It's been so hot in Houston... and humid - like a sauna you can't run away from. I've gotta admit though that summer this year hasn't been nearly as bad as other years. It only started getting really hot in August instead of the typical all summer long heat that occurs. I am trying to enjoy it though after the never-ending winter this past year.
So to cool down, I got some ice cream! Ben & Jerry's apparently has a new line of ice creams out - "core." Normally, I would go for anything nutty, like peanut butter, but this for some reason caught my eye since I was craving chocolate chips. I grabbed the That's My Jam flavor which has chocolate and raspberry ice cream (with chocolate chips in the raspberry half) and a raspberry jam core.
That is raspberry jam with seeds. I know a lot of people who hate the seeds but I love them. I don't know how people will feel with seeds in their ice cream though. It didn't bother me much. The so-called raspberry ice cream didn't really taste anything like raspberry, probably because the chocolate chips overpowered the flavor. But I tried it without the chocolate chips and I would say the raspberry flavor is very very light, almost non-existent. It didn't bother me though because the raspberry core does all the work.
The jam is soft straight out of the freezer and pairs nicely with the chocolate notes here. Chocolate and raspberry is such a great combination - just thinking about it is making me crave a chocolate cake with raspberry filling. This is the ice cream version of it and I've yet to see this combination offered by any brands. The core idea is brilliant, it's like a real sundae in a pint. Sure, there are banana split flavors, sundae flavors, etc. offered by many brands, but everything is all swirled together and just becomes a pint of mish-mash. I like tasting the components individually instead of having everything mixed together. Texturally, this ice cream is pretty firm - it's not soft out of the freezer like Blue Bell. Growing up on Blue Bell, I'm used to a fluffier texture and Ben & Jerry's is pretty dense. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I'm impatient when it comes to eating ice cream and having to wait for it to thaw a little is painful.
I always have a habit of looking at the nutritional label of all packaged foods I buy. Not like it matters here for ice cream, but I do like to see what kind of ingredients are used - this helps me when I try to re-create recipes or adjust recipes to my liking.
Anyhow, I checked on the Ben & Jerry's website and found that currently have a total of four core flavors: Hazed and Confused - chocolate and hazelnut ice creams with fudge chips and a hazelnut fudge core (I am dying to try this one!), Peanut Butter Fudge - chocolate and peanut butter ice creams with mini peanut butter cups and a peanut butter fudge core (yeah, I wanna try this one too, but after the hazelnut one), Salted Caramel - sweet cream ice cream with blonde brownies and a salted caramel core (this didn't look interesting to me until I saw the blonde brownies component), and of course That's My Jam.
If you haven't tried their new core line, you're missing out on this new creation of packaged ice creams. It's really genius and takes the mess out of making a sundae. I found this at my local H-E-B, although they didn't have all varieties available. You won't regret it!
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