If you lock 50 fat kids in a room and make them decide on but one dessert they can eat for the rest of their lives, the result has to be something like this:

Ben & Jerry’s Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core

Good Lord. Ben & Jerry’s Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core Ice Cream is one of three new core flavors Ben & Jerry’s has introduced to start their 2016 season (the other two are Ben & Jerry’s Brownie Batter Core and Ben & Jerry’s Coconuts for Caramel Core). This one crosses off everything on the quintessential dessert checklist. Chocolate, check. Oreos, check. Cheesecake, double check. Ice Cream, check me into the hospital right now. I can’t fuel this hype train with words better than I can with another photo. Just have a look at this beauty.

You see that in the middle? It’s a cheesecake filling – a first for Ben & Jerry’s in their core series. If you’re unfamiliar with their core ice creams, LOL do you even junk food? Basically, Ben & Jerry’s splits the pint with two different ice creams and fill the center with some kind of non-ice cream filling, such as fudge, caramel, raspberry, or cookie butters. Ben & Jerry’s Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core Ice Cream has chocolate ice cream on one side, cheesecake ice cream on the other, COOKIES EVERYWHERE, and the aforementioned cheesecake center. Aroused yet? Enough foreplay.

The easiest way for me to do this is to briefly break down Ben & Jerry’s Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core Ice Cream by component, and then put it altogether.

Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Ice Cream: No real complaints here. I don’t think the chocolate base is Ben & Jerry’s strongest suit, but it gets the job done. It’s a steady and straightforward chocolate that’s mild in the spectrum of chocolatey-ness. Like it? Sure. Love it? Meh… You’ve had it before, so adjust your expectations accordingly.

Ben & Jerry’s Cheesecake Ice Cream: This one is a first for me; it’s the same base they use in Cheesecake Brownie that I haven’t tried. The cheesecake ice cream tastes… well, it tastes creamy. But honestly, it’s lacking. Its flavor lands somewhere in between “nonexistent” and “vanilla.” Not tangy enough, not cheese-y enough. The weakest component by a longshot.

Chocolate Cookie Mix-Ins: These really saved both base ice creams. The taste of the cookies will be familiar to Oreo lovers, but I find them a tad sweeter. It’s still a deeper cocoa than the mild chocolate base, so it offers some good contrast. This flavor is even brighter up against the cheesecake base. Texturally, they’re confined to little pockets like a softened cookie spread with some grit. Not groundbreaking stuff, but it works to the pint’s advantage.

Cheesecake Core: The main event, and deservedly so. The texture is akin to that of a thick caramel but more pliable. When you hit this just right, it tastes a lot like what sits atop a cheese danish. Just straight cream cheese, vanilla, and sugar. Yes, yes, and yes. I worked this shit hard. The core disappeared swiftly, taking any remaining traces of my abs along for the ride.

The regrets are many.

Putting It Altogether: This is back to reality. Eating all components of Ben & Jerry’s Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core together, there’s no magic. I lost the cheesecake angle entirely when I combined all components. The primary culprit is the bland cheesecake ice cream. But even the outstanding core filling has a tough time attracting attention against the chocolate base. Everything is just too mellow and tepid to stand out as something spectacular.

That said, these flavors are dependable. If you’re pretty basic with your ice cream preferences, I have no doubt you’ll enjoy this. The tasty chocolate cookies are something of a constant and tie the chocolate and vanilla together to land squarely on “cookies & cream.” But for me, Ben & Jerry’s Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core suffers from Filled Cupcake Oreo Syndrome. The flavors are comforting, but all of the fun is in the center and everything is too familiar. The irony here is that I was so bummed out that I kept returning to these comforting flavors to calm my disappointment. Three-quarters of the pint later, I still don’t love it.

Cheesy At Its Core Rating: 7 out of 10
How Much Fat I’ve Tacked Onto My Core Rating: 9 out of 10
Overall Rating: 6.5 out of 10

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