Ben & Jerry's Caramel Chew Chew

Wandering around Tesco’s the other day I spied a sight that brought a smile to my lips and a groan to my hips. Ben & Jerry’s ice cream on special offer! Yes, you can currently buy 2 tubs of this wonderful ice cream for just £5! (Normally around £3.80 a tub). Well, how can a girl resist! But which flavours to choose – do I go for those that I have tried and trusted or should I be adventurous and try something different? Curiosity got the better of me and I ended up with a tub of Half-Baked (delicious but gone before I could write an opinion. Note to self – must buy more) and a tub of Caramel Chew Chew, the subject of this opinion.

For those of you who don’t know, Ben & Jerry are 2 friends who met at high school and, after college, decided that they could produce better ice cream than that which was commercially available. With the help of a $5 correspondence course in ice cream making, the legend of Ben & Jerry was born.

As with all B&J ice creams, Caramel Chew Chew comes in a cardboard tub. Not overly exciting, but it does the job. The real excitement comes when you peel off the lid…

The ice cream is a pale creamy, caramel colour, into which are woven strands of richly coloured caramel sauce. Plunge in your spoon and savour the flavour – a delightful smooth ice cream with a very subtle caramel flavour. It is not an overpowering taste at all – the caramel flavour is very light although you can definitely taste it. It is enhanced greatly when combined with the caramel sauce. The sauce remains liquid even when frozen and just melts in the mouth. Not at all sickly, it is smooth and buttery and provides a wonderful contrast to the cold ice cream.

But there is a hidden bonus. Lurking beneath the surface of the ice cream is a delightful surprise in the form of mini caramel chocolate cups! Each is about the diameter of a 5 pence piece and is a perfectly formed shell of milk chocolate. Bite into a cup and you will find more smooth caramel hidden inside. The cups are generously scattered throughout the ice cream so you can be sure of getting several in each bowlful.

The combination of the smooth ice cream, silky sauce and crisp chocolate work so well to give a wonderful mouthful of flavour and texture. All the textures and flavours compliment each other perfectly. You would think with so much caramel and chocolate that this could be too sickly, but it isn’t at all.

The only downside to this ice cream is that, as with all B&J ice creams, it freezes very hard. It really does need to be taken out of the freezer about 10 minutes before you want to eat it to prevent spoon breakage! However, if you forget, or just can’t wait that long, 10 seconds in a microwave does seem to do the trick!

Ingredients are listed but the writing is so small and the list so long that it would take forever to list! Suffice to say that there is plenty of cream, sugar, corn syrup, condensed milk and other such delights, guaranteed to head straight for your hips. Thankfully there is no nutritional information – I really do not want to know just how many calories and how much fat is in this ice cream! Also, it does say that the chocolate cups are manufactured in premises which also manufacture nut products, so those with allergies may wish to exercise caution.

The tubs are 500ml and, as I said, normally cost around £3.80. As well as Tesco’s, I have also seen the 2 for £5 offer in Waitrose.

So, what are you waiting for – fill the freezer up in time for summer!

For further info there is a website – www.benjerry.co.uk

Recommended – in case you haven’t guessed!