Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough 'Wich

Halle-freaking-lujah! After a loooong search I finally found the Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough 'Wich. I mentioned a while ago that the my blog evolved from an idea to try every single flavour and product from Ben & Jerry's. I first saw a Ben & Jerry's ice cream sandwich about 4 years ago in a shop on one of my jobs, I don't have the type of job where I can stop for an ice cream so I decided to go back on the way home from work. It was gone. And I've never seen it again until now! 

I wrote in my Ambrosia Frozen Custard review "more fool you if you pay full price for Ben & Jerry's".. Well I'm a mug because I paid a (disgusting) £4 for THREE small-ish ice cream sandwiches. Ouch, I kind of hoped they would be awful so I wouldn't be tempted to buy any more! 

Vanilla Ice Cream with Cookie Dough sandwiched between two Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies 

I say small-ish but that's greed, they're fairly sized, maybe not £4 fairly sized but pretty filling and big enough for a cookie and ice cream hit. 

I was fairly surprised at the amount of ice cream as it's a decent blob sitting in between the cookies. My cookies weren't swirled as is on the front of the box but half and half and pleasingly the two were on opposite sides so I got an even mouthful of each. It smelt a lot like Cookie Dough Ice Cream and that's nothing to scoff at - it might be an oldie but its definitely a goodie! B&J know better than to mess with the classics. 

As you may be aware, I don't rate Oreos so I've never had the Oreo Ice Cream Sandwich and I can't remember eating any before so I wasn't sure what to expect with the cookies themselves. Happily they were pretty much perfect. Not only were they absolutely delicious but they had a normal cookie texture - no frozen feel and no defrosted sogginess. The only acceptable time for a soggy biscuit is after dunking! 

The ice cream is as good as ever, B&J's usual quality with a wonderful vanilla flavour and large chewy cookie dough chunks - the same, I'm guessing, that are used in the Cookie Dough Ice Cream. 

One slight difference on the tubs is the consistency of the ice cream. I don't think I'd be able to physically chew the normal stuff straight out of the freezer but it was soft enough to in the 'Wich, it was just right actually, firm enough to stay nice and sturdy in the cookies right down to the last bite and no melting mess everywhere. I shouldn't be surprised really, Ben & Jerry's normally think everything through! 

Rating:

Very, very nice. Sadly as there isn't too much ice cream Mr.1T and his lactose intolerance managed it just fine and he's fighting me over the last one! I really hope they go on offer somewhere in the very near future. 

9/10

Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough S'Wich Up

I know I claim to have a lot of favourite foods, but when it comes down to it I have two great loves: Ice Cream and Pizza. In fact the whole reason this blog even exists is because of a very successful mission to eat my way through every flavour of Ben & Jerry's. 

I'm not exaggerating when I say we eat pizza three times a week and we always get Pizza Hut on a Sunday. I'm loyal to Pizza Hut, there is an authentic Italian pizza place near me but they don't deliver and due to a large Italian community it's impossible to inside the place to get a take-away or a table. The last time we went we counted 30 people queueing outside just to get in the door! Domino's we usually avoid like the plague, its too expensive and the pizzas are too small so I usually throw the untold amounts of leaflets we get straight in the bin. This week a strange photo of a tub of Ben & Jerry's caught my eye!

Cookie Dough S'Wich Up

Vanilla Ice Cream with a Chocolatey Cookie Swirl, Chocolatey Cookie Sandwiches & Cookie Dough Chunks. 

Cookie Dough S'Wich Up is a Domino's exclusive, limited edition flavour. It's only being sold until February so if you're after one you'd better make it quick, however the ingredients are in a few different European languages and it doesn't say anywhere exclusively made for Domino's. I'm waiting for a reply from Ben & Jerry's but hopefully its having a limited run in Domino's then being rolled out across the country. 

Look:

It looks a lot like Clever Cookies due to darker biscuits being used, the usual cookie dough chunks are still included in abundance and the light brown, creamy dough pops out against the grey mix of black biscuit and vanilla ice cream. 

Smell: 

It smells like Bourbon biscuits. And that's me sold. Bourbons smash Oreos, I don't care. An Oreo is fine when I'm in the mood, but for a chocolate cream biscuit it's all about the Bourbon. Why are we all so hung up on Oreos anyway, they're just a branded Romany/Gypsy Cream with a less racist name..

