Although finding some ice cream wasn’t on the top of my to-do list for this Labor Day Weekend, I still had a few hours to dedicate to finding something fun to review. Much to my dismay, I discovered that not only were my local Targets still not stocking Peanut Butter Jam Session, but that my local Dairy Queen was still only offering the Blizzard of the Month from last month, Tripleberry Brownie, and hadn’t yet updated their menu with the Choco Covered Cheesecake Blizzard. After leaving both locations empty-handed, I decided to head back to Cold Stone Creamery to pick up another quart of their pre-packaged signature creations. This time I opted for Peanut Butter Cup Perfection: rich chocolate ice cream with peanut butter cups and gooey fudge in a peanut butter swirl.
I’ve had plenty of ice creams based on the combination of chocolate and peanut butter, but none have featured the trio of fudge and peanut swirls with actual peanut butter cups. Despite the loaded ingredients list, they manage to keep this one at 220 calories per serving. With the lid removed, I’m left looking at a first layer made up of a lightly shaded chocolate base and plenty of broken peanut butter cups poking through the top. As I discovered when I tried Cake Batter Batter Batter, Cold Stone Creamery’s ice cream mix produces a consistency that’s in line with other premium ice creams like Blue Bell and Blue Bunny. This gives their base ice creams a light and fluffy feel that still takes a while to fully break down. As far as taste is concerned, this rich, chocolate ice cream is just that. While the ice cream could have provided an overbearing base for the other ingredients, Cold Stone manages to keep theirs just mild enough to avoid this typical downfall.
Anytime peanut butter cups are involved, the result is usually positive, but I hadn’t expected the two swirls to steal the show like they did. If you’re expecting halves like in Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Butter Cup, the small, broken bits in here may come as a disappointment, however once I run into the gooey fudge and peanut butter sitting inside the ice cream, the cups are an afterthought. Each swirl sports its own consistency: liquid and runny for the fudge and stiff and rigid for the peanut butter. The gooey swirl builds on the existing, rich ice cream and the peanut butter upon the cups; all while contrasting and complimenting the chocolate base. This may not quite be perfect, but Cold Stone Creamery’s Peanut Butter Cup Perfection still easily achieves an A.
Where I Found It: Cold Stone Creamery
Grade: A
