REVIEW: Ben & Jerry’s Lights! Caramel! Action! Ice Cream

Sean

Ben & Jerry’s is one of the few companies that make a concerted effort to do the right thing. Whether you agree with its specific politics or not, B&J often uses its platform to raise awareness and money for lesser known causes, and in a world consumed by greed, that’s an admirable trait to have. The latest collaborative ice-cream-for-good comes courtesy of director Ava DuVernay and her ARRAY Alliance, dedicated to advancing social justice through art. Lights! Caramel! Action! is vanilla ice cream with salted caramel swirls, graham cracker swirls, and gobs of chocolate chip cookie dough.

As often as B&J advocates for good, they also like to slightly tweak already tried and true recipes and rebrand them with a celebrity endorsement — I’m looking at you, Mint Chocolate Chance — and that tends to yield mixed results. This pint combines some all-time great components into one container that’s no doubt good, but a bit too familiar.

The vanilla base is excellent, like, really, really good. Very smooth and creamy with a dense floral milky taste that’s as good or better than any B&J vanilla I can recall scooping in the last couple of years. Perhaps I haven’t had straight vanilla from the company in a while, but I’m impressed. I always found B&J vanilla to be satisfactory, and this exceeds that — simply delicious.

The chocolate chip cookie dough is also, unsurprisingly, fantastic. “Gobs” is absolutely the right way to describe them because they are big boulders of gritty brown sugar dough with crunchy chocolate that have been a hit since their inception in 1984. Undeniably delicious, but when paired with the vanilla base, it is exactly like a flavor that’s been on grocery store shelves since 1991 — essentially my whole ice cream-eating life.

Where this flavor switches things up is the dual swirls of salted caramel and graham cracker, and they’re both good but not quite as plentiful as I would like. The graham cracker brings a buttery and slightly salted grit to the profile, which interestingly overlaps with the dough a bit in its texture and pint presence. I always want more graham, but the amount here, although not super heavy, is satisfactory given the epic amount of dough and some of their shared characteristics.

The one component I really want more of is the salted caramel swirl. I’ve been lucky in my many years of reviewing ice cream to get some massive pools of caramel, but this is much more like last year’s Chewy Gooey Cookie — relatively thin and lacking any sticky sweet density. The caramel is there, and I enjoy what little I can taste. But being in the name, I wanted more of a caramel-y kick to take this creation to another level. As great as the vanilla base is, I think this could have been even better, more true-to-name, and unique, with a caramel base to give this flavor more caramelized sugary depth and character to go along with the iconic dough, incredible pun, and gritty graham.

DISCLOSURE: I received a free product sample from Ben & Jerry’s. Doing so did not influence my review.

Purchased Price: FREE
Size: One Pint
Purchased at: Received from Ben & Jerry’s
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup, 144g) 390 calories, 21 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 75 milligrams of cholesterol, 210 milligrams of sodium, 47 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 33 grams of total sugars, and 5 grams of protein.

SPOTTED (MINI TRADER JOE’S EDITION): 1/10/2023

Marvo

Here are some interesting new products found on store shelves by your fellow readers. If you’ve tried any of them, share your thoughts in the comments.

Trader Joe s Speculoos Cookie Butter Cream Liqueur
Trader Joe’s Speculoos Cookie Butter Cream Liqueur
Trader Joe s Salmon Rub Seasoning Blend
Trader Joe’s Salmon Rub Seasoning Blend
Trader Joe s Double Chocolate Wafer Cookies
Trader Joe’s Double Chocolate Wafer Cookies
Trader Joe s Organic Apricot Preserves
Trader Joe’s Organic Apricot Preserves
Trader Joe s Super Seedy Cheese Snack Bites
Trader Joe’s Super Seedy Cheese Snack Bites
Trader Joe s Riced Hearts of Palm
Trader Joe’s Riced Hearts of Palm

(Spotted by Sarah R at Trader Joe’s.)

REVIEW: Lucky Charms S’mores Cereal

Marvo 2 Comments

Remember last year’s Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Lucky Charms Mix Cereal? It’s understandable if you don’t because I also forgot about it and was only reminded about it when I searched for a similar product I knew existed a competing cereal company offered. But this new Lucky Charms S’mores Cereal is like the sequel to that, but with less popular cereals and a less verbose name. It’s basically Chocolate Lucky Charms mixed with what appears to be Golden Grahams.

What’s with the “what appears to be”?

After trying the square-shaped pieces on their own, I’m not sure they’re actually Golden Grahams. But it’s got to be, right? Golden Grahams is under the Big G tent. Why develop a slightly different cereal when there’s already an option? Ugh. This is getting me worked up. I’ve put too much effort and thought into this. If only I had some old-timey graham crackers that Sylvester Graham made to bring down my excitement.

I’m suspicious about the ridged-cereal pieces because, while they do have a mild flavor that reminds me of Golden Grahams, there’s also a taste that I would describe as lightly charred. Look, as someone who likes their marshmallows slightly burnt because it adds a unique flavor and TOTALLY not because I like fire a little too much, that char can be part of the s’mores experience. But it’s odd to be tasting it with a cereal. Granted, I notice that unusual flavor when eating those squares separately. But when mixed with the other pieces, it’s not noticeable at all.

What’s slightly more noticeable in the cereal as a whole, but not to a level that I’d like, is the graham. With most spoonfuls, it doesn’t stand out among the chocolatey pieces and sugary marshmallows, and because of that, it’s hard for me to say that this is s’mores-like. That’s especially the case when the chocolatey flavor leaks into the milk. It pretty much tastes like Chocolate Lucky Charms, which is still magically delicious, but this doesn’t have a magical s’mores flavor.

Lucky Charms S’mores Cereal is a decent part of a complete breakfast, but it’s also a slight disappointment. But, to make it compelling and a product I won’t forget, like Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Lucky Charms Mix Cereal, I’ve been thinking that I’m in an alternate universe where Golden Grahams is the beloved square-shaped cereal that has its own Grahamdust and Chocolate Lucky Charms is the original.

DISCLOSURE: I received a free product sample from General Mills. Doing so did not influence my review.

Purchased Price: FREE
Size: 11 oz box
Purchased at: Received from General Mills
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 cup – cereal only) 140 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 240 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 12 grams of sugar (including 12 grams of added sugar), and 2 grams of protein.