Kudos to you, Ben & Jerry’s. You’ve finally listened to the countless haute cuisine chefs who have surely written to you pleading for the creation of an ice cream featuring truffles.
For years, we’ve been limited to having our truffles shaved over expensive pastas and accompanying the finest foie gras, but we can now experience the combination the culinary world has been waiting for: chocolate ice cream and fungus. I can only imagine how many truffle hogs the Ben & Jerry’s company must have needed to create this new flavor.
…Wait, what’s that you say? Hold up, hold up, hold up. The truffles inside of this ice cream are not the sporocarps of an ascomycete fungus? They’re made of…ch-chocolate?
*clears throat*
Ahem, I knew that. I was just testing you. Pffft.
Ben & Jerry’s new flavor, Truffle Trifecta, features standard chocolate ice cream mixed with three different varieties of chocolate truffle: marshmallow, fudge, and caramel. You can find the flavor stocked at Walgreens stores, where it is being sold exclusively. When you venture to your local Walgreens to pick up a carton, you’ll probably be just as disappointed as I was when you realize that the store walls are not actually green.
Upon opening the pint of Truffle Trifecta, you’ll find your usual chocolate ice cream base. The scent, which was nothing more than that of your everyday run-of-the-mill chocolate ice cream, left me wondering if the flavor would even bring anything new to the table.
After experiencing my first few spoonfuls of Truffle Trifecta, I tried to isolate the flavors of the truffles from the ice cream, but had little success. Although there seems to be a balanced ratio of truffles to ice cream, the truffles seem to be largely overpowered by the chocolate ice cream base.
Furthermore, I had trouble identifying which of the three truffle varieties I was tasting in each spoonful. The disappointingly subtle flavors only seemed to show up as a sort of aftertaste once the chocolate ice cream’s sweetness had worn off.
Each truffle is approximately the size of a dime and shaped similar to a miniature Reese’s cup. Hoping to more fully experience their flavors, I dug out a multitude of truffles from the chocolate ice cream, acting like a crazed chocolate truffle prospector in an ice cream gold mine.
The caramel truffle was spot-on: the perfect mix of gooey and sweet. Although the marshmallow truffle was a bit creamier than what I would normally expect from anything marshmallow flavored, it was delectable nonetheless. Unfortunately, the chocolate truffle reminded me of the cheap, stale chocolate you find inside of your grandma’s candy jar. You know, the kind that’s been sitting there for years. Nobody wants old people chocolate in their ice cream.
Overall, the truffles found scattered about Ben & Jerry’s Truffle Trifecta are pleasing in taste, but their flavors are too strongly masked by the rich chocolate ice cream base. Truffle Trifecta is by no means a bad ice cream, but the flavors fail to mix in such a way to spotlight the addition of the truffles.
No dice, Ben & Jerry’s. Maybe you should have tried the whole fungus ice cream idea.
(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 280 calories, 150 calories from fat, 17 grams of total fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 50 milligrams of sodium, 29 grams of total carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 27 grams of sugars, and 4 grams of protein.)
Other Ben & Jerry’s Truffle Trifecta reviews:
On Second Scoop
Item: Ben & Jerry’s Truffle Trifecta Ice Cream
Purchased Price: $4.99
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Walgreens
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Three different truffle varieties. Tasty chocolate truffles. Chocolate truffle prospectors.
Cons: Chocolate ice cream base is too overpowering. Hard to distinguish between truffles inside ice cream. Not a fungus ice cream.