Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Brownie Sundae
Ben & Jerry's recently released a new Wal-Mart exclusive flavor, Peanut Butter Brownie Sundae. I was pretty excited to hear this news, because I love peanut butter and I love brownies. Can you do better than combining them? I think not.
However, I don't love Wal-Mart. I try to shop there only when I am buying ice cream that I can't get anywhere else, like exclusive flavors and Sam's Choice ice cream (I still really want to try their Coffee and Donuts flavor which Madeline reviewed here). But no need to dwell on the negatives of Wal-Mart. Instead, lets talk about the really exciting company that makes the brownies for Ben & Jerry's, Greyston Bakery!!
Ben & Jerry's and Greyston Bakery have been working together since 1988. I am pretty surprised that I didn't know more about this company up until this point; however, this is the first Ben & Jerry's flavor with brownies I have reviewed. The company opened in 1982 and has always tried to hire "hard-to-employ" people, like people with little education, a history of incarceration, homelessness, and drug abuse. They then try to help these people get out of poverty. They do this in a really holistic way, providing services for their employees like providing energy efficient apartments, child care, health services for those with HIV/AIDS, a community garden, education, and tools to improve health and wellness, nutrition, mental health, literacy, and personal finance education. They do all of this while being quite a profitable company and they are a Certified B Corporation (which I explained when I reviewed a pint of Jeni's Ice Cream). Go to this link if you want to read some of their awesome success stories!!
So now to the ice cream. This ice cream is described as Vanilla Ice Cream with Fudge Brownies & a Crunchy Peanut Butter Swirl.
When I first picked up this pint in the store, I was a bit disappointed that the base was vanilla and not peanut butter or chocolate or something. However, having a vanilla base does keep this closer to a classic sundae. Also the peanut butter flavor was very strong in the swirl, so the vanilla provided a nice balance.
More about the peanut butter swirl. I am very excited to tell you that this swirl was in fact crunchy. There were little chunks of peanuts in the swirl. I was impressed. It was also the perfect combination of salty and sweet. The peanut butter was definitely the most prominent flavor in the ice cream.
Now for the brownies. The brownies were great. Very thick, dense and fudgey. They were not the soft, moist, crumbly type of brownies. They weren't hard and they were moist, but they really had substance and you really have to chew 'em and they stick to the roof of your mouth. Yum. However, there could have been way more brownies. The chunks were very large, but there really weren't that many of them in the pint. Ben & Jerry's can over do it with chunks at time (once I had a pint of of Half Baked where a good third of the ice cream was one giant, solid chunk of cookie dough), but this was definitely not even close to the case here. If I were to construct a real live brownie sundae, I would make the ratio of brownie and ice cream pretty close to 1 to 1. Not that this needs to be the case in an ice cream version of this treat, but there could have been more brownies.
Peanut butter sauces:
http://greyston.com/about-greyston/mission-history/
http://greyston.com/about-greyston/pathmaking/
However, I don't love Wal-Mart. I try to shop there only when I am buying ice cream that I can't get anywhere else, like exclusive flavors and Sam's Choice ice cream (I still really want to try their Coffee and Donuts flavor which Madeline reviewed here). But no need to dwell on the negatives of Wal-Mart. Instead, lets talk about the really exciting company that makes the brownies for Ben & Jerry's, Greyston Bakery!!
Ben & Jerry's and Greyston Bakery have been working together since 1988. I am pretty surprised that I didn't know more about this company up until this point; however, this is the first Ben & Jerry's flavor with brownies I have reviewed. The company opened in 1982 and has always tried to hire "hard-to-employ" people, like people with little education, a history of incarceration, homelessness, and drug abuse. They then try to help these people get out of poverty. They do this in a really holistic way, providing services for their employees like providing energy efficient apartments, child care, health services for those with HIV/AIDS, a community garden, education, and tools to improve health and wellness, nutrition, mental health, literacy, and personal finance education. They do all of this while being quite a profitable company and they are a Certified B Corporation (which I explained when I reviewed a pint of Jeni's Ice Cream). Go to this link if you want to read some of their awesome success stories!!
So now to the ice cream. This ice cream is described as Vanilla Ice Cream with Fudge Brownies & a Crunchy Peanut Butter Swirl.
When I first picked up this pint in the store, I was a bit disappointed that the base was vanilla and not peanut butter or chocolate or something. However, having a vanilla base does keep this closer to a classic sundae. Also the peanut butter flavor was very strong in the swirl, so the vanilla provided a nice balance.
More about the peanut butter swirl. I am very excited to tell you that this swirl was in fact crunchy. There were little chunks of peanuts in the swirl. I was impressed. It was also the perfect combination of salty and sweet. The peanut butter was definitely the most prominent flavor in the ice cream.
Now for the brownies. The brownies were great. Very thick, dense and fudgey. They were not the soft, moist, crumbly type of brownies. They weren't hard and they were moist, but they really had substance and you really have to chew 'em and they stick to the roof of your mouth. Yum. However, there could have been way more brownies. The chunks were very large, but there really weren't that many of them in the pint. Ben & Jerry's can over do it with chunks at time (once I had a pint of of Half Baked where a good third of the ice cream was one giant, solid chunk of cookie dough), but this was definitely not even close to the case here. If I were to construct a real live brownie sundae, I would make the ratio of brownie and ice cream pretty close to 1 to 1. Not that this needs to be the case in an ice cream version of this treat, but there could have been more brownies.
Peanut butter sauces:
http://greyston.com/about-greyston/mission-history/
http://greyston.com/about-greyston/pathmaking/
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