Ben & Jerry's S'mores Ice Cream

[2015 Update] Quick update to let you know that S'mores is alive and well in Ben & Jerry's new non-GMO world. It's a fun flavor that belongs on their menu, though the review below may sound a little down on it. It's not that it's bad, it's that there are other flavors out there with a much stronger graham flavor.

Ben & Jerry's S'mores Ice Cream
chocolate ice cream with fudge chunks,
toasted marshmallow & graham cracker swirls

The squishy swirl is calling your name!
(I think it's gotten a bit more orange colored)

[Original Review] It has been almost two months since I've had Ben & Jerry's on the blog ...wow, I can't believe it's been that long, time really does fly as you get older. No matter, I picked up three flavors at Market Basket: One because it had a fun name, one for St. Patrick's day, and S'mores.

I'm not sure why I haven't tried Ben & Jerry's S'mores ice cream sooner because it really does sound awesome: Chocolate Ice Cream with Fudge Chunks, Toasted Marshmallow & a Graham Cracker Swirl. Mmmmm, how can you go wrong with that? And when will I learn to not jinx myself by asking silly questions like "how can you go wrong with that?"

Wow, now that is some seriously dark colored chocolate ice cream. Notice a very healthy smattering of fudge chunks everywhere. The lighter spots are a solid marshmallow swirl, while the tannish spots are these funky semi-moist graham cracker swirl spots. To be honest, I'm wondering if this pint was thawed at some point, the texture just looks weird. It's also possible that the ingredients, in particular the marshmallow, come together and totally mess with the melting point of the ice cream. I had just pulled this from the deep freezer and you can see it's already starting to melt. I might expect this on some super crazy hot day in august, but not on a cool night in march.

Ok, nevermind the fast melting, how does it taste? CHOCOLATY, really really CHOCOLATY. I think this may just be a general trend in B&J's ice cream, but I wasn't ready for it. The problem, for me, is that the chocolate is overriding everything. I can crunch the fudge chunks, but I don't really taste them. The marshmallow and graham cracker swirls are practically non-existent. I think the swirls might be messing with the texture a little bit, but even when I try to eat slow, I can still barely taste them. Bummer.

Now I was technically eating out of the container and a bowl at the same time. I ate the bowl part after it had melted further and it did make for a fine and extremely rich chocolate slush. Tasty and borderline overpowering.

If you need a massive chocolate blast to keep you up for a test or to do your taxes, this should suffice. As always, it's a quality product, I'm not questioning that, but I do question why you call something S'mores but don't really let the other ingredients be anything more than decoration. Guess we'll just have to wait and see how the second scoop goes.

On Second Scoop: I was dying for some chocolate when I got home from work the other day, so what better way to fix that craving than with some very chocolaty Ben & Jerry's. As always, I don't want to give the impression that this is a bad ice cream. It's well made and the chocolate flavor is excellent when you are in the mood, I just wish it tasted more like S'mores. I purposely aimed for the grahamiest spots I could find, so I was getting a bit more texture to my bites, but I still wanted more. Maybe I'm just hard to please. So, this is a fine flavor, I just think it could be more S'morey.

Note: This is the flavor formerly known as Marsha Marsha Marshmallow. It did a two year run from 2005 to 2007. Thanks to Kimberly for the reminder! (I believe this is an old stock photo)