Late Night Ice Cream Wars

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The summer’s first real heat wave had me craving ice cream.

While I usually make my own, I love sampling premium ice cream when it’s on sale. Last week it just so happened that my favorite grocery store had Ben & Jerry’s pints on sale for $2.99 a piece.

While perusing the store’s somewhat limited selection of flavors, I noticed they had Americone Dream and The Tonight Dough—flavors I wrote about a few years back for an Emmy article about Ben & Jerry’s TV-themed ice cream flavors, but at that time, Americone Dream was the only flavor I could find locally.

I decided to buy one of each.

Well, they were half price. And with an unrelenting heat wave on the horizon, one pint of ice cream would not suffice.

As soon as I grabbed the ice cold pints from the freezer case, I knew I wanted to do a taste test for the blog. Instead of the Cola Wars, we’ll call this the Late Night Ice Cream Wars.

Proceed  with caution. You will probably wind up craving ice cream if you read beyond this point. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The Tonight Dough Starring Jimmy Fallon 

Two ice creams–caramel and chocolate–intertwined with a chocolate cookie swirl and chunks of chocolate chip cookie dough and peanut butter cookie dough.

I didn’t realize one of the ice cream flavors was caramel until I read the label—probably because the chocolate, cookie bits, and cookie doughs overshadowed it. But when I isolated some of the caramel ice cream it was delicious. While the subtle caramel-y-ness doesn’t come through as much as I’d like, I really loved how the slight bitterness of the cookie bits and the chocolate ice cream balanced out the sweetness of the blended delight.

Americone Dream

Classic, rich vanilla ice cream combined with a caramel swirl and plenty of fudge-covered waffle cone bits.

This flavor blend dates back to Stephen Colbert’s Colbert Report days, so the vanilla base seems apropos. But combining that with sweet caramel and the waffle cone bits was a bit too sweet-on-sweet for my taste. The fudge that covers the waffle cone pieces (primarily so they stay crisp after being added to the ice cream) was my favorite thing about this flavor, but I am a chocoholic.

Bottom Line: I’d love to see what flavor combo Ben & Jerry’s could come up with for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, since Colbert himself has a lot more bite than his Colbert Report persona had. It wouldn’t be without precedent, since back when Fallon hosted Late Night with Jimmy Fallon they created Late Night Snack which was a vanilla bean ice cream with a salted caramel swirl and, get this, bites of fudge covered potato chips.

The real question I’m left with after this refreshing taste test? Why doesn’t Jimmy Kimmel have a late night flavor, too?

 

 

 

Paula Hendrickson
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