Rockin’ Blondies…I can think of a few. One rather iconic one in particular.

I’m talking about the Ben & Jerry’s cow, of course. She is rockin’ out on this carton of Ben & Jerry’s Rockin’ Blondies Ice Cream. Those amps are totally turned up to 11. She is ready to rock anytime, anyplace, anywhere, anyday.

Okay, so she’s not exactly a towhead, but this ice cream is blonde through and through. The carton describes it as “Buttery Brown Sugar Ice Cream with Blonde Brownies and Butterscotch Toffee Flakes.”

In case you’re not familiar with blonde brownies, they have a flavor profile that is rich with brown sugar, butterscotch, and a hint of vanilla. The buttery flavor is a counterpart to their chocolate brownie brethren, and this ice cream promises to embody that through and through.

We shall see how B&J delivers that. One way or another, I’m gonna eat it eat it eat it eat it.

With so much going on in Rockin’ Blondies, I was afraid that it might be too rich. I was happy to find that this was not the case. The ice cream base was a lovely buttery cream, but unfortunately the taste of brown sugar was almost nonexistent.

I actually appreciated the subtlety of the brown sugar in the ice cream, because there was so much more going on.

I was not disappointed by the butterscotch toffee flakes, although I’d call them “chunks” more than “flakes”. They added a great crunch to the mix, and the rich sweetness of the butterscotch and the buttery toffee worked great together. I could taste both of the flavors distinctly, but they also made a great team.

I’m starting to think they should have called this “Rockin’ Butters” instead, because I keep wanting to describe everything as “buttery”. I feel like this may have been a missed South Park promo opportunity.

The part of Rockin’ Blondies I was looking forward to the most was the blonde brownies. I don’t know if it was just my carton or what, but the ratio of butterscotch toffee flakes to blonde brownies was about 5 to 1. You could say the brownies gave me the slip.

When I did get a good chunk of brownie, I loved it. They had a great chewy consistency and delivered that distinctive brown sugar and butterscotch taste with a hint of vanilla. They worked great with the ice cream and were a delight. And I got maybe four chunks of them, total.

This is where I would insert a frowny-face emoticon, if I were to do such things.

It’s hard to pin down a score on Ben & Jerry’s Rockin’ Blondies Ice Cream. On the one hand, some key components, like the brown sugar in the ice cream and the blonde brownies, were too sparse.

On the other hand, the buttery ice cream was excellent, as were the butterscotch toffee flakes, and I did love the few pieces of blonde brownies I got. It was sweet without being too rich. I finished the whole pint in quite a short amount of time. Iu just felt like Ben & Jerry’s was teasing me like an over-bleached hairdo on an 80’s rock band singer.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 250 calories, 140 calories from fat, 15 grams of total fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 75 milligrams of cholesterol, 85 milligrams of sodium, 26 grams of total carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 23 grams of sugar, 4 grams of protein, 10% vitamin A, and 10% calcium.)

Other Ben & Jerry’s Rockin’ Blondies reviews:
On Second Scoop

Item: Ben & Jerry’s Rockin’ Blondies Ice Cream
Purchased Price: $3.00
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Target (Exclusive)
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Butterscotch Toffee Flakes had rich flavor and were plentiful. Utilizing my knowledge of rocker chick lyrics. Ice cream base was buttery and just the right amount of sweet. Seeing the B&J’s cow rock out. Blonde brownies I did get were spot-on.
Cons: Not nearly enough blonde brownies. Having the urge to use an emoticon in a review. Brown sugar in the ice cream was barely there. 45 percent of your daily saturated fat per serving.

Peanut butter and jelly is the quintessential childhood favorite – a sandwich loved by all.

I love it, you love it, Jay-Z loves it. There’s no denying it: the peanut butter and jelly sandwich is more popular than a Princess Leia slave cosplayer at a Star Wars convention. Despite the sandwich’s apparent fame and esteem, surprisingly few people are aware of its origins. How exactly did PB&J come to be?

