Cinnamon Buns is labeled as "caramel ice cream with cinnamon bun dough and a cinnamon streusel swirl." Now when you read this the only thing you may think about is the overall aspect of walking into a bakery and picking up a fresh cinnamon bun that is layered with frosting and melting in your mouth. I have ran into this pint before, but after seeing people go for it, I had to actually call my local manager at my grocery store because they were not stocking it. Luckily, they made a small order and got a couple pints in to stock one shelf instead of putting another flavor on that shelf instead due to overall sales.
Upon cracking the lid you can see there is not much surprise. Just a nice looking caramel ice cream and no sign of a swirl or chunks of the cinnamon bun dough. But that would soon change after digging in. The base is very good and probably one of Ben & Jerry's superior flavors that they should utilize in more bases. It has a very, very rich cinnamon flavoring with a nice, small caramel aftertaste (base) because of the overall mixture of swirl that is present in the pint. Overall, it is lightly spiced, but has a nice thick and dense flavoring that is very pleasing and is enjoyed from the first bite to the last, especially as you dig deeper into the pint.
Now as you get into the first few bites, you really start to see the overall swirl and the globs of the dough that was stated in the pint description. Just think about taking cinnamon roll dough and putting them into small little globs and eating them. It's like being a kid and eating the cookie dough out of the wrapper before baking the cookies. Same case here with the dough. It's so rich and full of cinnamon flavoring. The overall swirl is very strong and gives you a very sweet cinnamon flavoring that is not on the light side and really enhances the overall flavoring of the pint. It is literally like you took cinnamon sugar out of a spice bottle and dumped it into this pint and swirled it around the caramel ice cream.
The nice thing is that the cinnamon bun dough is not very hard, it's on the softer side as most of Ben & Jerry's mix-ins can become harder (think their peanut butter cups or other bigger mix-ins like the balls in the Chocolate Peppermint Crunch). The overall swirl and cinnamon bun globs make this pint a keeper and an A score. If they were to add another mix-in with this pint it would easily be a top tier pint, but this should be damn near close to everyone's top 10 who have tried the Ben & Jerry's line because of its strong flavoring and reminds those of cinnamon buns if you ever grabbed one from a bakery. The overall texture and taste of the pint is very good from top to bottom and always worthy of a rescoop when in the cinnamon bun mood.
Where Bob Found It: Wegmans
Bob's Grade: A
