Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream Review

Well, this rarely happens, I've managed to pick up flavors of the same name but from different companies recently. In general, I don't like to do this because it cuts into the diversity in the freezer, but I was just so enamored with the budget minded Stone Ridge Peanut Butter Cup that I couldn't help but wonder how it would stack up to the top tier Ben & Jerry's version.

So, here we have Peanut Butter Cup : Peanut Butter Ice Cream with Peanut Butter Cups. Plain and simple. No fancy swirls or ribbons. Just Peanut butter ice cream and lots and lots of peanut butter cup chunks.

Am I dreaming????

no no no.... i have to be dreaming....

!!!PRETZEL M&Ms!!!

see them here.

can ya tell I'm excited!?!?!?! how am I suppose to wait 'til February???

Stone Ridge Creamery Ice Cream Peanut Butter Cup

I came so close to blogging back to back posts this weekend....and failed yet again. Sorry. Our schedule is bound to stabilize sooner or later ...Update: keep trying to finish this post....keep getting denied....

Not sure where to start on this one. I really want to jump to the stunning conclusion, but I know I should take it step-by-step.This is Peanut Butter Cup from Stone Ridge Creamery, the in-house brand of all the SuperValu owned supermarket chains (that's Shaws for me). It seems that every chain has an entry level (low cost) store brand and make no mistake, Stone Ridge Creamery is not messing around. What we have here is vanilla ice cream with peanut butter cup pieces and ribbons of fudge & peanut butter. Notice I said ribbons, not swirls - we'll get back to this shortly.

Ben & Jerry's American Apple Pie Ice Cream

Ok, I said I saw two limited edition flavors at Walmart. Well, as you can tell from the title of this post, the one that won me over was Ben & Jerry's American Apple Pie Ice Cream. Now before we go too far, let's go down memory lane for a second.

Ben & Jerry's American Apple Pie Ice Cream

Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Pumpkin Cheesecake (non-review)

UPDATE: If you've landed on this older post, please head over to my actual review of this flavor posted in October 2010. It was just one of those things that I feared at first but tried later on.

I saw two new limited edition flavors at Walmart last night: Pumpkin Cheesecake and another flavor which will be posted later today hopefully. Pumpkin Cheesecake is labeled as pumpkin cheesecake ice cream with a graham cracker swirl. Wow, sounds exactly like something I wouldn't purchase ...so I didn't, sorry. I love pumpkin pie, and I'm a sucker for a slice of chocolaty cheesecake now and then, but these are basically two of my least favorite things in an ice cream.

To be fair, I did look around and the general consensus is that the pumpkin flavor is mild and overall it's the same great quality you expect from B&J. Here is a review from last year. It's kinda funny because I found a review from this year that called this limited edition "all new". I did a little research, and this is at least its second year of release, but maybe last year was a Vermont only test run, I don't know for sure.

Cool - while I was searching for nutritional info on Pumpkin Cheesecake (since I forgot to use the ol' cameraphone), I stumbled upon this: free Halloween Coloring Pages from Ben & Jerry's.

Ok, while we're talking about Halloween, let's break out something I did last year with a fresh container of Edy's Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream.

A Halloween pumpkin, Second Scoop Style!

Stone Ridge Creamery Ice Cream Cookie Dough

Greetings! Nothing makes me want to blog more than when I stumble across a really nice carton of ice cream. I also love the fact that Stone Ridge is always trying to be more than just a cheap economy level store brand product. Wait, that sounds like a insult, but no matter! Where is my new friend?

Ahh, there he is. Stone Ridge Creamery's Cookie Dough real ice cream. Look at the container carefully for a second. Now, what don't you see? Usually to the right of the red logo, you would see a description of the ice cream. Sure it could just be a mix up, but I'm thinking ....maybe, just maybe, it's on purpose. I know, sounds like a conspiracy theory, but follow me on this one.

Topping = Watermelon ???

My apologizes, I had every intention of running a Friday night fight tonight, but I'm afraid this week has burned all my energy. Instead, I humbly present some ice cream torture: How do you make ice cream healthy? Add fruit!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again and again: You have to fun with your food! Underneath is the last of the BB Alpine Strawberry and on top is some very tasty watermelon. I know it's out of season, but it had that great red rich color in the store and I couldn't help myself.

This bowl was actually for my daughter ...because I knew I wouldn't like it. I had a few bites, and the flavor was fine, but ice cream texture mixed with watermelon texture just doesn't work for me. My daughter said she liked it, but after stirring it up, she said it looked like ....well, you know....

Culinary Circle's Chocolate Truffle Gooey Fudge Brownie Ice Cream Dessert

Once again, I was a day late, and a dollar short. Things are hectic here at the scoop, and this immensely delayed review is proof (I actually ate this two weeks ago). I had been saving this final Culinary Circle treat for a special occasion, but instead the poor little guy sat in the back of my freezer (one of the two cups got damaged in shipping, so rather than plowing through one and then saving the other, I just saved the other, thought I never intended on waiting so long).

