"ice cream" news and stories

The battle for late-night supremacy now moves to the ice-cream aisle. On the heels of Stephen Colbert's "AmeriCone Dream" comes a new late-night funnyman-inspired ice cream flavor from Ben & Jerry's. That's right; in conjunction with the two-year anniversary of SNL alum Jimmy Fallon taking over Conan O'Brien's NBC post at Late Night, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield have created "Late Night Snack," a premium ice cream complete with Fallon's mug on the lid. Here's how it rates:

The Claims: Ben & Jerry's Late Night Snack is vanilla bean ice cream with a salty caramel swirl and fudge-covered potato chip clusters.

Dumb products show up in the supermarket every day (honestly, does anybody really need a box of frozen crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?), but the folks over at Buzzfeed have a list of 15 products that take stupidity to another level. The microwaveable pork rinds and pickle juice popsicles are bad enough, but the breaded Obama Fingers are borderline offensive. However, we'll put in one tiny dissenting vote about the bubble gum ice cream -- most kids we know go wild for the stuff.

Read the full list of 15 WTF Frozen Foods at Buzzfeed.

Ben & Jerry's, the peace-lovin' ice cream icon, started out as a couple of ex-hippies serving homemade ice cream from a converted gas station in downtown Burlington, Vermont. Since then they've achieved worldwide fame -- and been bought out by Unilever, the giant international conglomerate of more than 400 brands. All along, the company has assured fans that they're the same as they've always been. But yesterday the company dropped a bombshell: They announced they'll be removing "all-natural" from its labels.

Turns out some of Ben & Jerry's flavors contain ingredients that stretch most people's idea of "natural" -- ingredients like hydrogenated oils, invert sugar, and corn syrup. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a watchdog group that advocates for sound policy in nutrition and public health, called Ben & Jerry's out last month in a pointed letter, saying that although the company had "cultivated an image of integrity," it's been "making a misleading use of the term 'natural.' "

Ben & Jerry's has been compliant with the FDA all along -- but CSPI sees that as part of the problem. The FDA hasn't come up with an official definition of "natural," so while the public has one idea of what it means, a food purveyor can have quite another. "Apparently your corporation continues to believe that substances like hydrogenated oil and alkalized cocoa powder are 'all natural,' " the CSPI wrote stiffly.

At first, beer and ice cream seems an off-putting combination -- not unlike drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth. And I'll admit, Budweiser mixed with a scoop of Rocky Road sounds nauseating. But when done properly, like carefully pairing a stout's roasty character with chocolate, beer and ice cream create a divine dessert -- the bar by way of the freezer aisle.

During last weekend's Great American Beer Festival, Denver's Sweet Action Ice Cream joined in the boozy fun with the Denver Beer (Ice Cream) Fest: six unique flavors concocted with Colorado beer. So on Thursday, after tippling a couple lunchtime martinis at Le Central, I poked into the pub, er, ice cream shop and sampled the mash-ups.

Each week, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

• Fill them, fold them and bake them -- empanadas will take care of your leftovers.
• Buttermilk moves beyond pancakes to ice cream.
• Get the sweet skinny on the Top Chef Just Desserts contestants.
• Hold off autumn with chicken smothered in raspberry BBQ sauce.
• There is more to fall recipes than apple pie, though apple pie is a must.
• Go nuts with some legume learning.
• Will your kitchen pass a food-safety inspection?