REVIEW: Ben & Jerry’s Truffle Kerfuffle Ice Cream

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I love a good truffle and I know that Ben & Jerry’s is most definitely referencing the chocolate kind for their new creation, Truffle Kerfuffle.

However, I also thought about the other type as well, those prized fungi that hogs sniff out from beneath the earth. I usually feel like one of those pigs when I’m eating my favorite ice cream flavor, chocolate chip cookie dough, as I always methodically seek out the glorious gobs of dough and not pay attention to much else.

Since Truffle Kerfuffle contains vanilla ice cream with roasted pecans, fudge chips and a salted chocolate ganache swirl I thought I would again be singling out one of the components and then quickly tiring of the experience once they are all gone. However, I was very pleasantly surprised as I partook in this kerfuffle.

The vanilla ice cream was a good choice for this as it serves as a nice plain base for everything that is going on around it. It adds a bit of flavor when it needs to but for the most part joins together with all the other elements and lets them shine through.

The fudge chips add great crunch as they seem to be the last to succumb to melting when outside of the freezer environment. There is also a lot of chocolate going on when you are eating it but just when you think you’ve had too much you get a pecan piece that balances out the chocolate overload while adding another flavor dimension for you to enjoy. Both the fudge chips and pecan pieces were present in healthy amounts throughout.

The star of this concoction, though, is indubitably the salted chocolate ganache swirl. It’s thick, rich and absolutely delicious. The very on-trend salt plus chocolate flavor is executed wonderfully here. It goes together perfectly with the sweet of the vanilla ice cream.

If you can’t already tell, I absolutely dug this ice cream, and yes, pun intended. However, this time around I didn’t necessarily feel like a truffle hog from just my searching expedition. Instead it was felt when I reached the bottom of the container, which meant I had just pigged out (pun intended again) on 4 servings in a matter of minutes. Whoops! Oink Oink for sure.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 340 calories, 220 calories from fat, 24 grams of fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 135 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 24 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $4.39
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 10 out of 10
Pros: Well dispersed and abundant ingredients. Salty chocolate & sweet vanilla decadence. Pecan pieces as counterprogramming.
Cons: evouring 4x the suggested amount in one sitting. Multiple commonalities to truffle hogs.

REVIEW: Cow Candy Pinkie Pie Strawberry Jack Cheese and Prime Punch Jack Cheese

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This is a review, but it’s also a cry for help. When I saw Cow Candy’s Strawberry and Fruit Punch-flavored cheeses listed in Spotted on Shelves, my gut said “Yeah, I’m having those.”

I’m so addicted to the rush of novelty flavors that even when I read about something that couldn’t possibly be delicious, I’m still compelled to track it down. Fruit-flavored cookies are one thing, but cheese? What is wrong with me? How long until I’m buying cotton-candy-flavored beef filets?

Like a true junkie, I went into this with full faith that these cheese sticks, sporting colors more appropriate for children’s spring t-shirts, would take me to snack heaven for just a moment.

I looked past the blank yet somehow judgmental faces of the children’s cartoon characters and opened the packages. The red stick, emblazoned with Transformer Optimus Prime, was a smooth block. The My Little Pony-themed Strawberry Pinkie Pie had a pock-marked exterior. I wondered if this was a refrigeration error or if the flavors affected the textures in different ways.

The strawberry stick gave off a tangy artificial strawberry scent – Frankenberry cereal mixed with a trace of shoe funk. The fruit punch smelled like candy-induced vomit.

When I bit into the strawberry, it crumbled, strangely, into tiny spheres. The Fruit Punch cheese behaved more like what I expected – a rubbery snap.

Describing the taste of these cheese sticks is proving impossible, so I’ll tell you what they DON’T taste like – strawberry, fruit punch, or Jack cheese. Calling them salty/sweet feels wrong, as weren’t enough of either to do the term justice. If you removed everything good from cheese and fruit, this is what would be left. They’re just gross.

I powered my way through one of each flavor. Hours later, they still haunt me. It’s like I ate prop food not meant for consumption. They are by far the worst snack food I’ve ever encountered – my stomach is churning.

