Ben & Jerry's Cinnamon Buns

Oh. My. Lord.

I didn't think that I would ever find an ice cream flavor that I love quite as passionately as Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Jam Session, but it has indeed happened.  Cinnamon Buns is now tied with PBJS for my most favoritest ice cream flavor of all time.  Amazingly enough, neither one of these flavors has even the teensiest bit of chocolate in it.  I can't even begin to tell you how shocking that is to me.  But with its caramel ice cream, chunks of cinnamon bun dough and cinnamon streusel swirls, Cinnamon Buns doesn't need any chocolate.  (Did I really just say that?!)  

A friend of mine had recently recommended Cinnamon Buns as a must-try Ben & Jerry's flavor, saying that for several months, she and her husband had been buying a pint every week. Until they realized that their pants just kept getting tighter and tighter. While that sounded like the ideal recommendation to me, I still didn't expect that I would fall so completely in love with Cinnamon Buns. But each bite of this flavor is a delicious burst of sweet cinnamon, blended with a light caramel, that sends me to gastronomic heaven.

There's nothing very unexpected about the flavor, which tastes exactly like someone went to Cinnabon, stole a carton of their dough, and mixed it up with some rich vanilla-caramel Ben & Jerry's ice cream. But while the descriptions of some Ben & Jerry's flavors sound completely amazing and then end up disappointing me (for example, Coconut Seven Layer Bar and Volun-Tiramisu), Cinnamon Buns is a flawlessly and deliciously executed flavor that exceeds my expectations.  Just look at these chunks of cinnamon bun dough, which are plentiful throughout the ice cream -

These little balls of cinnamon dough are exquisite, and the pictures should make it clear that with Cinnamon Buns, Ben & Jerry's has come up with a heavenly recipe.  Cinnamon streusel + cinnamon dough + ice cream blended to perfection. In fact, I think that if I gave myself free rein, I could eat Ben & Jerry's Cinnamon Buns in greater quantities than I could eat actual Cinnabons or homemade cinnamon rolls, which are amazingly delicious but sometimes overwhelm my taste buds with all the gooey frosting. With their Cinnamon Buns flavor, Ben and Jerry have come up with a perfectly rich, perfectly balanced (at least for my palette) treat.

Do I even need to say it? This flavor gets 5 stars and a permanent spot in my freezer.

Ben & Jerry's Rockin' Blondies

There are Ben & Jerry's flavors with a vanilla or a chocolate ice cream base (both very common), and then there are flavors with a coffee or peanut butter ice cream base (I'm in heaven!)... and then there is Rockin' Blondies. The official description of this Ben & Jerry's flavor reads, "Buttery brown sugar ice cream with blonde brownies and butterscotch toffee flakes." Not just brown sugar ice cream, buttery brown sugar ice cream.  Sounds like it will melt in my mouth just as quickly and as sweetly as a pat of butter on a steaming stack of pancakes.  But I must admit that I was somewhat disappointed to find that Ben & Jerry's brown sugar ice cream tastes suspiciously like their rich, delicious vanilla ice cream, with just a hint of something extra.  The flavor is sweet, creamy and utterly enjoyable, combining quite well with the butterscotch toffee.  And I personally appreciate the subtlety of the butterscotch flavoring, since I really don't like butterscotch at all.  But in the end, this is one of those ice cream flavors that ends up being too subtle, with barely a difference between what is supposed to be "buttery brown sugar" and your plain jane vanilla ice cream.  Maybe my expectations are too high, but Rockin' Blondies just doesn't deliver the kind of unique brown sugar flavor that I was expecting and anticipating with a fair bit of excitement.

Another important thing to note is that before I sampled Rockin' Blondies, I had been thinking that if this turned out to be the butterscotch/blondie version of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie flavor (one of my favorites), I could pack up and go home right now. This review would write itself.  But Rockin' Blondies is a different type of experience from Chocolate Fudge Brownie, not only in terms of flavor, but also in terms of chunk size and "mouth feel" (a food industry term that means exactly what you would expect it to mean - how a food feels in your mouth and how its texture contributes to the overall enjoyment of that food).

