Review: Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Fudge Core Ice Cream

I've been trying to stay away from Ben & Jerry's for the most part in the recent months as I've been trying to do a better job of controlling my ice cream binges.  I've mostly been doing a fairly solid job, but every now and then one of my local stores will have a sale AND throw a coupon into their iPhone app that is pretty much just begging me to pick up a Ben & Jerry's product for another review and that's what happened with the source of today's review as I was able to pick up this pint of Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Fudge Core Ice Cream on sale for $3.00 (plus a $1.00 off coupon) at Meijer.  Each pint contains the typical four half-cup servings and each serving is a decidedly unhealthy 300 calories.  This is the first time I've looked at one of these Core products that are predicated on shooting an injection of a particular ingredient (fudge in this case) right down the middle of the pint in order to make this seem like it is two different ice creams.  Interesting idea, but interesting ideas don't always make good products.

As is custom with my Ben & Jerry's reviews, I'll take the product description straight from the website and drop it here because I'm lazy:  "Chocolate & Peanut Butter Ice Creams with Mini Peanut Butter Cups & a Peanut Butter Fudge Core."  I've got to admit...they usually do so much better of a job describing their products in trying to make them sound fun.  That was a pretty bland description, especially for Ben & Jerry's.  Anyway, I can confirm all those things were there and this one smelled alternately of mild peanut butter and chocolate smells.  There weren't a ton of mini peanut butter cups, but there were enough that they were noticeable.  The Core (right down the middle) also looked as if it was going to be extremely gooey and as someone that has grown fond of having a gooey component to their ice creams, I was very much looking forward to this based on my observations.

I shouldn't have been looking too forward to this because what I got was something that was very basic.  The peanut butter ice cream definitely had peanut butter flavor, but it wasn't overwhelmingly potent or decadent.  The chocolate ice cream was Ben & Jerry's basic chocolate ice cream, which I've always considered a particular weakness of theirs (and a lot of ice cream manufacturers as well).  It does have chocolate flavor, but that flavor is kind of flat, which is too bad.  As for the fudge component, it did have rich chocolate flavor and being that I'm always a fan of rich chocolate flavor, I very much appreciated that.  I also appreciated the inclusion of the mini peanut butter cups as well as they not only brought a crunchy component to the pint, but also brought in some additional chocolate and peanut butter flavor in short and wonderful bursts that also brought a hint more of sweetness to each spoonful that included them and that definitely helped this out overall and is never a bad thing in general.

Buy It or Fly By It?  All in all, there were positive part of this pint all around.  The only real non-positive (notice how I did not use the word "negative") was the chocolate ice cream itself as it leaned toward being flat.  I guess if you included some of the fudge core or the mini peanut butter cups, it kind of cancelled that out and saved it, but standing alone, that was kind of disappointing.  That said, this still earns a BUY IT rating because it had enough positive things going for it that those outweighed the only non-positive component of the pint.  Now, if you are expecting something wonderful out of this pint, you will end up being disappointed.  If you are looking for a solid performer that has good, but not great, flavor, this is certainly a winner.

BUY IT!!