Limited Batch! Ben & Jerry's Flourless Chocolate Cake

On top of the five new flavors out right now,  Ben & Jerry's has also released the limited edition flourless chocolate cake. It's ok, I did a double take too. Flourless chocolate cake? I love desserts but I'm a little lost on this one ....to wikipedia!

So, here it is, Flourless Chocolate Cake : Chocolate Ice Cream with Pieces of Flourless Chocolate Cake & a Chocolate Frosting Swirl. The title doesn't have me but that description is winning me over. I crack open the container and Ben & Jerry's very dark chocolate ice cream is there waiting to greet me.

Skinny Cow Low Fat Cookies 'N Cream Ice Cream Sandwiches

I think it's pretty obvious that I'm not a huge Skinny Cow fan unless we're talking about their simple yet satisfying fudge pops. However, no matter how good Ben & Jerry's might taste, you really can't eat it every night (unless you're still 18). So, when I saw the Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches under going a considerable sale, I knew it was time to give a few more flavors a try.

The first one I opened is the Cookie N' Cream variety of their low fat

Commit Charge

I was in desperate need of a frozen treat this afternoon and luckily I had one in reserve. I had a single serve Klondike bar in my work freezer and I had planned to use it to do a size comparison with the 100 calorie Klondike minis I tried two months ago. Well, this was an emergency, so I ran off to the freezer (not literally run, someone could get hurt in our narrow hallways, and who wants that).

Anyway, I grabbed it from the freezer, headed back to my desk, and ripped open the package. Uh oh... That's not good....

Oh my.... 18 grams of saturated fat! That's 90% of my daily intake (and let's not get into the fact I had a bunch of Do-si-dos a few hours earlier). When I bought this, I assumed it was a normal Klondike since it doesnt say its oversized, but it is definitely bigger than the average bar (by weight, it's 18% bigger, by calories it's 32% bigger).

Well, it's too late, the package is open, and I can't go back. I have committed this fat intake charge to my daily diet. At least it was tasty and still fresh ...it just also happened to be horribly unhealthy. I'll be better tomorrow.

Ben & Jerry's Boston Cream Pie Ice Cream

[Jan 2017 Update: this has been removed from the Ben & Jerry's website]

[2015 Update] Just a quick note that this flavor did finally make the transition to Non-GMO status, but it was a little hairy there for a bit as this was basically the last flavor I saw switch over. That said, the review below still stands for the most part. It's a nice flavor with a strong swirl, dense cake bits.... and a surprising lack of chocolate still. Just one of those things I guess.

Ben & Jerry's Boston Cream Pie Ice Cream

Boston Cream Pie ice cream with yellow cake pieces,

fudge flakes & swirls of pastry cream

New! Skinny Cone Caramel Cone Low Fat Ice Cream

[Discontinued] So, when I posted the pictures of the brand new skinny cow single serve cups, what was your reaction? If you are anything like me, you were probably ...a little ...afraid. Sorry, but from my experience, skinny cow ice cream isn't the most positive experience. Sure, I love the mini fudge pops, but the faux "ice cream" they use in their sandwiches and cones rarely steps outside the edible range.

I reported 4 new flavors and being a lover of crunchy cones, I went with the Caramel Cone. Now one strange thing right off the bat is the fact that there is no description of the ice cream on the container. Yes it has a picture and a name, but nothing like "vanilla low fat ice cream with a low sugar caramel swirl and cone bits covered in low fat chocolaty stuff".

Ben & Jerry's Peanut Brittle Ice Cream

[2010 - 2013] You know what's funny? It takes a moment to test a product but it seems like an eternity sometimes before I get to talk about it. Case in point, I tried this new (for 2010) flavor Wednesday night and I'm still trying to get my thoughts out ...I forget what happened that night, but I had some more last night and I was all ready to start writing, but I got an email that totally threw me off course (but more on that in a few weeks). Anyway, let's get down to business!

Ben & Jerry's Peanut Brittle Ice Cream

Peanut Brittle Ice Cream with Peanut Brittle Pieces & a Caramel Swirl

Kemp's Raspberry Vanilla Fro-Zing

As tempted as I was to dive back into the wonderful world of Ben & Jerry, I decided to give Sunday to the lowfat healthy world of frozen yogurt. I know, it wasn't easy to switch gears like that, but Kemp's marketing firm was nice enough to send out two containers of their brand new Fro-Zing! Frozen Tangy Amazingness. Apparently my last enjoyment of their stuff got their attention, though I wonder if they are familiar with this review. Hey, if Kemp's is brave enough to send me tangy yogurt even after I mentioned I don't like tangy yogurt, well then, it's my job as your host to be brave enough to try it.