I’d intended to think up some cute way to use these cheese sticks in another snack/treat (shred them as a topping for sweet & savory mini pizzas?) but there’s really only one thing to do with them:

All I can do now is try not to barf, and wonder when I’m going to find Jeff VanVonderen sitting on my couch telling me people love me like crazy but are worried about my novelty flavor addiction.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 stick – 80 calories, 50 calories from fat, 6 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 20 milligrams of cholesterol, 120 milligrams of sodium, 2 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 1 gram of sugar, and 4 grams of protein..)

Purchased Price: $4.49
Size: 6 oz. bag
Purchased at: Stop & Shop
Rating: 1 out of 10
Pros: Nice colors! That’s it.
Cons: Disgusting taste that resembles none of the flavors advertised. Odd texture in Strawberry version. They’re making me nauseous. Do not buy them for children you’re fond of.

REVIEW: Haagen-Dazs Trio Salted Caramel & Chocolate Ice Cream

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Ketchup, mustard, and mayo.

Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman.

Destiny’s Child.

Nirvana.

The Marx Brothers.

Our society is made up of so many good trios, why not shove that logic into a container of ice cream? The master-churners at Haagen-Dazs have our backs with their new line of creamy crack simply dubbed “Trio.” The Salted Caramel Chocolate version combines layers of crispy Belgian chocolate with salted caramel ice cream and chocolate ice cream. Let’s triple dip.

Digging into the psuedo-pint makes a distinctly unique crunching sound as my spoon breaks through the layers of chocolate inside. The ice cream is of typical Haagen-Dazs high quality – the mellow chocolate and subdued salted caramel make sense to combine in a flavor like this, but they ultimately kind of cancel each other out.

It’s always a risk to mix two ice cream bases, and here some of the subtle nuances of the caramel get washed over by the chocolate; which is a shame, because when you isolate the caramel on its own it’s a pretty tasty flavor.

The star of the show, the Belgian chocolate, is kind of thin; actually thinner than a lot of chocolate chunks or Ben & Jerry’s “fudge flakes,” and doesn’t add as much of a thick texture as I would like. The effect is much more similar to just a standard chocolate mix-in than a thick layer of chocolate, and in that regard the taste is much less impressive than the visual.

It actually tastes a lot like one of Haagen-Dazs’ ice cream bars got smashed up and squeezed into a carton, without that disgusting wooden stick that makes my teeth cringe.

The flavor combo between the two ice creams and layers of milky chocolate is a lot like eating a Rolo, but less sweet and grainy. I like Rolo’s, but I’m not usually interested in more than two or three, and that’s the same way I feel about this Trio. The flavors are good but lose their intrigue quickly and become a pretty single noted experience with the caramel nearly disappearing against all of the chocolate.

Overall, it eats much more like a chocolate chocolate chip than an ice cream with salted caramel, and the flavor would have been much more effective with a vanilla ice cream to let the caramel actually come through and have any real impact. It’s a well made product but the flavor distribution and execution could use some work.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup (104g) – 300 calories, 180 calories from fat, 20 grams of fat, 13 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 75 milligrams of cholesterol, 80 milligrams of sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 24 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein..)

Purchased Price: $3.99
Size: 14 oz.
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Exciting crunch sound effects. Good quality ice cream. Shoving a Haagen-Dazs bar into a pint.
Cons: Flavors get muddled. Caramel gets lost. Chocolate layers should be thicker. Concept better than execution.

REVIEW: Hostess White Fudge Ding Dongs

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Ding Dongs really are the laziest of the Hostess family.

Ho Hos have some level of technical achievement.

CupCake’s got the swirl.

But the Ding Dong? It’s just a puck.

It’s a slice of a chocolate cake tube, stuffed with creme, and coated in the most chocolatey of wax. Despite their cartoonish name, Ding Dongs are a distinctly utilitarian snack food and the most mathematically efficient delivery system for chocolate and vanilla flavors.

In their search to remove even more joy from their brand of sugar discs, Hostess have introduced White Fudge Ding Dongs. An all-white variation that subs the coating for white chocolate, and switches the cake from cocoa to vanilla. The resulting product is bleak, bland, and cynically sweet.

