Ben & Jerry’s Summer Flavors for 2012

As they have in the past few years, Ben & Jerry’s has two flavors it is offering exclusively at Target stores that are meant to encourage volunteerism. As part of they Scoop It Forward program, if you sign up to volunteer you can receive a free pint of ice cream. Not a bad deal. Onto the flavors…

Volun-Tiramisu (Coffee Mascarpone Ice Cream with Cocoa Dusted Coffee Run Lady Finger Pieces) – I personally prefer my tiramisu to be heavy on the cream and chocolate and light on the espresso, so I tasted this flavor with caution. Happily, the coffee flavor wasn’t overpowering. I wouldn’t say anything about the flavor tasted like tiramisu, but it was a pleasant flavor. Pleasant, like the taste of shampoo…before it tastes like soap. The texture of the “lady fingers” was nice and chewy—chewy lady fingers?—similar to maple blondie bites.

Berry Voluntary (Raspberry Cheesecake Ice Cream with White Chocolate Chips & Raspberry Swirls) – Ben & Jerry’s usually does cheesecake ice cream really well because they play up the subtle aspects of cheesecake. Sadly, they missed the mark on this one. The white chocolate chips (which are not great quality) overpower the subtle cheesecake and even more subtle raspberry flavor. Perhaps if the white chocolate chips were balanced with a dark chocolate chip and swirl of raspberry sorbet or fro yo. Mmm, now we’re talkin’.

Sorry to say it, but I might be giving up on Ben & Jerry’s. The quality of their ice cream has really gone down. I know a lot of companies are looking for ways to cut costs, but when a food company sacrifices high quality ingredients for filler it seems misguided. I’ll give Ben & Jerry’s another shot in the spring when they release the next batch of flavors.