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.

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.

Many people know Ben & Jerry’s for their clever flavor names. Take a commonly used phrase, change a word or syllable into an ingredient’s name, and BAM, a new ice cream flavor name is born.

Empower MINT.

Clusterfluff.

Cake My Day.

Americone Dream.

Karamel Sutra Core.

Oh, I could spend all day listing them and confusing my computer’s spell check.

But the brand has done it again with Oats of this Swirled Ice Cream. So is this ice cream out of this world? Let’s find oat.

The flavor features buttery brown sugar ice cream with fudge flakes and oatmeal cinnamon cookie swirls.

The ice cream base has a mild buttery flavor, but it was hard to taste the butteriness by itself because it seemed like cinnamon permeated through the ice cream. That reads like a complaint, but I assure you it’s not. Cinnamon and butter is a combination I love seeing together, like Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I would buy the ice cream base without anything else, if Ben & Jerry’s sold it.

While the ice cream itself is great, what makes this flavor wonderful is the oatmeal cinnamon cookie swirls. It has a fine gritty texture that’s a pleasant contrast to the creamy ice cream. However, its flavor makes me think more of a snickerdoodle than an oatmeal cinnamon cookie. Again, that reads like a complaint, but I assure you it’s not because I love this swirl. But if you can taste the oats, let me know because I don’t taste or see them.

Of course, seeing oats is a good thing and a bad thing. I don’t want to see the oats because that’ll mean dealing with the chewy texture of the oats, but at the same time seeing them will help justify in my mind that maybe I’m getting some benefit from eating ice cream with half my daily saturated fat in one serving.

As for the fudge flakes, their snap added a third texture to the ice cream and there were a lot of them. When I got a spoonful with the buttery ice cream base, cinnamon swirl, and the fudge, I thought it tasted more like a spiceless Mexican hot chocolate than any cookie. Once again, that reads like a complaint, but I assure you it’s not because this pint is wonderful and really hard to put down.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 310 calories, 180 calories from fat, 20 grams of fat, 10 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 70 milligrams of cholesterol, 110 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 28 grams of sugar, and 4 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $5.99
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: Ice cream base and swirl taste more like a snickerdoodle than cinnamon oatmeal cookie. All three parts taste more like a spiceless Mexican hot chocolate. Clever name. Hard flavor to put down.
Cons: Don’t get the oats. Doesn’t bring an cinnamon oatmeal cookie to mind. Having to teach my computer’s spell check Ben & Jerry’s flavor names.

Despite having bourbon in its name, there’s no alcohol in Ben & Jerry’s Urban Bourbon Ice Cream. That’s a good thing because if it did and parents unknowingly fed their children the ice cream, I imagine some of the kids will become emotional drunks and start shouting things like “Why don’t you love me, dad?” or “I love you, Dora the Explorer!”

Some of you might think not having alcohol in Urban Bourbon takes the fun out of the flavor, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had. The new Ben & Jerry’s concoction has burnt caramel ice cream with almonds, fudge flakes, and bourbon caramel swirls.

See. Fun.

The bourbon caramel swirl was the best part of the pint and I enjoyed it so much that, even though I don’t drink, I’d drink it if it had alcohol. Now I’m not writing this to make me sound sophisticated, but I thought the bourbon had a nice woodsy flavor and it paired marvelously with the gooey caramel. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must tend to my collection of exotic birds.

Speaking of great pairings, the swirl goes well with the burnt caramel ice cream. Although, I have to admit I’m not sure I taste the ice cream’s burntness. Instead, it had a normal caramel flavor that was almost too mild. Although that’s good because if it had a strong caramel flavor, it combined with the caramel in the swirl would’ve overwhelmed the bourbon flavor.

The almond slivers added nothing flavor-wise. They had a coconut-like texture, which was kind of a turnoff for me. But, fortunately, my pint didn’t have a lot of them. However, there were A LOT of fudge flakes. Perhaps too many. At first, they were fine. But at a point I felt they got between me and my favorite ingredient. In the end, I shoving them to the side just so I could be alone with the not-burnt caramel ice cream and swirl.

While I mostly enjoyed the ice cream, I could understand how the bourbon caramel swirl’s slight astringent taste might turn off some. If that happens, I’ll gladly take yours from you because my pint didn’t have enough of them. This made me as angry as a bar patron who got cut off by the bartender because they’re so drunk that they’re yelling things like “Why don’t you love me, dad?”

Of course, your pints may vary. But if it doesn’t, feel free to yell, “Why don’t you love me, Ben & Jerry’s?”

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 300 calories, 150 calories from fat, 17 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 70 milligrams of sodium, 33 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 27 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $5.99
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: The bourbon caramel swirl. The combination of burnt caramel ice cream and bourbon caramel swirl. The mild flavor of the ice cream not getting in the way of the swirl. Using “woodsy” in a review. Dora the Explorer.
Cons: Don’t taste the burnt part of the burnt caramel ice cream. My pint didn’t have a lot of the swirl (your pint may vary). Perhaps too many fudge flakes in my pint. Children accidentally consuming alcohol. Super loud super drunks.

Ben & Jerry’s are ending their year of flavor flipping by taking their most far out creation to the dark side of the moon. Chocolate Cherry Garcia takes the classic Cherry Garcia flavor and swaps the cherry cream with more chocolate for the most perfectly harmonious of blackouts you can buy in scoop form. The flavor isn’t available in grocery stores yet and is in Scoop Shops for a limited time.

The first thing that struck me about Chocolate Cherry Garcia is the rich dark color of the ice cream itself. Sitting in the cold case next to the other flavors it looked more black than brown; a color I would associate with brownies or fudge more than cherries, but that’s certainly not a bad thing.

Going in for my first spoonful I was surprised the ice cream was pure chocolate and not chocolate-cherry because the slightly tart floral flavor of cherry came through unmistakably in a bite with no mix-ins. This must be the effect of the cherries themselves, juicy little devils they are, bleeding their wonderful flavor into the base.

Once you get a cherry, which is most of the time, the flavor really starts to sing. The big chunks of half-cherries swimming in chocolate make up a prominent amount of the ice cream and feel like downing the triumphant top of a sundae over and over again. Even though it’s not a holiday flavor, the melty choco-cherry combination reminds me of a cherry cordial and tastes festive and fancy – a reminder that simple ingredients can often yield grand results.

The “fudge flakes” here, just like in the original Cherry Garcia, are actually just chocolate chunks, nothing fudgey or flakey about them at all. The name is misleading, but the snap of the chips is very welcome against the sweet squish of the cherries, and make for a nice textural contrast to the creamy chocolate and juicy fruit. Three straight forward elements and they all have a chance to shine.

While not pushing the boundaries of ice cream experimentation by any means, Ben & Jerry’s have managed to put a very convincing spin on what is maybe their most well known and beloved flavor. The small change from cherry ice cream to chocolate provides a completely different and decadent scoop experience that is well balanced, rich, and exactly what my waistline doesn’t need the week after Thanksgiving.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup (109g) – 260 calories, 130 calories from fat, 14 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 grams sat fat, 45 milligrams of cholesterol, 35 milligrams of sodium, 32 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 27 grams of sugar, and 4 gram of protein..)

Purchased Price: $6.25
Size: 1 handpacked pint
Purchased at: Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Wonderful bright cherry flavor. Three distinct textures. Swimming in decadence.
Cons: High potential for blackouts. Not what waistline needs after Thanksgiving.