Vanilla Caramel Drudge (Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Caramel Fudge)

Member Name: collingwood21

Product:	Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Caramel Fudge
Date:	03/03/03 (130 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The caramel

Disadvantages: The price, The vanilla ice cream, Where's my fudge?

Why, oh why do I keep on doing this to myself? Why is it, when rigorous scientific testing has proved that the only flavour of Ben and Jerry's ice cream worth the whopping £4 a tub is Cherry Garcia, do I insist on trying other flavours? Especially after trying the cloying nastiness that was Honey I'm Home? Well folks, last night my desire for ice cream got the better of me and my local shop only had two flavours in stock - this one (vanilla caramel fudge) or the honey nastiness. I was weak. I succumbed. Still, you know what they say - buy ice cream in haste, repent at leisure.

For those of you unfamiliar with the brand - and there can't be many, given the assault Ben and Jerry's have made on our nation's freezers over recent years - let me explain a little. The Ben and Jerry of the title are two aging hippies from Vermont (USA) who make super premium ice cream (that is very dense ice cream with virtually no air in it to you and me). Being hippies, they believe that foods should contain only natural products, so all B&J ice cream is made with natural whole milk, cream, eggs and sugar, with only natural flavourings and preservatives and natural extras such as fruit, chocolate and nuts. A virtuous sentiment, as I'm sure you will agree. There are currently 15 B&J flavours available in the UK - you can see the menu by going to: http://www.benjerry.co.uk/flavourfest/flavourfest/

This particular flavour, as the name may well suggest, comprises vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce and chocolate fudge swirled into it. B&J describe this flavour thus: "With all our famous chunky flavours, even we know sometimes you're too tired to chew. So this heavenly, chunk-free flavour is made with pure Vermont cream for a super smooth flavour. And the silky caramel and fudge swirls in sumptuous vanilla ice cream just melt in your mouth with no additional effort on your part". So, an ice cream for those people with a swe
et tooth but not a solid tooth. But not for those on a diet, that's for sure - all that Vermont cream (27% of the tub, I might add) gives it 260 calories and 14 g fat per 100g. Still, the 15% RDA calcium you get for that may be some compensation, I suppose.

But what exactly does vanilla caramel fudge taste like? Well, B&J's vanilla ice cream is extremely rich and creamy - imagine the richest Cornish ice cream you have ever tasted and then multiply this by 10 and you would be somewhere near it. You in fact can only taste the vanilla very mildly, so it is almost like you are eating frozen cream. It is too much for me to be honest, and a serving of this alone would not be terribly pleasant to eat in my mind - it would soon get rather sickly. Just as well we have the caramel then, which is far nicer. This is very good quality caramel - not a sauce, mind, but real, runny caramel - of the sort that reminds me of Thornton's chocolates that makes up a generous 13% of the tub. Very dense in flavour, not at all sickly, and conceals the vanilla base very nicely indeed. Now, the fudge doesn't not seem to have been added in any great quantity at all in my tub. I rather expected proper lumps of it, but I seem to have is the occasional dark brown streak through the vanilla ice cream. I can barely taste the fudge, and I might just be imagining that I can taste something vaguely chocolately because I know it is there. If I could taste any fudge properly then I would certainly describe the flavour to you - but I can't as there isn't one.

So, overall very rich indeed and for the most part you could be eating virtually any vanilla-based flavour at all. It becomes a whole lot nicer when you hit a vein of caramel, mind, but the few spoonfuls you get like this hardly make it a tub to rush out and buy. If you do insist on spending your hard earned pennies on such over-hyped and over-priced ice cream though, you may like to know that y
ou can get a Ben and Jerry's ice cream bowl from their website to eat it from - they're only £17 each.


Not recommended.



www.benjerry.co.uk

Summary: