Chocolate chip cookie dough

This past weekend I learned the origin story of one of our country’s most magical flavors.

Sidney and I watch a show called “The Food That Built America.” It normally airs on the History Channel but since we don’t have cable we stream it on Hulu. The series chronicles the development of iconic foods and the people/companies that invent and produce them.

“The Food That Built America” is an awesome show.

Currently we are watching season five and recently finished an episode titled Ice Cream Revolution. It told the story of how America eventually moved beyond just vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice creams to richer flavors with candy mix-ins.

At one point, the show shifted to Dairy Queen’s introduction of the Blizzard. DQ bolstered its investment by officially partnering with candy and snack companies for its mix-ins. For example, Dairy Queen and Mars signed a contract so the fast food/soft serve giant could use M&M’s and Snickers in its Blizzards while also using the logos of the candy in its restaurants and marketing collateral.

Dairy Queen also partnered with Nabisco to use Oreos in its cookies and cream Blizzard. With this exclusive partnership now signed, Nabisco went after ice cream companies using its signature product in their own cookies and cream flavors. At the top of the list was Ben & Jerry’s. For years prior to the Blizzard, Ben & Jerry’s made a mint cookies and cream flavor that implied the use of Oreo cookies. Yep, DQ put a stop to that.

Desperate to replace its beloved ice cream flavor with something different, Ben & Jerry’s tried to come up with a new cookie-based flavor. While baking cookies for testing, they had a very bright idea: Why not just put the dough itself inside the ice cream? Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream was born!

Just in the same way that Sloan was mixing cookie dough, an idea sprouted in the minds of Ben & Jerry’s.

What a genius idea it was. Who doesn’t this flavor appeal to? I really feel Ben & Jerry’s hit gold by capitalizing on what Americans like even more than actual baked cookies…the cookie dough!

Then there is the nostalgia piece. Most of us have memories of eating the leftover cookie dough from mom’s baking bowl or just plotting an outright attack on the dough before it was even placed on a cookie sheet.

The combination of cookie dough and ice cream just works. In fact, the cookie dough flavor works for pretty much everything else including Pop-Tarts, Oreos, and protein bars. But let me not digress. This post is about chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and I have just two short stories to share.

Cookie dough and ice cream just go together. I got this cookie dough sundae from Sonic.

The first one is about 27 years old. I estimate I was about 11 when I had Ben & Jerry’s chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream for the first time. We were at an old pizza parlor in north Spokane and they had a cooler case with Ben & Jerry’s pints inside of it. My mom bought a chocolate chip cookie dough pint and I was blown away. It was like nothing I had ever tasted in my life. The rich vanilla ice cream combined with the gobs of cookie dough made my taste buds dance. I never knew ice cream could taste so good.

The first time I tried Ben & Jerry’s chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream was pretty special.

My other chocolate chip cookie dough story is actually chronicled in a blog post I wrote nine years ago. My wife was a great sport as she taste-tested five different chocolate chip cookie dough ice creams. The result is still shocking to this day.

Ben & Jerry’s chocolate chip cookie dough was definitely one of the cookie dough ice creams tested.

If you have time to watch the Ice Cream Revolution episode of “The Food That Built America” you won’t be disappointed. Just the chemistry of how Ben & Jerry’s was able to pack its ice cream with cookie dough pieces is worth it. Enjoy! Don’t Blink.

For my big Sunday blog post, I wanted to write about a couple of my favorite topics I have covered in Don’t Blink before. One is ice cream (here, here, and here) and the other is taste tests. I combined these two joys of mine to create an intriguing and nerdy investigation.

I once ate seven scoops of ice cream in five minutes.

Besides the three originals of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, there is another major player when it comes to ice cream flavors. Can you guess it? If you even care a small amount about ice cream you know I am talking about chocolate chip cookie dough. It doesn’t matter what brand you buy, what parlor you visit, or what gas station cooler you raid, chocolate chip cookie dough will be offered. It is an institution in the ice cream world.

