The Good: Good ingredients, Not terrible on the nutrition front, Fair trade certified
The Bad: Exceptionally weak flavor, More expensive than other ice creams.
The Basics: Ben & Jerry’s Pistachio Pistachio Ice Cream is about as good as a pistachio ice cream might be, but it's enough to prove to me that I don't love pistachio ice cream.
As summer comes to an end, my local grocery store has begun a clearance sale on a ton of different ice creams. Among them was Ben & Jerry’s Pistachio Pistachio ice cream. I’m a huge fan of pistachios. I love salted pistachios; I have been wowed by some flavors of pistachios. But the truth is, I have never been enamored with pistachio ice cream. Pistachio ice cream has, in my experience, been only a faint recreation of pistachio flavor. So, when I encountered Ben & Jerry’s Pistachio Pistachio ice cream, my thought was that if anyone could make a decent pistachio ice cream, it would be Ben & Jerry's.
And they came close, I suppose. Ben & Jerry's Pistachio Pistachio ice cream is as mild as other pistachio ice creams, with more vibrantly flavorful pistachios embedded in it.
Basics
Ben & Jerry’s ice cream comes in a pint container. The Pistachio Pistachio Ice Cream is a mostly smooth ice cream with full pistachio nuts embedded in it. There are no other additives other than the nuts in this ice cream.
At (locally) $5.99 a pint, before it went on clearance, the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is an expensive ice cream, especially compared to other pistachio ice creams. Given how pistachio ice cream is a weird staple ice cream most places, perhaps what is most remarkable about Ben & Jerry's Pistachio Pistachio ice cream is that it is not artificially colored green.
Ease Of Preparation
The Pistachio Pistachio Ice Cream is a light ice cream that is loaded with pistachios. 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 Pistachio Pistachio Ice Cream!
Taste
Pistachio Pistachio ice cream smells like cream and pistachio nuts. The aroma is exactly what one expects for pistachios, thanks to pistachio pudding. The aroma of this ice cream, though, is enough like actual pistachio nuts that those who love pistachios are likely to recognize the scent.
In the mouth, Ben & Jerry’s Pistachio Pistachio ice cream tastes like sweet cream with a buttery sub-flavor. The ice cream itself is sweet and milky, combined with a faint buttery quality. Nearer the embedded pistachio nuts, the Pistachio Pistachio ice cream is appropriately nutty. The pistachio nuts taste like pistachio nuts and add texture to the ice cream without overwhelming it on the flavor front.
This ice cream has a fairly sweet aftertaste, which lingers in the mouth for several minutes after the last of it is consumed. The pistachio nuts are so coated in ice cream that, at best, they leave their buttery flavor in the mouth, as opposed to drying out the mouth.
Nutrition
The Ben & Jerry’s Pistachio Pistachio Ice Cream is a fairly light ice cream with a strong, nutty additive. The pint represents four half-cup servings. In the half-cup serving, there are 280 calories, 170 of which are from fat. The nineteen grams of fat represent 29% of the RDA of fat, with 50% of one’s RDA of saturated fat coming in the 10 grams of saturated fat in this ice cream. One serving has 80 mg of cholesterol (that’s 27% of the RDA!) and 65 mg of Sodium (3% RDA). The only other real nutrients are six grams of protein and 15% of the RDA of Calcium and 10% of the RDA of Vitamin A in the Pistachio Pistachio Ice Cream.
Ben & Jerry’s has decent ingredients. Made primarily of Cream, Skim milk, and liquid sugar! There is nothing unpronounceable in the ingredients list. The Pistachio Pistachio Ben & Jerry’s is Kosher, but not marked as gluten free. There are no allergy warnings, but anyone with allergies for eggs, milk, and/or nuts will want to avoid this 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. Ours would have lasted until the end of April, 2017 had we not consumed it all first.
The Pistachio Pistachio ice cream is fairly light and it would be surprising if it left stains outside of light fabrics. As a dairy-based food, though, 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
The Ben & Jerry’s Pistachio Pistachio ice cream is a good rendition of a flavor that is tough to make distinctive or interesting. The flavor is far more sweet than actual pistachios and that mutes what nut flavor the ice cream possesses.
For other Ben & Jerry’s ice creams, be sure to visit my reviews of:
That's My Jam Core
Ben & Jerry's Blueberry Vanilla Graham Greek Frozen Yogurt
Limited Edition Cotton Candy
4/10
For other food reviews, please visit my Food Review Index Page for an organized listing!
© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |
No comments:
Post a Comment