Special note: this flavor is carried exclusively at Target. 

Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey

I honestly wasn't expecting to enjoy Chunky Monkey nearly as much as I ended up enjoying it, despite preference for unusual ice cream flavors and combinations. I should have realized that if a banana split, with its sweet marriage of bananas and ice cream, is such an amazing treat, then banana ice cream is basically the brilliant idea to take that idea to the next level. Previously excellent partners in marriage, bananas and ice cream truly become one in Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey, with quite pleasing and successful results.

The banana ice cream itself was the best surprise for my palette, since I wasn't expecting it to taste much different than my healthy breakfast banana protein shake.  But above and beyond the sweet and creamy banana ice cream are the large chunks of fudge and walnuts. Please note my emphasis on both of the words large and chunks.  Some Ben & Jerry's flavors have "fudge flakes," which is code for "tiny, thin pieces."  But one of my favorite things about the experience of eating Ben & Jerry's ice cream is the chunky pieces combined with the creamy texture of many of the flavors, producing a particularly pleasing "mouth feel" (a food industry term that means exactly what you would think that it means - how a food feels in your mouth, and how that contributes to your enjoyment of that food).  Sometimes I feel like the Ben & Jerry's flavors that skimp on the chunks are missing something that is quintessentially Ben & Jerry's. Somehow there are B&J's flavors that aren't truly Ben & Jerry's enough.  But that is not the case with Chunky Monkey, as the name assures.  Those large chunks of fudge and walnuts are big enpugh to satisfy even this particularly picky fan of chunky ice cream, earning this flavor a solid 4 star rating.

Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia

I recently had some Archer Farms Amaretto Cherry Gelato, which sounded amazing but turned out to be of the good-not-great variety. I didn't really taste the amaretto at all, which was a big disappointment since my all-time favorite drink is an Amaretto Sour. So I was a little bit skeptical when trying Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia, thinking that fruit flavored ice creams don't really do it for me nearly the same way as chocolate, peanut butter and coffee-flavored ice creams. Still, Cherry Garcia has fudge flakes (a Ben & Jerry's term that means smaller, thinner chunks), so with the promise of at keast sone chocolate mixed into the flavor, I delved into the pint.

I have to admit that I should have had more faith in Ben & Jerry's. Cherry Garcia is a cut above the Amaretto Cherry Gelato that I had previously eaten, with plenty more chunks of cherry mixed into and throughout the B&J's flavor. And, oh what cherries. These aren't farm fresh flavored cherries, bursting with a tart freshness (although Ben & Jerry's should take note - that would be a good flavor to try). These taste just like the cherries that come floating in my Amaretto Sour, with a sweet, alcohol-soaked flavor that may or may not be produced by my imagination. Am I imagining things?  Oh, well.  For me, eating a scoop of Cherry Garcia is akin to sitting at the bar and pulling cherry after cherry out of my drink, sucking on the sweet flavor those drink "garnishes," which are part of the main show in my opinion. Even the cherry ice cream base has the same flavor, the same suggestion of my favorite cocktail.

As for the flavor combo of cherries and chocolate - while some people apparently don't enjoy this combination, I'm always a huge fan of cherries and chocolate (or raspberries and chocolate, strawberries and chocolate, take your pick).  So I'm scratching my head at all the commentary online about the chocolate and cherry combo being strange and unappealing.  I think it's delicious and brilliant.  While the fudge "flakes" might need to be bigger to satisfy a chocolate lover's chocolate craving, this isn't really meant to be the flavor to choose if you're in the mood for some serious chocolate.  Putting in more of the fudge would overwhelm the delicious cherry flavor, so the fudge flakes are meant to accent the overall fruit cocktail flavor of the ice cream. And for once in a blue moon, I'm okay with chocolate being the sideshow because the ratio of chocolate to cherries in this flavor is the perfect harmony.  But don't get me wrong - the fudge "flakes" aren't the whimpy little chips of fudge that Ben & Jerry's usually means when they use the word "flakes."  These are hefty little chocolate bricks, and the pieces of cherry aren't anything to sneeze at, either.  I'm not quite sure if this flavor actually qualifies as a "chunky ice cream" in my book, but Cherry Garcia has a pleasing texture and mouth feel that emphasizes the chocolate and cherries flavor combo perfectly.