We all know that all ice cream isn’t created equal. Even with vanilla, I could give you three different brands and you would be able to tell a difference between each one. However, with chocolate chip cookie dough, the variations in a scoop of generic product compared with a scoop of the Baskin-Robbins version are numerous. Besides the ice cream itself, you also have the quality of the cookie dough, the amount of cookie dough per serving, the size of the cookie dough, and the quality/amount of the chocolate chips/chocolate chunks.

An incredible cookie dough ice cream sundae Sidney and I once devoured.

So while the perception is that the premium brand of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream is superior to the generic brand of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, I wanted to test it out to be 100% sure. Today I went to a couple different stores and bought five different chocolate chip cookie dough ice creams.

Representing the generic group, I purchased the Great Value Wal-Mart brand and the Lowe’s Foods brand (for those out west, Lowe’s is a major grocery chain out here on the east coast). Representing the premium brand, I bought Ben & Jerry’s (how couldn’t I?) and Blue Bunny. Representing the middle of the line so to speak, I also bought a tub of the Breyers stuff.

This is the lineup of different cookie dough ice creams I bought this morning.

Striving to be completely scientific and unbiased, I had Sidney serve as my official taste tester. I served a small scoop of each ice cream to her in an unmarked paper bowl. I then asked for her input!

Going in order starting with the best, here is how Sidney ranked each chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream along with her comments on each.

#1. Great Value (tasted first) – In an absolute shocker, Sidney identified the Wal-Mart brand cookie dough ice cream as her favorite. She said the ice cream was creamy and the cookie dough very tasty. She adamantly thought that the Great Value brand was Ben & Jerry’s. At under $3 per gallon, the Great Value ice cream was by far the least expensive but according to Sid’s taste buds it was the best!

In the surprise of the century, Sidney liked the Great Value cookie dough ice cream the best.

#2. Lowe’s Foods (tasted third) – Continuing the surprising results, the Lowe’s Foods chocolate chip cookie dough dairy dessert was rated second best by Sidney. Although she commented that there was only a fair amount of cookie dough pieces in the dessert, she liked the vanilla ice cream the most out of all the selections she tasted today. So there you have it, two generic brands take the top two spots.

Coming in second place was the other generic brand, Lowe’s Foods.

#3. Blue Bunny (tasted fourth) – Although the Blue Bunny brand is third on the list, it is number one for presentation. When you open up the tub, the ice cream is molded into little hills mixed with cookie dough swirls. It makes for easy scooping. Sidney said the ice cream tasted similar to the Great Value version but it just didn’t have enough cookie dough. Also, Sidney thought the cookie dough swirl was a caramel swirl. Additionally, Blue Bunny says the ice cream is cookie dough flavored but it really just tasted like vanilla.

In the middle of the pack was ice cream powerhouse Blue Bunny.

#4. Ben & Jerry’s – If you told Ben or Jerry that their ice cream finished behind Wal-Mart and a couple other brands, neither would be very happy. However, it is what it is. While Sidney gave them points for having the largest pieces of cookie dough, it didn’t make up for the fact that the pieces were too few and far between. But get this, she was less than impressed with the ice cream itself. Sidney said the vanilla ice cream tasted artificial, a major slap in the face to a company that prides itself on being all-natural.

In a million years I never thought Ben & Jerry’s would be so low on the list.

#5. Breyers – In the past I have praised this ice cream brand but it didn’t live up to my praise in the blind taste test. Sidney thought the ice cream tasted the most artificial out of them all. She commented that the small pieces cookie dough just didn’t taste very good. She also noted the lack of both cookie dough and chocolate chunks in the dessert. It was a bad day for Breyers.

Bringing up the rear was Breyers.

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So now we have four gallons of ice cream plus a pint (Ben & Jerry’s) in the freezer. Brenda and Steph, if you are reading this, please come over and take some ice cream off our hands. Hope everyone enjoyed the review. Again I will reiterate that I was surprised by the results. I guess it is never smart to immediately discredit generic brands. Don’t Blink.