Happy Hallowe'en!! Still catching up on reviews and strutting my funky stuff with a rockin' new tatt...
Happy Hallowe'en!! Still catching up on reviews and strutting my funky stuff with a rockin' new tattoo. Be champions! ;-)
Member since:01.04.2005
Reviews:63
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"I am enjoying a relationship with 2 men simultaneously. The first called Ben, the other, Jerry."
The above is a quote from Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, and is a joke that has been told before in various paraphrasing in popular culture - however seems rather appropriate as they continue taking over the dessert world. Move over Häagen-Dazs, the ex-hippie creators and namesakes of this deliciously witty and environmentally conscious ice cream brand are the new men in our lives... or freezer, rather (without sounding too horror-cliché). With flavours such as Cherry Garcia (homage to Grateful Dead's Jerry) and Bohemian Raspberry (chortle chortle!), they don't seem to take themselves too seriously - and fans across the world think they taste divine! The ice cream flavours that is, not the hippies.
Granted.... the big food conglomerate Unilever bought them over in 2000 and Ben & Jerry themselves don't seem to have any part in the running of the company anymore, but they have a Free Cone Day to mark their anniversary each year and collaborate with various organisations - and they make a fuss about keeping their dairy herds happy AND trying to reduce, re-use and recycle whenever possible. Aww, bless!
In fact, the brand spanking new Baked Alaska flavour ice cream has been released to raise awareness of climate change and the Climate Change College that Ben & Jerry helped set up "which aims to inspire 18-30 year olds to deliver business
orientated solutions to Climate Change and have fun." according to the official site. Nice. I'm pigging out AND learning!
Admittedly, I'm not that much of an ice cream person. Sure, I go mad when the Boyfriend scoffs all the Ice Cream Mars Bars (greedy git) and the one previous occasion I have tried Ben & Jerry's was at one of the 'scoop-stores' and I felt it was far too sickly. That was Phish Food that I had tried though... I hoped that I would enjoy Baked Alaska more than that. If not, at least it shouldn't go to waste - courtesy of the Boyf aka human garbage disposal.
+ SPOON ME, SPOON ME! +
The Baked Alaska flavour is "Vanilla ice cream with Marshmallow swirls and white chocolatey Polar Bears" - I'm a white chocolate fan so hopefully this will go down better than the Phish Food did! And bless, the little polar bears (if they resemble them at all) is a nice touch in regards to the ice caps melting and climate change and what-not. Hurrah for awareness!
Baked Alaska has only been recently launched and I got it from Asda for the princely sum of £3.90 - considering it's only a 500ml tub this isn't quite value for money but come on... it's Ben & Jerry's! You pay more for Grey Goose than you do for Red Square, after all - and usually for good reason! Yes, I just managed to compare it to vodka - did you think this review would be without the booze references?
+ THE TASTE TEST +
I promptly abandoned the Boyfriend in the kitchen to put away our groceries after the nice Asda man came (and being harrassed about which bag the ice cream was in), and went off to indulge myself...
The little sweating polar bear on the tub and lid has a quote beside it - "If it's melted it's ruined" in reference to the global warming (quite clever too - I told you they were witty), and on the back of the tub you see the happy little cartoon moo-cows that adorn the Ben & Jerry's site (they love to shout about their sustainable dairy farming).
The wait for the ice cream to defrost slightly so I'd be able to dig the spoon in was almost intolerable... I am not the biggest of dessert fans but I reckoned this ice cream was something special. By this point the Boyfriend had sussed I'd retreated to the living room with the tub and brought another spoon so we could share it. Altogether now... awwwww!
Admittedly the ice cream at this point didn't have much of a scent to it, and carefully removing the cardboard lid we were delighted to see that the tub was filled right up to the brim - even a little over! Jam-packed isn't the word for it! The ice cream was a lovely cream colour and we could see little black specks indicating that this was indeed a vanilla ice cream of very good quality (should bloody hope so too, the price we paid for it... lol).
The Boyfriend and I both agreed upon our first spoonful that the ice cream was well worth what we had paid - creamy and delicious and with the authentic vanilla flavour courtesy of the extract we saw listed in the ingredients list (none of this 'essence' nonsense - manky fake stuff that it is!). However, if I wanted plain vanilla ice cream I'd have asked for it - bring on the polar bears!
Now... it's not that easy looking for little white chocolate shapes in ice cream thats the same colour as them, however I didn't need to dig down deep and found two polar bear chocolate shapes about a centimetre down. I ate one on it's own without any ice cream and I have to say... divine. I'm not a big sweets fan but I do enjoy white chocolate, and I'd say the quality of this chocolate is on par with Thorntons (or a more Fair Trade equivalent) - you wouldn't get a rich white chocolate taste like this from a Milky Bar at a kids' tuck shop, no way! With cheap white chocolate there's usually a kind of sharp aftertaste but we didn't find this with the polar bears at all. Though one thought crossed my mind... where were those darn marshmallow swirls I was promised?
Searching for white chocolate shapes in vanilla ice cream is a breeze compared to searching for marshmallow swirls - at least with chocolate you can feel it's harder than the ice cream! We gave up looking and carried on eating - as they were 'swirls' rather than individual marshmallows it was harder to distinguish them although we did notice during spoonfuls that there was a slight squishy texture amongst the ice cream. It didn't seem to add to the flavour at all so I was quite disappointed. Why marshmallow in the first place? Well the original Baked Alaska dessert was ice cream surrounded by a baked meringue - I'm guessing marshmallow is easier to put in ice cream than meringue.
Taste test over (and miraculously some ice cream left - granted it got a bit sickly after awhile), I have to admit I felt a bit let down. I'm not sure exactly what brilliance I was expecting, but this was not it. The Boyfriend added "So? It's nice!!", but I'm sad to say that although I'm still very impressed with the apparent quality and good work of the brand (even the use of free range egg yolks in the ingredients), I wouldn't rush out and buy this flavour again. I may just try the plain vanilla instead. If something is 260 calories per 100g, I want my sins to be worth it!
+ DIETARY STUFF +
Full ingredients and nutrional information can be found on the official website, but this IS suitable for vegetarians (obviously not for anyone who is lactose intolerant).
+ TO CONCLUDE... +
Bought at Asda online for £3.90, in a 500ml (or 411g) tub... will likely be available elsewhere, you can check yourselves (if you're allowed online without adult supervision, you should be more than capable). And if you're lucky enough to have a Domino's near you with this in stock, it will set you back £4.50.
This is essentially posh vanilla ice cream with luxury white chocolate shapes dotted about it. And the odd bit of marshmallow lurking about, but it's nothing to really rave about I'm afraid. It feels like this is a mediocre flavour that won't be continued for long, but it's been tarted up with an environmental message to help make it sell. Cynical? Of course, but although Ben & Jerry are two ex-hippies don't forget that it's a corporate machine... I mean, family that own them now.
3 stars for the sheer loveliness of the vanilla ice cream and white chocolate bears, and for wanting to raise awareness about climate change. It would have been 2 stars but the hippie message swung it.
+ LINKY LINKS! +
www.benjerry.com - Official Site (has info about their packaging and their carbon footprint and what-not)
www.climatechangecollege.org - Official Site for educating the young 'uns about the Alaska glaciers melting and combat global warming!
(+) Gorgeous combination of tastes, reasonably low in fat, smells amazing, suitable for vegetarians (-) Extremely high in sugar, verging on high calories, no allergy information, quite expensive
May 30th, 2008
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