Cherry Garcia gets four stars and a spot in regular rotation in my freezer.

Ben & Jerry's Hazed & Confused

One of Ben & Jerry's new "Core" flavors, Hazed & Confused earns a solid 4 star rating for its combination of chocolate and hazelnut ice creams, fudge chips and a hazelnut fudge core running through the center of the pint.  This is definitely a great flavor if you have a serious chocolate craving, but doesn't get a 5 star rating because at least for my taste, the hazelnut favoring was too subtle.  I was expecting something a little more outstanding from the promised hazelnut in Hazed & Confused and to get a 5 star rating, you have to fully deliver the flavors promised on the label with some serious pizzazz.

Despite my disappointment with the too-subtle hazelnut flavor, though, the chocolate factor in Hazed & Confused won over my taste buds completely, since I am a shameless chocolate addict.  There is chocolate ice cream, chocolate fudge chips and a chewy chocolate fudge core.  Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate.

The fudge core is definitely my favorite part, akin to the chunks of fudgy brownie in Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie. These two flavors are actually fairly comparable in terms of satisfying chocolate content and fudgy texture ("mouth feel"), and are probably the two best chocolate ice creams that I've had in my entire life.  Of course, I have a lot more of Ben & Jerry's chocolate flavored ice creams to sample still, so we'll see how they end up ranking after I've completely finished my B&J's Taste Test.  But for now, Hazed & Confused will be one of my go-to flavors to satisfy my deep-seated psychological need for chocolate.

Want a second opinion on Hazed & Confused?  Visit On Second Scoop and check out their review.

Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Jam Session

My love for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches is boundless. The creamy delicious texture of that nutty spread, preferably with crunchy peanuts scattered throughout. The contrast of the sweet fruity flavor or raspberry or strawberry or cherry jam or jelly. My husband thinks that my gastronomic rapture over such a boring staple of a first grader's diet is downright silly, but I'm not talking about a PB&J made by a stingy mom who scrapes the thinnest possible layers of peanut butter and jam across some thin, dry bread. Those are the kinds of sandwiches that leave you gasping for a gulp of juice (because milk won't even clear away that dry bread caked to the roof of your mouth). When I talk about loving PB&J, though, I'm talking about a thickly spread, gooey sandwich that oozes PB and drips jam over your fingers as you consume about as many calories as can be had in a Big Mac. Now that's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Although not as gooey (unless the ice cream is melting), Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Jam Session is a similarly satisfying gastronomic experience. The lighter nutty flavor of the peanut butter ice cream, the slightly stronger flavor of the peanut butter swirl and the crunchy little peanuts, amd the sweetness of the raspberry jam swirl make a perfectly wonderful combination as reminiscent of eating an actual PB&J as I can possibly imagine.

But no chocolate?  No chocolate whatsoever in Peanut Butter Jam Session.  Yet this flavor is fully deserving of 5 stars and a permanent spot in my freezer, right next to Ben & Jerry's Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch.  I don't think I've ever found an ice cream that has absolutely no chocolate and yet satisfies my taste buds so completely as Peanut Butter Jam Session.

Want a second opinion on Peanut Butter Jam Session?  Visit On Second Scoop and check out their review.

Special note: this flavor is carried exclusively at Target. 

Ben & Jerry's Coconut Seven Layer Bar

Earlier this week, I made my first official visit to a Ben & Jerry's scoop shop as part of my taste test, in order to start trying the flavors that are exclusively available at scoop shops and not by the pint. I was probably a little bit too excited about this field trip, but since I'm having so much fun with my current Ben & Jerry's obsession, I'm just going to go with it.