The waxy exterior of a classic Ding Dong cracks into sweet shards, unmelting as the tongue is distracted by the cake and creme. For the White Fudge variant, Hostess appears to have shelled out for an actual food product. The exterior melts, enriching the entire bite with a sugary swirl. For a packaged cake, the texture is pretty satisfying. However, it’s also very prone to melting after just a few seconds of being held. Prepare for sticky fingers.

While the coating is good, it’s wasted on a cake that is already saturated with creamy vanilla. It’s white chocolate on yellow cake, surrounding white creme. The flavor profile is blindingly sweet, lacking any deeper notes to appreciate. The fudge tastes like an extension of the cake, which tastes like an extension of the creme. All binding into a single, monotone bite. These white pucks offer little more a profound head rush. With 33 grams of sugar between the pair, I struggled to get through both of them.

White Fudge Ding Dongs feel like the result of an algorithm gone wrong. The classic version is already so basic, and so simplistic – distilling it any further leaves nothing behind but sugar. White chocolate is best used as an accent for other, more bold items. Had Hostess kept the chocolate cake, something special would have been found with this white fudge coating. But as is, White Fudge Ding Dongs are difficult to recommend.

(Nutrition Facts – 2 cakes – 310 calories, 140 calories from fat, 16 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 15 milligrams of cholesterol, 160 milligrams of sodium, 41 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 33 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $1.99
Size: 2.55 oz./2 cakes
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 3 out of 10
Pros: Coating tastes and melts like actual white fudge. Overflowing with creme. You won’t want to eat both, so they’re sharable.
Cons: Tastes like straight sugar and vanilla. Coats your fingers in melted white goo. Looks like prop food in a teen dystopian movie.

REVIEW: Ben & Jerry’s Salted Caramel Almond Ice Cream

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Ben & Jerry’s Salted Caramel Almond is an exclusive Safeway flavor (plus its sister stores) and, to be honest, it’s not a particularly exciting exclusive flavor.

While Walmart gets Cotton Candy, Confetti Cake, and another flavor that probably starts with the letter C, and Target gets Blonde Ambition, Berry Voluntary, and another flavor that probably starts with the letter B, Safeway stores get a safe flavor with a safe name, which I guess is appropriate for a chain called Safeway.

The safe flavor features safe vanilla bean ice cream with safe roasted almond slivers, safe fudge flakes, and a safe salted caramel swirl.

The vanilla bean ice cream is a solid base, it’s creamy, has a pleasant vanilla flavor, and there are vanilla bean specks. Although those could be tiny bits of the fudge flakes, which taste like the fudge flakes we all know and love from the dozen or so other flavors that have them.

As for the roasted almond slivers, they’re less like whole cross-sections of the nut and more like whole cross-section of the nut smashed into pieces by a hammer. Their flavor isn’t too noticeable while eating the ice cream, but very noticeable as they stick to the nooks and crannies of your molars after the rest of the ice cream has gone down your esophagus. The salted caramel swirl has a saltiness that’s stronger when I lick my lips while eating the ice cream than when the ice cream is in my mouth.

There’s almost enough of each ingredient that you can get a bit of everything in every spoonful. With each scoop it’s a textural orchestra of gooey, creamy, snappy, and crunchy and a flavor orchestra of buttery, sweet, salty, and nutty. It’s like eating the top of a Nestle Drumstick beaten with a better ingredient stick.

It’s hard to go wrong with the combination of vanilla ice cream, chocolate, caramel, and nuts. It’s like combining rainbows, glitter, and a unicorn. With either of those combos, you know you’re going to have a good time. And while I had fun with Ben & Jerry’s Salted Caramel Almond Ice Cream, it wasn’t too exciting and tasted like something I’ve had before.

It was a safe fun, like hitting a piñata with a foam bat, without a blindfold, and doing it in the virtual world with VR goggles.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 290 calories, 150 calories from fat, 17 grams of fat, 10 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 70 milligrams of cholesterol, 140 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 26 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $5.99
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: It’s like eating the top of a Nestle Drumstick that’s been beaten with a better ingredient stick. Safe flavor; it’s not weird or offensive. Lots of different flavors and textures.
Cons: Safe flavor; not as exciting as exclusive flavors at Walmart and Target. Almond slivers are almond bits. Fudge flakes seem to be in EVERYTHING.

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