Kemps Fro-zing Raspberry Vanilla Frozen Yogurt
(Sorry, every picture I took didn't come out right)

Ben & Jerry's Milk & Cookies Ice Cream

[2018 Update] When someone asks me what my favorite Ben & Jerry's flavor, well, this is it, but I hadn't actually bought a pint in forever. So, I did, and you know what? Even slightly freezer burned, this pint was still amazing. Original review after the break.

Ben & Jerry's Milk & Cookies Ice Cream

vanilla ice cream with a chocolate cookie swirl,

chocolate chip & chocolate chocolate chip cookies

Paperwork backlog

I try to do a quarterly state of the freezer address, but I've missed it by over a month now. Let's recap the last poll so we can move on with that at least.

There were 229 votes total:
Straight from the container: 90 (39%)
anyway is fine by me: 59 (25%)
gotta be the bowl: 56 (24%)
cones are the way to go: 15 (6%)
single serve treats: 9 (3%)

Since I know many of you are ice cream fanatics like myself, I definitely expected straight from the container to win. However, I am happy to see the bowl with strong support. I think there is just something traditional and relaxing about a bowl. When I go for the container, I want instant gratification. When I grab a bowl, that means its time to relax and just turn the world off for ten minutes.

With that said, I'd probably go with anyway is fine by me, it just depends on the moment really. Actually, that's not totally true, if I had my way, and if I had the time, I would love to eat out of the cone most of the time. Sure you increase the chances of making a mess, but I just love crunchy and creamy put together ....especially when the inside of the cone has a chocolate lining ....and now I'm hungry again.

What's up next: The good news is that I've packed up the freezer pretty well. We've got a lot of Ben & Jerry's, I found a pint of Haagen-Dazs Five buried below the veggies, I've got two samples of Kemp's new Fro-Zing! fresh from the factory, I've got a few more treats courtesy of Blue Bunny, and in the most recent development, we're actually going to have some new pints from Perry's Ice Cream up on the blog. Consider me extremely excited about ice cream literally coming from every direction. Woohoo! I love spring time product announcements!

I was wrong ....so wrong....

At first, I learned that there was just one NEW Ben & Jerry's flavor: Boston Cream Pie

And then, I was told that there are three NEW flavors: Milk & Cookies, Peanut Brittle, & BCP

Well, I was wrong, and it this case, it's ok to be wrong....

There are FIVE new flavors! Oh am I excited!!

From left to right:

• Mud Pie: Chocolate & Coffee Liqueur Ice Creams Swirled Together with a Chocolate Cookie Swirl
• (Fair trade vanilla --- the new Peanut Brittle** was actually on the shelf above this one)
• Dulce Delish: Rich Caramel Ice Cream with Dark Caramel Swirls
• Boston Cream Pie: Boston Cream Pie Ice Cream with Yellow Cake Pieces, Fudge Flakes & Swirls of Pastry Cream
• Milk & Cookies: Vanilla Ice Cream with a Chocolate Cookie Swirl, Chocolate Chip & Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

**Peanut Brittle is Peanut Brittle Ice Cream with Peanut Brittle Pieces & a Caramel Swirl

I was so bummed I was on my lunch break with no way to get these little buggers home, but no worries, I hope to rectify this situation this weekend... preferably at $2.99 a container and not the $4.79 you see above.

UPDATE: We have a report from Kentucky that their is actually one more new (limited batch) flavor, flourless chocolate cake!! Thanks to Hettar7!  (Walmart Only)

BIG SIDE NOTE HERE: Ben & Jerry's is going Fair Trade on ALL their flavors. Their long standing commitment to a better world will continue with this great effort which should be wrapped up by the end of 2013. You can see the entire press release here.

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

M&M Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches Review

As we all know, there are 3 products in the M&M family. In a curious twist, it's just a few days shy of a year since I first tried M&M Ice Cream Cones. They weren't bad, but they didn't leave me begging for more.

