Year: 2012

When you do a search for something you think is innocuous like “cream pie” and Google Instant suddenly disappears, you know you’re about to learn about something you probably didn’t want to know.

When you do a search for “banana cream pie jokes” and it gets even worse, you just want to give up.

So let’s start over.

Awful sexual terms aside, when I think about cream pies, I think clowns. I think Stooges. I think classic comedy. The pie in the face is right up there with the banana peel on the ground. And this new Ben & Jerry’s Banana Cream Pie ice cream has cream pie and bananas!

While it may be tempting, please do not attempt to use a pint of this ice cream to hit somebody in the face. It will probably not be funny. Also, setting it on the ground will probably not result in a pratfall; whoever you’re trying to prank will probably just wonder why a perfectly good carton of ice cream is sitting on the ground, getting all melty. Also not funny.

Banana Cream Pie is an “Exclusive Batch”, which means it’s only available at Walmart. Which means I had to go to Walmart. The things I do for you TIB readers. It’s not even listed on the Ben & Jerry’s website, so you can sneak out to your local Walmart, pick up a pint, and be the envy of all your neighbors.

“Hey, I’ve never seen that Ben & Jerry’s flavor before!” They’ll say. “Where did you get it?” Then you can look all smug and tell them you’ve got secret ice cream connections. They’ll be so impressed. Also, your neighbors are fucking weird and you should really think about moving. Or, as the cow that just got pied in the face on the front of the B&J’s carton would say, “moooving”.

I’m sorry. In my defense, Ben & Jerry themselves say on the carton, “If you’re a fan of Banana Cream Pie, you’ll love the in-your-face taste of Banana Cream Pie ice cream.” Yes, that’s right. In your face. The puns, they just can’t be helped. You could say they are punstoppable. Someone help me.

Anyways, the official description of Ben & Jerry’s Banana Cream Pie is “banana ice cream with pastry cream swirls, marshmallow swirls & pie crust pieces”.

Well, that sounds like a pretty close approximation to a deconstructed banana cream pie. Unfortunately, to me it tasted more “fallen apart” than “deconstructed”. I thought the banana flavor tasted a little artificial, but a quick look at the ingredients revealed that real bananas are used, which makes me wonder if some of the other ingredients tricked my taste buds.

There was a pleasant and authentic pie crust flavor, but there weren’t big chunks like I expected. Instead, it was more of a grainy texture, like the crust had been completely pulverized before being added to the ice cream.

As for the marshmallow and pastry cream swirls, well, I could see swirls, but they looked darker than marshmallows or pastry cream. In fact, they looked more like banana swirls than anything. If I tried really hard, I could taste a bit of marshmallow, but the pastry cream flavor was nowhere to be found, even if I closed my eyes and pretended real hard.

Ben & Jerry’s usually delivers on their flavors – even the wacky ones – but I feel as though they missed the mark on Banana Cream Pie. Without the marshmallow and pastry cream flavors, you’re left with banana ice cream that has some grainy pie crust flavor to it. I love B&J and their constant stream of new flavors, so I won’t threaten to chuck a carton of this ice cream at them. Perhaps if I hit them in the face with a real banana cream pie, they would understand what this ice cream should have tasted like.

(Nutrition Facts — 1/2 cup — 260 calories, 110 calories from fat, 12 grams of total fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 65 milligrams of cholesterol, 100 milligrams of sodium, 34 grams of total carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 24 grams of sugar, 4 grams of protein, 8% vitamin A, 10% calcium and 2% iron.)

Item: Ben & Jerry’s Limited Batch Banana Cream Pie
Price: $3.25
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 3 out of 10
Pros: Real bananas used. Classic pie-in-the-face joke. Pie crust was tasty and authentic. Classic banana-peel-on-the-ground joke. Tiny hint of marshmallow did taste good.
Cons: No pastry cream taste and barely any marshmallow. Learning from Google that “cream pie” is not an innocent search term. Pie crust was grainy instead of chunky. Clowns. Bananas tasted somewhat artificial even though they weren’t.