Ben and Jerry's Peanut Butter Jam Session

By -
I'm a first year graduate student in the math PhD program at the University of Minnesota, and I have a big, important pre-lim exam tomorrow afternoon, so CLEARLY my number one priority right now is to write about ice cream.  Today I also cleaned the bathroom for the first time in weeks and practiced doing handstands, both of which HAD to be done TODAY because reasons.

This week I tried the Target-exclusive Ben and Jerry's flavor Peanut Butter Jam Session.  This is described as Peanut Butter Ice Cream with a crunchy Peanut Butter Swirl and a Raspberry Swirl.


I love peanut butter, it is one of my favorite foods ever, and I often carry a jar around in my backpack for a quick snack.  Despite that, I was quite apprehensive about this flavor.  It's a non-traditional ice cream flavor, but that doesn't tend to scare me off (I'm on a quest to make or buy avocado ice cream, and just recently sampled a Roasted Garlic Almond Chip ice cream).  I think I imagined that the Raspberry Swirl would be like the raspberry jelly in a jelly doughnut.  There's nothing wrong with jelly doughnut jelly, I just think it would taste weird with peanut butter because it's so sweet.  Who thought to combine PB&J in the first place?  I certainly would not have been inspired to try those two flavors together.

As it turns out, the raspberry swirl tastes just like good ol' American Smuckers Raspberry Jam, and the overall experience was like ... well ... eating a PB&J ... in ice cream form.  Ben and Jerry's hit the nail right on it's delicious delicious head.  I mean look at the picture below, that little swirly looks just like peanut butter, tastes just like peanut butter, it is peanut butter!

Yum!

The only thing I didn't love about this ice cream was the lack of the signature Ben and Jerry's chunks.  The peanut butter swirl was only nominally chunky.  Actually, the first time I got a peanut I thought it was a little piece of hardened ice cream - like what happens when you leave ice cream in the freezer for a long time.  I know chunky peanut butter is not everybody's jam (hah! couldn't resist!), but as a lover of extra chunky peanut butter, I feel that B&J's let the opportunity to make a great flavor slip by.

The scoop: Loved this, wish it was more chunky.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Comparison Post: Haagen-Dazs Vanilla vs Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Bean

By -
Image
Ok peeps, does anybody else think its a bit weird that Haagen-Dazs makes a Vanilla ice cream and a Vanilla Bean ice cream? Like, is that really necessary? Regardless, it is my duty as your guide to the ice cream world to try both flavors and report back. First, the description.  I'm taking the full paragraph from the website because it gives more info about the supposed differences between the two flavors. Vanilla: Vanilla is the essence of elegance and sophistication. This marriage of pure, sweet cream and Madagascar vanilla creates the sweet scent of exotic spice and a distinctive taste that lingers on the tongue. Vanilla Bean: A unique twist to our iconic flavor.  Our ice cream blends Madagascar vanilla and pure, sweet cream with flecks of real vanilla beans, for a spicy and sweet delight. Do we all agree that Haagen-Dazs' descriptions are bordering on florid here? Just wow.  So the descriptions have got me all hopped up and raring to eat some ice cream, b...
Read more

Nestle Drumstick, The Original Sundae Cone

By -
Image
Every once in a while you've just gotta have a classic. For me, and for many others, drumsticks are reminiscent of childhood summers and the ice cream truck coming by. I have memories of drumsticks being really, really tasty and exciting. But before I review them, lets have a little history lesson. And by history lesson, no I do not mean me talking about my childhood; I do not think I am yet old enough that I can call my childhood "history". (Although my students are often baffled that not only am I older than Facebook, I am also older than YouTube!!) What I do mean is a history lesson on waffle cones and drumsticks. As legend has it, at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, an ice cream maker ran out of bowls to serve ice cream in. Next to him was a waffle vendor. The ice cream guy asked the waffle guy for some waffles, and served his ice cream in rolled up waffles instead of bowls. And the waffle cone was born! Twenty four years later, the Parker bro...
Read more

Tillamook Monster Cookie

By -
Image
 Who else is fucking sick of coronavirus restrictions, and more especially being really careful about coronavirus knowing full well others are not while hospitals start to fill to capacity again? New Zealand, I'm not talking to you here, so just shut the fuck up and/or let me move there. Running is my normal stress relief/coping mechanism for wanting to murder loud typers who don't mute during zoom meetings. I typically run a stupid number of miles per week so that I'm just too fucking tired the rest of the time to care about anything. It really works wonders! Unfortunately, I'm currently out of running due to a tibial stress fracture. That is not entirely true, this week I get to run for one entire minute 4 times. So instead of self-destruction though running, I am now attempting to self destruct by eating an utterly insane amount of sugar. Not infrequently this is in the form of an entire pint of ice cream in one sitting, and this not infrequently occurs more than onc...
Read more