Taste:

There are 4 individual parts to this flavour, the first is one of the least used, most under-appreciated and actually faintest tasting in this particular pint - vanilla ice cream. There isn't too much I can say that I've not said in every other B&J review, its thick and creamy with a delicious flavour that would still be as delicious without any additional extras in the pint. I'm mainly going by previous experience though as it was totally overwhelmed by everything else. Vanilla was the perfect choice for Cookie Dough S'wich Up as a stronger flavoured base would be pointless. 

In the standard Cookie Dough flavour its all about the chunks of actual cookie dough, in S'wich Up they're lagging at the bottom of the ingredients list - this pint only includes 3%. They are exactly the same as the original; a delicious cookie flavour with a wonderful gritty and perfect doughy texture. 

A chocolatey cookie swirl takes up another 5% and this is where the Bourbon Biscuit scent came from. It's nothing like the core in the What-A-Lotta-Chocolate Cookie Core, that was more of a chocolate core with bits of cookie included whereas this is pure chocolate biscuit ground up and swirled throughout the ice cream. It's gritty and crunchy and tastes like actual chocolate biscuit not chocolate with little bits of biscuit included. 

Last but definitely not least, are the chocolatey sandwich cookies. I know Ben & Jerry's have a very well earned reputation for not scrimping on the ingredients but this is ridiculous, I had four or five full sized Oreo style biscuits! I don't think they're actual Oreo as I'm sure it'd be printed all over the tubs and stamped on the biscuit itself but the taste was pretty much the same. I don't know how they manage it but the consistency stayed spot on, I'd expect a biscuit from a packet to go soggy if I left it to sit in some rapidly melting ice cream but it retained a perfectly crunchy bite and I could even distinguish between the firm biscuits, soft ice cream and creamy 'sandwich cookie' filling. 

This is a biscuit lovers dream. The mixture of 3 different types of biscuit or cookie seems like it should be too much but I couldn't get enough, all three have delicious individual flavours and contrasting textures. I'd buy ice cream flavoured with any of the three alone but one with all Bourbon biscuits, cookie dough and Oreos together? I'm in heaven!! 

This was the last one in my local Domino's so I'm off to find another store!

9/10 

World Foods Part 3

Dark Chocolate Covered Cookie Dough Bites (USA)

I've seen these cookie dough bites around quite a bit, mainly in the supermarkets but just the ordinary or fudge brownie version. Typically after I'd eaten these and went to buy more everywhere seems to have stopped selling them! 

From what I've seen online these are a typical cinema snack in the US, people mix them with popcorn which I imagine is delicious! They wouldn't last very long with me in the cinema though, the chocolate is actually not bad quality, and although it overpowered the cookie dough flavour I still really enjoyed it - they're like malteasers but but with cookies inside! The biggest 'problem' I found with these are they are incredibly moreish, I got through this packet in no time at all, and I will be keeping my eyes open for the other flavours.

Rating 7/10 

Haribo Funny Mix (Halal)

These are a halal version of haribo, looking at the ingredients as expected the only difference is beef gelatine used instead of pork. Haribo also sell a vegetarian (or vegan I'm not too sure) version sold in a yellow bag. 

I couldn't taste any difference to tell you the truth, all the pieces tasted the same and the only difference that I can see is that the bag didn't include any of the fizzy/sour sweets, which may be because of the gelatine used? I'm not too sure. I would have marked this down but because the bag was more than half of my favourites that were supposed to be in my liquorice Allsorts but were suspiciously missing, it gets an extra mark. Yummy and just as good if you need to eat Halal. Thumbs up from me!

Rating 8/10 

Rittersport Cookies And Cream (Germany) 

These bars are available pretty much everywhere now, and most people know of Rittersports reputation for decent everyday chocolate. I'm not sure why seeing as the picture on the front shows milk chocolate, I assumed this was a white bar for some reason but it is Rittersport standard delicious milk chocolate. 

As usual it's split into 16 squares, which are easily broke into bars of 4 if you're that way inclined, which I'm not - this bar was eaten in one go! 

It has a very generous and thick cookies and cream filling, after eating the Cadbury Chips Ahoy bar the filling in this was more solid than I expected but that isn't a bad thing. A great texture and a lovely creamy flavour, as far as I'm concerned Rittersport can do no wrong! 

Rating 8.5/10