Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Each On Their Own: Ben & Jerry's Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core Ice Cream Does Not Blend Well!


The Good: Each of the individual flavors are good, Good ingredients
The Bad: Low nutritional value, None of the flavors blend with the others; the cheesecake flavor is completely overwhelmed
The Basics: Ben & Jerry’s Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core Ice Cream is interesting, but not at all one that manages to be something that holds together well.


After trying several of the Ben & Jerry's Core ice creams, I finally have a real opinion on the product line as a whole. The Ben & Jerry's Core ice creams are an interesting idea, but too many of them try to pack in way too much stuff. Having picked up a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core, this idea was nailed home to me when I discovered than none of the three main elements - cookies & cream ice cream, chocolate ice cream, and cheesecake center - worked together. Each of the elements are good on their own, but the flavors add up to nothing new and special together. There is too much going on, ineffectively, in the Ben & Jerry's Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core ice cream.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, Core flavors of ice cream are ice cream flavors that have, essentially, the “topping” of the ice cream in the pint, presented as a cylinder going through the center. So, for example, in the Caramel Sutra Core, if one looks at the top of it, there is a circle in the center of caramel (it is actually a column that goes straight down to the bottom of the pint) surrounded by ice cream. It’s a neat concept and the Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core has two flavors of ice cream all around a center of plain cheesecake.

Basics

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream comes in a pint container. The Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core Ice Cream is a smooth ice cream on the chocolate side and appropriately chunky on the cookie side with the cookies and cream ice cream. The cheesecake core is more subtle than some of the other cores and it is not as plentiful as the core in some other Ben & Jerry's Core flavors.

At (locally) $5.99 a pint, the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is an mid-range ice cream, especially compared to other ice creams and while the Core concept is unique to Ben & Jerry’s, it is not such an incredible execution of the concept as to justify the inflated ice cream price.

Ease Of Preparation

The Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core Ice Cream is a fairly loaded ice cream, where the core additive fails to blend with either of the two ice creams in the mix. As an ice cream, preparation is ridiculously simple: one need only to open the top of the container, scoop out a half cup and consume! There is no trick to preparing or eating the Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core Ice Cream! No matter how one tries to consume it - blended together or with each of its independent elements, it is in no way extraordinary.

Taste

Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core ice cream has virtually no aroma to it. The ice cream has no clear scent to it; this is a surprisingly non-effervescent, even as it nears its melting point.

In the mouth, Ben & Jerry’s Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core ice cream is an ineffective blend of chocolate, cookies & cream ice cream and a very mild frozen cheesecake core center. Each of the flavors in the Ben & Jerry's Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core are good on their own, but none of them gel together or compliment one another. The cheesecake center is entirely overwhelmed by the cookie flavor in the cookies & cream ice cream and it does not have a chance at asserting itself near the chocolate ice cream. The flavors are good on their own, but none of them work with one another to make anything more than the sum of their parts.

The Ben & Jerry’s Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core ice cream has no real aftertaste to it. The chocolate ice cream is a bit dry and so are the cookies in the cookies & cream portion of the ice cream, but the dryness does not last in the mouth for very long after the last of the ice cream is consumed.

Nutrition

The Ben & Jerry’s Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core Ice Cream is a fairly dark ice cream with a noticeable additive and it is not at all healthy, though it does use decent ingredients. The pint represents four half-cup servings. In the half-cup serving, there are 270 calories, 140 of which are from fat. The fifteen grams of fat represent 23% of the RDA of fat, with 50% of one’s RDA of saturated fat coming in the 10 grams of saturated fat in this ice cream. One serving has 65 mg of cholesterol (that’s 20% of the RDA!) and 65 mg of Sodium (3% RDA). The only other real nutrients are four grams of protein, 10% of the RDA of Calcium and Vitamin A in the Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core Ice Cream.

Ben & Jerry’s Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core has decent ingredients. Made primarily of Cream, liquid sugar and Skim milk! There is nothing unpronounceable in the ingredients list. The Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is Kosher, but not marked as gluten free. There are no allergy warnings on the pint.

Storage/Clean-Up

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is both a frozen and a dairy product, so it is pretty obvious that it must be kept frozen in order to remain viable. Kept frozen it remains fresh for months (the pint I purchased three weeks ago would have lasted until May 24, 2018, had I not gobbled it down well before then).

The Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core ice cream is very dark, especially on the chocolate side, for both the chocolate ice cream and cookie portions. Consult a fabric guide for getting the dairy or cookie components out of whatever you get it on. On nonporous surfaces, the ice cream wipes off exceptionally easily.

Overall

Ben & Jerry's Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core ice cream is all right, but it basically proves the idea that sometimes less is more.

For other Ben & Jerry’s ice creams, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Brownie Batter Core Ice Cream
That's My Jam Core Ice Cream
What A Cluster Ice Cream

5/10

For other ice cream reviews, please visit my Ice Cream Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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