My choice to sample Coconut Seven Layer Bar turned out to be less exciting. The flavor promises fudge, butter scotch, graham cracker pieces and walnuts mixed into coconut ice cream with coconut flakes, but the only thing that was present with any abundance were the coconut flakes. This was a serious disappointment.

I feel like it is important to note that if you're looking for a good, sweet coconut ice cream with excellent texture/mouth feel, you needn't look any further. Coconut Seven Layer Bar is quite tasty in that regard.

But I was expecting more chocolate, which is one of my very strong personal preferences, and more chunks overall. Something that I am looking for in Ben & Jerry's flavors is to find big pieces of brownies, pretzels, toffee, cookie, dough... whatever... embedded in my ice cream. I feel like that's an important part of the Ben & Jerry's experience, although maybe I'm over-generalizing. But in any case, the tiny fudge "flakes" left me craving a more equitable distribution of coconut and chocolate,  and I can't be the only person with that reaction. I mean, who really enjoys fudge "flakes," anyway? Who has even heard of fudge flakes.

I'm left wishing that I had ordered one of the other flavors from my bucket list, especially since a single scoop is $4.65 (including tax). This flavor gets two stars and a lopsided grin.

Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie

It may not be quite as unique as some Ben & Jerry's flavors, but with its chunks of chewy, fudgy brownie pieces in rich chocolate ice cream, originality be damned. Chocolate Fudge Brownie gets a rating of 5 stars and a permanent spot in my freezer.  These days, since this is also my husband's favorite of the Ben & Jerry's flavors that we have sampled so far, we've actually been making room for more than one pint at a time of Chocolate Fudge Brownie in our freezer.  Yes, it's that good.  While the brownie chunks are definitely the highlight of this flavor, I have to say that Ben & Jerry's basic chocolate ice cream is also the best that I've ever tasted.  Up until now, I have always considered chocolate ice cream to be a bit... well, boring.  There it is - my confession of the day.  But in Ben & Jerry's hands, this basic flavor has become something richer, creamier and somehow more chocolaty than regular chocolate ice cream.  So both the ice cream base and the fudgy brownies of Chocolate Fudge Brownie are an immense treat.

A fun coincidence - the brownies in B&J's Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream are baked by Greyston Bakery, a non-profit organization in Yonkers, New York, which provides employment and job training to economically disadvantaged residents.  I work in Yonkers, so now I know where to go if I want a good brownie.  And these are definitely good brownies.  I cannot use italics enough in this ice cream review to adequately convey my love of the fudgy, fudgy brownies in this flavor.

An additional important note - we've gone through several pints of Chocolate Fudge Brownie in the past several weeks, and all but one of the pints had delicious, fudgy brownie chunks. But one of the pints that I bought had dry, crumbly brownie pieces.  Alas, the brownies had been the victim of horrible freezer burn.  So be forewarned - if you come across a pint of Chocolate Fudge Brownie with less-than-fudgy brownies, that's a decidedly abnormal batch.  Don't base your judgement on this delicious flavor based on a freezer burned carton.  After taste-testing several pints of Chocolate Fudge Brownie (just to be sure, of course), I can attest to the fact that the brownies are quite reliably very fudgy and soft.

Want a second opinion on Chocolate Fudge Brownie?  Visit On Second Scoop and read their review.

Ben & Jerry's Milk & Cookies

I am a huge fan of Cookies & Cream ice cream, but Ben & Jerry's flavor Milk & Cookies isn't your usual chunks of Oreo cookie embedded in vanilla ice cream, which is what I was originally expecting. The packaging proclaims the flavor to be "vanilla ice cream with a chocolate cookie swirl, chocolate chip and chocolate chocolate chip cookies."

