Ben & Jerry’s Cannoli Ice Cream

When it comes to Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, it’s all about two flavors for me: Americone Dream and What a Cluster. I’ll dabble in Phish Food and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, and I was into Magic Brownies (despite the Dave Matthews Band association) because it tasted like my hometown favourite, Graeter’s Black Raspberry Chip. But my local Ben & Jerry’s spot was running low on the good stuff and running high on Late Night Snack and the Greek yogurt flavors the other night, so my boyfriend convinced me to try the limited edition Cannoli.

This picture is about as exciting as the ice cream itself was. The mascarpone base was a cross between vanilla bean and cake batter ice cream flavors that I actually wouldn’t mind tasting in more vanilla-based pints, especially with its end notes of butterscotch. The pastry hunks were very crunchy, and the chocolate they were dipped in had an alcoholic taste with a hint of cherry. Not bad, if a bit overpowering.

The disappointment was in the mascarpone swirl, which was only evident by a fleeting hint of graininess; we couldn’t detect a flavor difference between the base and the swirl. Either the swirl needed to be more Amazonian so the texture could make up for the lack of flavor excitement, or it could have been the traditional ricotta of a cannoli, or even better would have been something completely different, like the chocolate chips you see on a lot of Brooklyn cannolis.

I liked the overall effect of a slightly cheesy, elevated cake batter. I’ll just know to bring my own Nutella and M&Ms to the ice cream party next time.