Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream: Satisfy my bowl

Product name: Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream: Satisfy my bowl
Purchase details: £2.24 for a 500ml tub (tesco.com)
Calories: 255 per 100ml serving

I seriously don’t know how I survived for so many years without having tried the delights of Unilever’s Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. This Fairtrade Satisfy my bowl tub was a special edition to mark the 30^th anniversary of Bob Marley’s Legend album, and also supported the 1Love Foundation which funds a youth-empowerment programme in Jamaica.

I was really interested in this ice cream since it was banana flavoured (it contained 4% banana puree) but also had cookie (6%) and caramel (9%) swirls and ‘chocolatey peace signs’ (4%). To fit in with the Caribbean theme, the usual green field of the branding was replaced with a sandy beach and a cow playing a guitar. However, the pale blue sky meant the packaging was still recognisably Ben & Jerry’s.

For this variety, a 100ml serving equated to 91g, and 23% of the product was cream itself. The ice cream was pale in colour but did have some visible caramel swirls. The chocolate chunks were presented as thick discs with raised peace signs, although the visibility of this finer detail varied.

As usual for frozen products, this didn’t emit any kind of smell, but the flavour was immense and felt like a full-on dessert. I allowed my ice cream to soften a fair amount before trying it and it was ridiculously creamy! Adding to this, the banana flavour was really strong, but then there was also a lovely, sugary taste from the caramel. I can’t say I really noticed the cookie swirls as a feature but, in contrast, the size and abundance of the chocolate made a massive difference to the experience. It tasted just liked ice cream chocolate sauce but its format meant it provided a crunchy texture amid the juicy, thick, but not completely smooth ice cream.

Whilst this tub of Satisfy my bowl wasn’t quite up there with the amazing Peanut butter cup, it did feel really special and it’s a shame it was only a limited edition.

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 5/10
Taste: 8/10
Texture: 8/10
Overall score: 7.13/10

Frijj Supreme: White choc raspberry swirl

Product name: Frijj Supreme: White choc raspberry swirl

Purchase details: £1.00 for a 375ml bottle (tesco.com)
Calories: 266 per bottle
Country of origin: UK

Yesterday I reviewed a white chocolate and strawberry combo which tasted like milkshake (Lindt Lindor: Strawberries & cream), and today I’m reviewing an actual white chocolate and berry milkshake – Frijj Supreme: White choc raspberry swirl.

I love this kind of flavour combination and I’ve been wanting to try this particular product for a while but I was waiting for it to be on offer as I’m watching the pennies. I quickly snapped it up when I saw it for £1.00 online but, when it arrived, I realised its cheaper price was down to a smaller bottle than normal (by nearly 100ml). I actually saw this as a good thing, though, as I’ve previously found other Frijj milkshakes a little too large, and this made the treat less calorific whilst still allowing me to save money despite it not being as good value as I’d originally thought.

As part of the Supreme range of milkshakes, this bottle had the same overall design as the Sticky toffee pudding variety, but with purple and white splodges instead of brown ones – I thought it looked gorgeous. It carried the same general promises and was described as ‘fresh milk combined with indulgent flavours – a source of calcium and vitamin B12’. It contained no artificial colours or flavours and no gluten, and I was surprised to see that the ‘high temperature pasteurised’ drink was also low in fat – it contained 1.3g of fat per 100ml, with 0.8g being of saturates.

I was a bit confused by this shake on the basis that it contained 70% skimmed milk and 22% whole milk which was almost the same as the standard Fudge Brownie and Cookie Dough varieties. Since this was marketed as being more indulgent, I didn’t understand why it didn’t have the higher whole milk content that the Supreme: Sticky toffee pudding had.

Despite my concerns, I carried on, shaking my chilled bottle well before opening. The liquid’s appearance looked exactly like milk but it was visibly thicker and heavier to pour. It had a fantastic, gentle scent of Mr Whippy ice cream with raspberry sauce, and the base flavour was essentially sweetened milk with a bit of vanilla. However, the main taste element was the raspberry which was bang on what the aforementioned ice cream sauce is like. My brain actually found it hard to process because it tasted so much like ice cream but there was no raspberry ripple to look at!

As delicious as these flavours were, I found it a shame that I couldn’t taste the white chocolate at all, despite it being an actual ingredient rather than just a flavouring. However,  I wasn’t all that surprised by this as I remember once getting a Nestlé Milkybar milkshake from Sblended Milkshakes and finding I couldn’t taste the white chocolate there either, despite there physically being bits of it throughout! I guess it’s a flavour that’s easily overpowered...

Not to end on a downer, the drink’s texture was nice and thick and smooth. I had been feeling a bit dehydrated but it was wonderfully refreshing and, as I said, it did taste fantastic despite the absence of a noticeable white chocolate flavour. A very enjoyable treat.

Appearance: 8/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 7.88/10