That description seems to promise a whole lot of chocolate, and given Ben & Jerry's famous penchant for sticking large chunks of candy, pretzels,  brownie and cookie dough into their products, I was expecting some big satisfying pieces of chocolatey Oreo cookies mixed into that delicious-sounding chocolate cookie swirl. But alas, this is a flavor devoid of large chunks of anything.

While the overall flavor of Milk & Cookies is fabulously creamy and tasty, I have to give this flavor 3.5 stars due to my disappointment at the lack of actual cookie pieces. There is a really delicious, somewhat gritty (but pleasing) cookie swirl throughout the pint, and I have to give B&J's credit for coming up with a new take on the Cookies & Cream idea.  But as I am starting to figure out, you need to have some big chocolatey chunks of something in a flavor of ice cream to fully please my palette.

I guess I'm going to have to do some additional taste testing to find another brand of Cookies & Cream ice cream that has big chunks of Oreo cookie in order to satisfy my craving for this particular flavor.  I'm aware that Ben & Jerry's has a Sweet Cream & Cookies flavor that actually seems to be more like the original Cookies & Cream type of ice cream, complete with actual Oreo Chunks.  But while I really want to sample that, it's apparently only available at scoop shops, so I can't stick a pint in my freezer to satisfy my 2 AM Cookies & Cream craving.  I'll have to find another brand.  Sorry, Ben & Jerry's.  Does anyone have any brands to recommend for Cookies & Cream?

Want a second opinion on Ben & Jerry's Milk & Cookies?  Visit On Second Scoop and check out their review.

Ben & Jerry's Americone Dream

Stephen Colbert's famous flavor Americone Dream gets a solid 3 stars.  While the fudge covered pieces of waffle cone and swirls of caramel are tasty and the vanilla ice cream is as sweet and creamy as you could want, the flavor overall ends up being a little too simple, unexciting and... well, vanilla for my taste.

An interesting side note: my husband was initially an extremely enthusiastic fan of this flavor - when he was eating it right out of the labeled carton featuring both the Ben & Jerry's logo and the handsome mug of Stephen Colbert. But then I put a serving of Americone Dream in an unlabeled tupperware in the freezer, along with a couple of other flavors in similarly unlabeled containers. I didn't tell him what any of them were. I didn't even mention what I had done. I just waited to see what would happen when he sampled one of the flavors. Interestingly enough, he later reported that whatever flavor it was that he had eaten (it was Americone Dream) didn't taste nearly as delicious to him as when he was eating straight from the carton.

When I told my husband that he had been eating Americone Dream, one of his two self-proclaimed favorites, my husband the Psychologist and Consumer Research Analyst decided that he had been swayed overly much by the Stephen Colbert branding on the package.

Genius move, Ben & Jerry's. Slap Colbert's face on the package, because that man could successfully sell pretty much anything...

Pistachio.






Want a second opinion on Ben & Jerry's Americone Dream?  Visit On Second Scoop and check out their review.

Ben & Jerry's Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch

My epic Ben & Jerry's Taste Test officially begins with Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch. I give this amazing flavor 5 stars because after being unable to eat ice cream or drink coffee for a torturous ten years, the creamy coffee flavor of the ice cream combined with the fudge-covered toffee pieces tastes like HEAVEN to this former coffee barista.

First of all, the toffee pieces make this flavor the epitome of a Ben & Jerry's chunky ice cream flavor.  I'm a big fan of toffee and usually end up sampling all eight flavors at the toffee maker's booth each time our local street fair sets up in town, so the chunks in Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch are a huge treat for me.  And oh, what chunks they are... these absolutely monstrous pieces of toffee are larger than pieces of anything else that I've found in any other Ben & Jerry's flavor.  Take a look at the size of the chunks that Ben & Jerry's is dumping into their batches of Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch (pictured to the right and below).

