If you want a real mouth orgasm, though, make yourself a Sundae with Salted Caramel Core and Cinnamon Buns,  one of my all-time favorite Ben & Jerry's flavors. The combination of the caramel and the cinnamon is absolutely stunning.