Ben and Jerry's Wal-Mart Exclusive Roasted and Toasted

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Since the Target corporate headquarters are located in Minneapolis, Target stores abound in the area. I hardly ever go to Wal-Mart anymore because it takes an absurd amount of time to drive to the nearest one. Really the only reason I go is for ice cream.  Last week, I was home in St. Louis visiting my family, and it was the perfect opportunity to visit a Wal-Mart and pick up the latest Ben and Jerry's exclusive flavor: Roasted and Toasted.  This flavor is described as

Dark chocolate ice cream with fudge chunks, fudge-covered roasted almonds, and a toasted marshmallow swirl.

The dark chocolate base was fabulous.  I don't understand Ben and Jerry's.  They make a killer milk chocolate base.  They make a killer dark chocolate base.  They're regular chocolate base is just meh.  Oh, well.  It had a strong, dark-but-not-too-bitter, rich taste.

The roasted almonds were a bit of a disappointment.  I recently had Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Swiss Almond, which has stellar chocolate covered roasted almonds. These could have had more of the roasty/toasty flavor.  They tasted more like plain almonds to me.  Good, but not what was advertised.


The fudge chunks were the standard, large, crunchy fudge chunks.  They were fudgey enough that I could differentiate their flavor from the flavor of the dark chocolate base.  Again, good.

I had really high hopes for the toasted marshmallow swirl.  I've seen marshmallow mix-ins, I've seen marshmallow swirl, but I've never seen a toasted marshmallow element in ice cream.  This was definitely the part of the pint that could have made this flavor a stand-out.  Unfortunately, it fell a bit flat.  I had the same problem with this swirl as I did with the brownie batter swirl in Brewed to Matter.  It tasted exactly like toasted marshmallow.  It was really gooey, just like a toasted marshmallow.  There just wasn't very much of it.  Also, the chocolate flavor was so strong that it really overpowered the marshmallow.  I think this swirl would have worked much better with a different base.

The amount of swirl in this photo is not representative!
Even though I had criticisms of each element of this pint, I really enjoyed this flavor overall.  As with Brewed to Matter, if Ben and Jerry's had stepped up their swirl game in this pint they would have a flavor for the history books.

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