So, first, I apologize to Culinary Circle. I want to thank them for sending me a sample of each of their 8 great new treats. I long assumed the Brownie would be their crowning achievement, how could I not? "layered chocolate ice cream and dark chocolate mousse; topped with a chocolate butter fudge sauce and chewy brownie pieces."

there's a little bit of freezer burn, but consider it's been inside my fridge for over 2 months.

Here is our little friend in the proper eating position (again, mild freezer burn, and again, my apologies to CC). It sure looks tasty enough. I dig in, and it's good, but one thing is bothering me: the cocoa powder on the brownie bits. It made the brownies feel way too dry. It's got quality ingredients like the other 7 ice cream desserts, it's just I got hung up on the brownie bits (they may have also dried out a bit in the freezer, I'm not sure).

If I see these on sale, I may give them one more try, just to be fair.

Dubba's Graham Central Station Ice Cream

My apologies, it's been a few weeks since I've been able to catch up on my sleep. My hectic schedule is keeping me from posting as much as I'd like. Things really are crazy for me right now. I've just spent a fourth day filling out paperwork...oh it's driving me nuts... at least I took a little break out on Sunday to make some ice cream with my daughter. I know, it's not an exciting national review, but I think making ice cream is something everyone should try.

This weekend's attempt was what I believe is called Graham Central Station. I was going to think of a catchy name but my brain just isn't up to it at the moment.

Dubba's Graham Central Station Ice Cream Recipe

2 cups light cream

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 light brown sugar

3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs

1/4 cup 60% cocoa bits

several fudge covered graham crackers

I bought the ingredient for this awhile ago but it's been really hard finding an half hour (hour) to spare to make ice cream. Nothing fancy here. Just cream, sugar, milk and then mix in some graham cracker crumbs (make your own or just buy a box of them to save time). I was surprised at how potent the graham cracker flavor was. We mixed them cold but I really should have heated it so that I would get the graham cracker flavor without the graham cracker grit (oh well, next time).

While my daughter stirred, I tried chipping up some dime size cocoa bits. No, it didn't work, but I was curious as to what would happen. In they go, and then the whole thing went into the Cuisinart Ice-20.

While that mixed, we crushed some fudge covered graham crackers. They are pretty fragile so we wound up with a good bit of graham dust. Once the mix was fairly frozen, I hand blended in the cookie bits ...ok, technically I put them in before turning off the Ice-20, but it was not amused at all.

Overall, it's an interesting, yet gritty flavor. Like I said, I should have heated it, but since heating greatly increases prep time and then I'd have to wait for it to cool, I decided against it. Actually, I had a thought: What is the best way to increase the amount of air in the mix like a commercial company would do? Has anyone tried it? just curious.

As always, I know my "recipes" are very rough, but they are here for general ideas and not exact following.

Ok, I'll get back to more reviews... as soon as I get caught up on sleep, 'til then it's going to be a little rough.

...Whoa, just had a weird idea: graham and peanut butter! Hmmmm, what do you think?

Ben & Jerry's Everything but the... Ice Cream

2015 Update: I've been slowly going back to retry some of the older Ben & Jerry's flavors that made it through the transition to Non-GMO and for whatever reason, I grabbed this one so quickly that I forgot that it has the new toffee in it. Yeah, that "new toffee". The one that was supposedly fixed but is still way too potent and inspires people to constantly comment about how frustrated they are. Yeah, it really takes things down a notch. Sure you can avoid the big toffee chunks, but sometimes the small pieces kind of melt and ooze their potent-ness everywhere. Oh well. Original review after the break.

Ben & Jerry's Everything But The... Ice Cream

How long is too long???

I've been waiting a long time to try Gaga's Sherbetter. I wanted to try it, but I decided to be "thrifty" and wait for it to go on sale ...And I did ...And I finally bought it ...months ago ...and then it got buried underneath all the veggies in the freezer. In fact, I waited so long to try it the packaging has now changed....

Oh the humanity!! That is some nasty freezer burn!

It's so bad that part of the sherbetter has condensed and turned several shades lighter, it's near impossible to break through....even with a knife! I dug towards the center hoping to find a few scoops that had remained unscathed, but it's too late....oh my it is too late!!

Sometimes I get so excited about new products at the grocery store that unfortunately I do accidentally buy one too many. Had I bought this after we got the new freezer, it would have been downstairs, safe in it's non-auto-defrosting home.

Sorry Gaga's, I'll get a fresh pint as soon as I can.

Snickers Ice Cream Brownie

Wow, It's been a challenging 168 hours...

wait, let's try that again.

Uggg, it's been a rough week. You know, you just get caught in this cycle and you keep thinking "man, this week is awful" and what happens? more bad stuff. I've had worse, and I definitely think I could have been more pessimistic, but man, did I need some ice cream. It was so bad that I couldn't even see that I needed an ice cream break...

...until I saw my new little friend.

Snickers Ice Cream Brownie