Unmeltable Ice Cream - brought to us by Cold Stone

A few days ago I read a report on MediaPost.com that Cold Stone Creamery debuted a new ice cream: Jell-O pudding ice cream, which reportedly combines the texture and flavor of Jell-O pudding with that of our favorite frozen dessert. For a limited time this summer (until July 28), Cold Stone is offering this new product, designed to transform into a pudding-like state (rather than a soupy mess) at room temperatures. Innovative, huh?

So, like any good marketer (or rather, like any human being with curious taste buds), I went to my local Cold Stone Creamery last night to test this new product.

I ordered "Chocolate-y Goodness" - chocolate Jell-O pudding ice cream with caramel, peanut butter, and fudge as mix-ins. The verdict? It was interesting. This new dish has the cold creaminess of ice cream, but is thicker and richer and sticks together more - like pudding. I could twirl the Jell-O pudding ice cream around my spoon, and it wouldn't drip off as normal ice cream would.

Plus, the chocolate flavor was chocolate pudding flavor, not a typical chocolate flavor. Don't believe that there is a difference? Close your eyes and try to imagine the taste and smell of chocolate pudding. It really is different from the taste of regular chocolate ice cream. (Still don't believe me? Go eat some pudding already - or, better yet, go try Cold Stone's Jell-O pudding ice cream, and see what I mean.) I didn't try the other Jell-O pudding ice cream flavors - butterscotch, vanilla, and banana - but I would imagine they exhibit the same taste phenomenon.

In the end, I'm not quite sold on this Jell-O pudding ice cream yet. It tasted good, and it was fun to try; but it was...different. It certainly is not your typical ice cream. And I think it lacks an important part of ice cream's charm - that emotional pull of remembering summer days as a kid with your family at the park or at the baseball game or on the front porch, licking away before your treat melted (or before your older brother snatched a bite of yours). That emotional, nostalgic, happy-childhood-memories connection carries huge weight in our reasons as consumers for liking a product.

I think I'll have to try the Jell-O pudding ice cream a few more times before I can give it a hearty thumbs-up. But go try some yourself. We'll see if this new innovation by Cold Stone will "stick."