Even without the fudge-covered toffee pieces, though, I could eat a ton of this creamy coffee-flavored ice cream all day long. Or I can just take a spoonful or two at breakfast in order to sweeten the taste in my mouth and give myself a boost for the day. (My increased energy may be due to nothing more than the placebo effect, but since my stomach still isn't strong enough to hand actual coffee, I'll take it!)  I have no idea how coffee-flavored ice creams made by other brands compare to Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch, which might be worth investigating eventually. But in any event, the toffee pieces put Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch at the top of my list over any of the other flavors that I have sampled in my preliminary tastings.

My husband doesn't care for Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch, though, because he thinks the toffee pieces are too sweet.  But it's important to know that he thinks toffee is too sweet in general.  In the end, whether or not you like Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch may come down to whether or not you generally like toffee.  But for a toffee lover and/or a coffee lover, Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch is just about the best treat that I can imagine.

Want a second opinion about Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch?  Visit On Second Scoop and read their review.

Ben & Jerry's Taste Test Bucket List

A little bit background: Because of a chronic stomach condition, I haven't been able to eat in ten years.  TEN YEARS.  Imagine my suffering.

But thanks to the awesome nutritionists that I've been seeing for the past two years, my stomach lining has slowly healed... and I am once again able to eat frozen deliciousness made from milk and cream and sugar.  I am ECSTATIC, which I'm sure any ice cream lover can understand.

After ten years of being ice cream deprived, though, my memories of enjoying delicious frozen dairy confections are pretty vague.  I remember that my grandparents used to take my family to the Dairy-O, the local soft serve stand on the corner with a somewhat dilapidated red and white striped awning, but I don't remember what I ordered.  Probably just a chocolate and vanilla twist cone.  I know that when I was growing up, my favorite thing to get from an ice cream truck was one of those cookie ice cream sandwiches, and my favorite Baskin Robbin's flavor was called Gold Medal Ribbon.  In junior high, my best friend had a slight obsession with Ben & Jerry's Phish Food ice cream, so I must have tried it at some point.  But I was only vaguely aware of all the tasty flavors and variations of ice cream available to a frozen dessert connoisseur.

So when I discovered that my stomach had healed enough to allow me to eat ice cream, I decided to embark upon a quest, an epic ice cream taste test.  I will begin primarily with Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavors, because clearly Ben & Jerry's is the premier brand of gourmet ice cream.  And so I created a Ben & Jerry's bucket list. Am I missing any flavors that you would recommend?

Ben & Jerry's Flavors to Taste Test: Available in Pint

(in no particular order)

• Milk & Cookies
• Phish Food
• Karamel Sutra
• Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch
• Half-Baked
• Volun-Tiramisu
• Chocolate Fudge Brownie
• Cherry Garcia
• Rockin Blondies
• Peanut Butter Jam Session
• Hazed & Confused Core
• Salted Caramel Core
• Peanut Butter Fudge Core
• Chubby Hubby
• Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
• That's My Jam
• Candy Bar Pie
• Banana Split
• Banana Peanut Butter Greek Froyo
• Cake Batter
• Cheesecake Brownie
• Chocolate Peppermint Crunch
• Chocolate Therapy
• Chunky Monkey
• Cinnamon Buns
• Coffee Coffeee BuzzBuzzBuzz
• Smores Ice Cream
• Vanilla Caramel Fudge
• Strawberry Cheesecake
• Strawberry Shortcake Greek Froyo
• Red Velvet Cake
• Raspberry Fudge Chunk Greek Froyo
• Mint Chocolate Cookie
• Peach Cobbler
• Liz Lemon Froyo
• What a Cluster
• Americone Dream
• Imagine Whirled Peace
• New York Super Fudge Chunk
• Everything But The... (Ice Cream)

Ben & Jerry's Flavors to Taste Test: Available Only at a Scoop Shop

(also in no particular order)

• Turtle Cheesecake
• Gilly's Catastrophic Crunch
• Lazy Sunday
• Two Wild & Crazy Pies
• Coconut Seven Layer Bar
• Sweet Cream & Cookies
• Triple Caramel Chunk
• Vanilla Toffee Bar Crunch
• White Russian