The hardest decision I had to make as a child was always whether to eat cookie dough or cookies and cream ice cream. Both flavors had their strengths, but I often found myself yearning for the other halfway through the bowl. As I got older I remedied this problem by simply scooping both, but when first I heard about Ben and Jerry’s Milk and Cookies it seemed as though my lifelong conundrum had been solved. This pint is described as vanilla ice cream with a chocolate cookie swirl, chocolate chip & chocolate chocolate chip cookies. This combination sounds like cookies and cream on steroids and it’s hard to hold back my excitement. I pry off the lid to see what it has to offer.
A few chocolate chip cookie dough bits are visible through the white vanilla base, as well as chocolate that may or may not be the swirl. I start with the vanilla base knowing exactly what to expect. The base is smooth and creamy with subtle vanilla notes that always make this a solid foundation. The vanilla has been infiltrated by little chocolate cookie bits, which combine to form the stereotypical cookies and cream vibe. Given that I did not come here for a standard cookies and cream, I dig into a large piece of chocolate chip cookie dough. I cannot stress how amazing and different this cookie dough is. Unlike the dough found in Ben and Jerry’s Half Baked or regular Cookie Dough, these cookies are extremely chewy, soft and moist. While cookie dough is typically found as perfect spheres with a firm exterior and soft interior, these large oblong-shaped pieces are gooey throughout and more closely resemble homemade raw dough. It’s almost as if I took a whole tube of cut and bake cookie dough straight from the fridge and just started gnawing on it. I see no need to move onto the other two mix-ins, but I do just to be thorough.
Further down the pint the chocolate cookie swirl is calling me. This swirl is the same as found in the renowned Peanut Butter world and similar to that found in Turkey Hill’s Double Dunker. The crunch and gritty mouth feel this adds is perfect, especially when paired with the chewy cookie dough. This swirl isn’t so much of a swirl as it is large hunks of crushed up chocolate cookies. The large swirls resemble peanut butter brittle in the way it snaps and cracks as you bite it.
Halfway through the pint it becomes impossible to get a spoon of the vanilla base by itself. This is the ultimate mix-in junkie pint with the second half consisting more of the three components than the vanilla base. I am finally able to sample the chocolate chocolate chip cookie dough and I’m equally impressed. It mimics the chewy, raw cookie dough texture of its regular counterpart. My one mild complaint would be that this great mix-in gets masked by its cookie swirl brethren, but to be honest there’s no reason to nitpick given how well each component plays off one another. These are three of my favorite Ben and Jerry’s mix-ins and they all happen to be in one singular pint. To be fair, this would probably be unable to satisfy an intense craving for regular cookies and cream ice cream. With that said, this Frankenstein like creation will likely create a completely new craving to fulfill.
Where Derek Found It: Weis Markets
Grade: A
