Ben and Jerry's Non-Dairy P.B. and Cookies

Ben and Jerry's Non-Dairy line is finally here!  Lizzy and I both managed to get our hands on pints of P.B. and Cookies, so we have a joint review of that flavor for you.  P.B. and Cookies is described as

Vanilla non-dairy frozen dessert with chocolate sandwich cookies and crunchy peanut butter swirls.

Madeline's take: I thought it was a bit weird that Ben and Jerry's premiered  their Wal-Mart exclusive flavor Peanut Butter and Cookies mere months before the release of their non-dairy line which includes the flavor ..... P.B. and cookies.  Besides the obvious milk vs. almond milk difference, the only difference between these two flavors is that Peanut Butter and Cookies has a sweet cream base and P.B. and Cookies has a vanilla base.  I didn't love the Wal-Mart exclusive, so I didn't have high hopes for P.B. and cookies, but I was pleasantly surprised.

So the big question is, how is the almond milk ice cream?  It's a bit sweeter than dairy-ful Ben and Jerry's ice cream.  All of the mix-ins kept it from being cloying, but I don't know that I would eat the base on its own.  I haven't had too many other almond milk ice creams, so I don't know what the standard is.  Maybe Lizzy can comment more on that.  If you've had tons of dairy free ice cream, tell us if we've gotten it completely wrong here!

The texture was also pretty decent.  The ingredients include lots of oils and corn syrup solids, and I could definitely feel them, but without them the ice cream may have been too icy.  Again, the mix-ins helped.

I liked this version of the flavor way more than the Wal-Mart exclusive version.  I think it helped that this pint had tons and tons of the peanut butter swirl, but my pint of Peanut Butter and Cookies had almost zero swirl.  I love the Ben and Jerry's peanut butter swirl.  It tastes like sugary salty peanut-y perfection and has a distinct soft/crunchy texture. (Lol, what even is soft/crunchy? Words are hard.)

The cookies came in both humongous and tiny chunks.  The large chunks were about a half-cookie each.  It was awesome because you could see the whole sandwich and got some perfect (almond) milk soaked cookie experience.  The tiny chunks permeated the base giving it a cookies and cream feel.

I ate a giant bowl of this and the sweetness of the base got a little overwhelming toward the end, but overall I give Ben and Jerry's foray into dairy free.  It's filling a big, formerly chunk-less void in the dairy free dessert world.

Lizzy, here. Now while I have probably tried more dairy-free ice creams than Madeline, I haven't had an almond milk base yet. I would definitely say the oils and solids did help the texture of this ice cream resemble dairy ice cream more than some other nut based bases I've tried; this was creamier. However, my one comment about this base: it was almost dry. While it was creamy, smooth, and definitely had a lot of fat, it was also a bit dry and crumbly. However, this was pretty slight.

Other than that, I loved this flavor. I was totally floored by the big cookie pieces. They also had the middle icing, which some cookies and cream flavors don't feature, which is dumb. I agree with what Madeline said about the swirl, and there was a lot of it.

I am very interested in trying the rest of the Ben & Jerry's dairy-free flavors, although I am a tad disappointed that only one of these dairy-free flavors is a totally new flavor. I feel like I could get a better feel for what the base is like in the other flavors, because there are fewer mix-ins and swirls.