This new Ben & Jerry’s diet is great. It is currently 7 degrees out as I write this, and I’m freezing my ass off. You would think ice cream would be a terrible option right now, but you’d be dead wrong. For you see, Ben & Jerry’s has just dropped so many new ice creams on me this week that I’ve been averaging a pint a night. Ice cream is fattening. It’s the ideal pace for building a thick coat of body fat to shield me from a harsh winter. Tonight, we’ll be tacking on some more mass while we review the last of the three new core ice creams: Ben & Jerry’s Coconuts for Caramel Core!
Ben & Jerry’s Coconuts for Caramel Core
I might be in the minority, but this is the one I’m most excited about. Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core and Brownie Batter Core may have more sex appeal to the masses, but this one screams to Junk Banter because of its originality. We’re big fans of coconut here. And unless this is simply a name change, Ben & Jerry’s “sweet cream coconut” ice cream is a brand new base for the company. They’ve done a coconut base before, such as in their Scoop Shop exclusive Coconut Seven Layer Bar and their limited edition Pina Colada that nobody bought. But Ben & Jerry’s Coconuts for Caramel Core offers this new sweet cream coconut ice cream with fudge flakes on one half, caramel ice cream on the other, and a caramel core. The view from above is a good one:
I’m beginning to get cold again, so let’s get right to eating:
Ben & Jerry’s Sweet Cream Coconut Ice Cream: Oh God. I’m going to warm up in no time, because this new base is absurdly delicious. WARNING: If you don’t like coconut and have issues with texture, stay the hell away from this ice cream. RECOMMENDATION: If you like coconut, you need lots of this in your life. Ben & Jerry’s crammed so many coconut flakes into this ice cream that you could actually reconstruct the coconut. It’s both really rich and really sweet – imagine the insides of 100 Almond Joys frozen and blended with cream. Excellent stuff.
Ben & Jerry’s Caramel Ice Cream: Much less exciting than coconut, but tasty nonetheless. If you’re expecting an intense caramel, this isn’t the ice cream for you. It’s something of a fancier vanilla with caramel nuances. It’s a little more buttery than vanilla bean ice cream with faint traces of caramelized sugar. I liked this more than I did both their vanilla and their chocolate, with means that I enjoyed both halves of Ben & Jerry’s Coconuts for Caramel Core more than I did any base in the previous two core reviews. A strong start…
Fudge Flakes: The fudge flakes are present only in the sweet coconut ice cream. Remember when I said the ice cream tasted like the insides of an Almond Joy? The fudge flakes complete that candy bar experience. Actually, slight revision. Better make it a Mounds bar, the nut-less dark chocolate cousin of the Almond Joy. Why? Because these fudge flakes taste of a fine dark chocolate instead of a milky one. There are tons of them, and I love them against the sweet coconut ice cream.
Caramel Core: Perfectly buttery. Perfectly sticky. Perfectly caramel. Execution on point.
Putting It Altogether: Complete harmony. All the components in Ben & Jerry’s Coconuts for Caramel Core really clicked for me in a way they didn’t for the other two. You’ve got a really uniquely sweet coconut base ice cream with both real coconut and fudge flakes. The coconut flavor is massive. The caramel ice cream may be unbalanced in favor of vanilla, but this works to create something that isn’t redundant when you add spoonfuls of the buttery caramel core. This caramel center also pairs well with the coconut base – no secret to fans of Samoa Girl Scout Cookies.
One complaint that can’t go without mentioning – the texture of the sweet coconut ice cream base. There’s so many coconut flakes contributing to a truly awesome flavor, but they also cause the ice cream to behave differently than the caramel ice cream. The caramel side will soften at an expected pace while your sweet coconut ice cream remains frozen-solid for much longer. You have to play around with it to get it just right, and that takes time… time that I can ill afford to waste while trying to amass more body mass. Luckily I’ve built up enough this week that I can survive, and it’s worth the wait. Ben & Jerry’s Coconuts for Caramel is exceptional.
How Coconuts I Am For the Caramel Rating: 7 out of 10
How Coconuts I Am In General Rating: 9 out of 10
Overall Rating: 8 out of 10
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