Now there are actually a few treats hiding in the freezer downstairs and one of them happens to be a tasty looking box of M&M Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches. Unfortunately, I got a little sidetracked and then Ken from Frozen Food Journal posted his review first. I try not post these things so close together, but hey, we're here, so let's dig in! With any luck, it won't be bad as he says!

Here is the original packaging showing the 3.1 fl oz sized sandwiches (circa 2010)


Here is the newer style packaging & wrapper for the current 4 fl oz sandwiches (circa 2012)

Next Up: Ice Cream Sandwiches!

We've been doing some hardcore spring cleaning this weekend and I'm afraid the blog has suffered a bit for it. The good news is the freezer* (and our office) looks better, but I didn't post anything terribly exciting. To make up for this, I popped an M&Ms ice cream sandwich this evening in hopes of doing a review...

I'd do the post now, but I still have a few things I need to do tonight and it's already approaching 11. Now I try not to do the same posts as fellow reviewers, but I had already bought these particular treats before Ken took a crack at them. Will I feel the same way he does? You'll just have to come back to find out.

*Side note: the freezer actually looks pretty empty. Sure there are a few things downstairs, but I don't really have any more mainstream products to review (Ok, technically I might, but I dont feel like digging through the Raviolis and frozen veggies to find them)

Ok, I'm a little confused

I was at Market Basket Thursday night and I spotted two Breyers overload flavors that were new to me. The first was Very Chocolate Cherry and it was Very hard to miss with it's red packaging. It's cherry frozen dairy dessert with cherry pieces and chocolate flavored chips. Yeah, there's nothing like REAL chocolate-FLAVORED chips (that would be sarcasm and pretty much a dig at anything that says FLAVORED, uggg, I'm just being cranky about sematics).

Ok, the other one I saw was Peanut Butter Tracks, and this struck me as odd, you see, it's almost identical to the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup flavor, let's compare:

PBT: peanut butter flavored frozen dairy dessert with....
RPBC: peanut butter light ice cream with.....

PBT: peanut butter swirls and...
RPBC: fudge swirls and...

PBT: chocolate coated peanut butter filled cups
RPBC: Reese's peanut butter cup pieces

ok, it's not much of a story, and it's not like these two flavors are new (though it is weird to see them for the first time). I'll get something new on the blog tomorrow since we decided to cheat and tried to finish off a couple of older containers today.

Breyers Smooth & Dreamy Ice Cream Sandwiches

[New for 2010, now retired] During my excited rant about all the new Spring products I saw at Shaws the other day, I mentioned that I brought one of the new ice cream sandwiches out of the store with me. Well, here is my fun new friend.

 

Breyers Smooth & Dreamy Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream Sandwiches

Stone Ridge Creamery Denali Caramel Caribou

Poor Caramel Caribou....I keep trying to write about you but keep getting distracted. This was meant to be last Friday's treat. In fact, for a fleeting moment I thought I had bought Stone Ridge Moose Tracks and I was going to throw it in the ring to have a friday night fight with Kemp's Moose Tracks yogurt. Well, I didnt make it to the freezer 'til saturday, and that's when I realized (half remembered) that I bought Caramel Caribou, not Moose Tracks. Oh well, a flavor is a flavor, and this flavor needs testing!

Here's is Stone Ridge Creamery's Denali Caramel Caribou. Since the title isn't very clear, let me say the description is toffee-flavored ice cream with caramel cups & luscious Denali caramel. To be honest, I never really trust a flavor that has to tell you its delicious or luscious or tasty (think about it for a minute, you'll realize I might be on to something here).

Spring is in the air! Time for new 2010 products!!

The Shaws by my work had themselves quite a busy weekend, I can't believe how many new products I saw!! Good thing I had my camera phone (though please excuse my picture taking, I was trying to be somewhat discrete as I took multiple pictures). Not to be overly addicted to ice cream, but I think I'm just a smidge immensely giddy with the thought of new products to test.
 

I saw these first at the end of the aisle, 3 new Fruit Bars from Edy's: Pineapple Fruit Bars, and then two antioxidant flavors, Pomegranate and Acai Blueberry. Those flavors sounded familiar, and then I remembered why. $4.99 gets you six bars. The best part here is the Communities Take Root program which will donate fruit orchards to 25 deserving communities this summer.