Late one night, fruit preserve salesman Barnabas B. Goobersworth broke into the laboratory of George Washington Carver. When Goobersworth refused to leave, the situation escalated. What began as a chase around the laboratory developed into a full-fledged food fight, with Goobersworth slinging jelly and Carver tossing peanut butter. After the fiasco, the laboratory was a complete mess. Unfortunately, Carver had forgotten to purchase paper towels at the local Walmart. As a result, he was forced to clean up the peanut butter and jelly debris using a loaf of white bread. The rest is history.

Okay, maybe that never happened, but sometimes history needs to be spiced up a bit. Contrary to popular belief, Napoleon wasn’t that short, Marco Polo didn’t actually bring back pasta from China, and John F. Kennedy never called himself a jelly donut. Shocking, right?

In fact, it seems George Washington Carver wasn’t even the first man to create peanut butter. Marcellus Gilmore Edson of Montreal, Quebec patented a technique to manufacture peanut paste way back in 1884, only twenty years after Carver was born. Those dang Canucks beat us again!

In 1998, ice cream behemoth Ben & Jerry’s decided to produce a Peanut Butter and Jelly flavor. It lasted but a single year on the market and now resides in the Ben & Jerry’s Flavor Graveyard in Waterbury, Vermont.

Nevertheless, Ben & Jerry’s is giving a peanut butter and fruit spread ice cream another go. Peanut Butter Jam Session features peanut butter ice cream with raspberry and crunchy peanut butter swirls. I picked up a carton at Target, where the flavor is being sold exclusively.

In appearance, Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Butter Jam Session is a creamy, white color tinged with the swirls of light brown peanut butter and red raspberry. The ice cream carries the heavy scent of peanuts, but any presence of raspberry remains undetectable to the nose.

The white ice cream base provides a creamy, nutty flavor and houses the peanut butter and raspberry swirls. The swirls exquisitely complement the ice cream, providing for a delicate balance of sweet and nutty flavors that serve to tantalize the taste buds. Neither flavor manages to overwhelm the other.

The raspberry swirl offers a modest fruity quality to offset the creamy nuttiness of the peanut butter ice cream. The light berry taste pleases the palate with its sweet and toothsome tartness while not crossing over to achingly saccharine.

However, the true star of this ice cream is the “crunchy” peanut butter swirl. When I first tasted Peanut Butter Jam Session, I expected my taste buds to be hit with an all too familiar artificial peanut butter flavor — the kind frequently found in snacks such as Reese’s Cups and peanut butter Ritz Bits. Surprisingly, the peanut butter swirl presents a natural nutty taste without seeming too bold.

Texturally, the swirl is spot-on: the globs of crunchy peanut butter scattered throughout the ice cream introduce a slightly grainy consistency similar to chunky peanut butter. After consuming a bowl of Peanut Butter Jam Session, you will actually feel like you’ve recently eaten peanut butter.

In the past, I’ve experienced numerous Ben & Jerry’s varieties where the flavors contributed by the add-ins become drowned out by the richness of the ice cream base. Fortunately, the assortment of flavors housed inside a pint of Peanut Butter Jam Session can be experienced without hindrance, as no single flavor outdoes the others. The ice cream’s balance of nutty and sweet flavors has been executed with remarkable finesse, and I highly urge peanut butter fans to rush to their nearest Target to pick up a carton. I would happily purchase this flavor again.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 270 calories, 160 calories from fat, 18 grams of total fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 65 milligrams of cholesterol, 110 milligrams of sodium, 24 grams of total carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of dietary fiber, 19 grams of sugars, and 6 grams of protein.)

Other Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Butter Jam Session reviews:
On Second Scoop

Item: Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Butter Jam Session Ice Cream
Purchased Price: $3.84
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: Flavor swirls complement each other well. Balanced nuttiness and sweetness. Princess Leia slave cosplayers.
Cons: Goobersworth. Food fights in laboratories.

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.