One Chunk Too Many: Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk Ice Cream Is Undone By Its Packaging!

The Good: Tastes mostly wonderful, especially as it gets warmer.
The Bad: More expensive than other ice creams, Packaging inhibits getting the chunks easily, Horribly un-nutritious
The Basics: Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk Ice Cream is a mess of flavors and is a real pain in the ass to get out of the package!


We have all been lied to. Yes, today, the great service I can provide to the masses is to help us all realize just how badly we have been lied to. More is not better. And ice cream, even though it might be better frozen, has a richer taste as it moves toward room temperature. The latter I have been discovering as I review Ben & Jerry’s ice creams and experience it melting some as I write the “taste” section of each one. As for the former point, I realized this as I wrestled with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream. Trying to get into the frozen ice cream that is loaded with additives becomes a study in frustration. About the time one plunges the spoon or scoop down in the carton deep enough to actually get some ice cream, one hits a piece of frozen fudge or a nut that inhibits movement. This ice cream is a pain in the ass to eat.

And as one who is not thrilled by nuts (I love chocolate chunks!), the Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk Ice Cream is not an incredible ice cream, for flavor, convenience, or nutrition.

Basics

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream comes in a pint container. The New York Super Fudge Chunk Ice Cream is a chunky ice cream: the basic chocolate ice cream mixed with white and dark chocolate fudge pieces and nuts, including walnuts, chocolate-covered almonds, and pecans. About half the bites I had had the chunks in them; the others were smooth and basically were spoon-sized because I hit a chunk in the middle, as opposed to an edge that allowed me to wrestle it out of the pint! Like many Ben & Jerry’s premium ice creams, New York Super Fudge Chunk is loaded with stuff – half great (the chocolate chunks), half disappointing (I’m not so big into nuts).

At (locally) $4.19 a pint, the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is an expensive ice cream. That I found it on clearance for $2.10 was a steal!

Ease Of Preparation

The New York Super Fudge Chunk Ice Cream is a loaded ice cream. As an ice cream, preparation is ridiculously simple: one need only open the top of the container, scoop out a half cup and consume! There is no trick to preparing or eating the New York Super Fudge Chunk Ice Cream, though this one is inhibited by the chunks in the ice cream; it is a pain to get out of the pint.

Taste

New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream smells richly of chocolate with a slightly nutty afterscent. The aroma is mostly that of surprisingly dark chocolate and it is chased by the scent of roasted nuts. The nut scent is very much sublimated, at least initially, to the chocolate flavor.

As far as the taste goes, New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream is something different in each and every bite. The chocolate ice cream flavor tastes delightfully darker – drier and less sweet – than the standard chocolate ice cream. The chocolate flavor remains dark and flavorful, regardless of the ice cream’s temperature. However, the additives in this ice cream begin to assert themselves more as the temperature rises. The nuts – pecan, almond, and walnuts – which initially taste just like a change of texture without any real difference in flavor – become buttery flavored and appropriately nutlike as the temperature rises.

Amid the annoying, dry nuts, there are delightful fudge chunks in New York Super Fudge Chunk. Just like the nuts, when the ice cream is very cold, the fudge chunks do little to change or enhance the flavor of this ice cream. However, as the temperature rises some, the fudge chunks add sweetness and an additional chocolate element to the ice cream. The white chocolate fudge chunks especially sweeten the ice cream in a delightful way that cuts the dryness of the initial dark chocolate ice cream flavor.

Nutrition

The Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk Ice Cream is a fairly heavy ice cream with heavy additives. The pint represents four half-cup servings. In the half-cup serving, there are an astonishing 300 calories, 180 of which are from fat! The twenty grams of fat represent 31% of the RDA of fat, with 55% of one’s RDA of saturated fat coming in the 11 grams of saturated fat in this ice cream! One serving has 50 mg of cholesterol (that’s 17% of the RDA!) and 55 mg of Sodium (2% RDA). The only other real nutrients are four grams of protein and 15% of the RDA of Iron, and 10% of the RDA of both Calcium and Vitamin A in the New York Super Fudge Chunk Ice Cream.

Ben & Jerry’s has good ingredients, at least. Made primarily of Cream, Liquid Sugar, and Skim milk New York Super Fudge Chunk has nothing really bad in it! There is nothing unpronounceable in the ingredients list. The New York Super Fudge Chunk Ben & Jerry’s is Kosher, but not marked as gluten free. There are no allergy warnings on the package, which might be because Ben & Jerry assume you are smart enough to read the ingredients and determine for yourself if you are allergic to anything in the ice cream.

Storage/Clean-Up

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is both a frozen and a dairy product, so it is pretty obvious that it must be kept frozen in order to remain viable. Kept frozen it remains fresh for months (my pint had an expiration date of July 29, 2013, which made it even more baffling why it would be clearanced now).

The New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream is fairly heavy, but the ice cream itself and chocolate chunks are sticky and will absolutely stain. As well, when the ice cream melts and gets onto fabrics, it will require one to wash it right out. On nonporous surfaces, the ice cream wipes off exceptionally easily.

Overall

Ben & Jerry’s has a lot of great flavors, but New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream is just the product of great hype. It’s too busy for the taste rewards and between the lack of nutrition and how intrusive the nuts are, this ice cream is just a disappointment.

For other ice creams, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Ben & Jerry’s Cheesecake Brownie ice cream
Ben & Jerry’s Willie Nelson’s Country Peach Cobbler Ice Cream
Breyers Blasts Chips Ahoy! ice cream

4.5/10

For other food reviews, please visit my Food Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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