Taste testing cookie dough ice cream
Cookie dough ice cream requires a proper balance. It starts with a creamy and sweet vanilla base. Chocolate chips should complement, not overpower, the hero of this frozen treat: the cookie dough.
Biting into each chunk of cookie dough should taste like it was stolen from your grandmother’s mixing bowl and placed into the ice cream by the frozen treat fairy.
And don’t waste my time with spoonfuls devoid of cookie dough chunks.
With those expectations in mind, I embarked on an ingestigative report of the cookie dough ice cream flavors commonly available in freezers across Wisconsin.
I expected brands with higher prices and more calories to rise to the top. By cost and calorie measures, it’s no surprise that Ben & Jerry’s blew away all others in achieving the tastiest trinity of vanilla, chocolate and cookie dough flavor. Still, there were a few disappointments and surprises among the other 10 brands tasted.
Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
Cost: $4.29-$6.49 (16 ounces)
Calories: 370 per 2⁄3 cup serving Scoopability: Hard. Needs time at room temperature to soften.
Base ice cream: Creamiest and best vanilla flavor of all brands tasted.
Cookie dough: Buttery brown sugar blend. Homemade cookie dough should taste this good.
Cookie dough to ice cream ratio: Big hunks of cookie dough in every bite.
Overall: Restrained distribution of chocolate chips outside of the dough keeps the proper flavors in focus. If you have the money and calories to spare, Ben & Jerry’s delivers local ice cream shop quality.
Blue Bunny Super Chunky Cookie Dough