Too much competes for your attention in Ben and Jerry's Half Baked. Indeed, due to overindulgence and lack of editing Half Baked is just barely more than half as good as B & J's best varieties.

The good in Half Baked are the delicious brownie bits. Single handedly those bits are capable of making Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie one of their best flavors. Unfortunately, when slopped around with a smattering of vanilla ice cream and some of the creapiest cookie dough bits ever they just can't turn things around.

So what is it with these odd dough bits? They taste like old, chewey cookies soaked in rum and whiskey. Alcohol in ice cream can be delicious, as attested to in one of my favorite ice cream flavors, rum raisin. Unfortunately, B&J's execution would have you believe otherwise. Now consider this: there isn't even alcohol in this particular flavor, a fact that leaves the mystery of these dough bits decidedly unsolved.

Overall, Half Baked isn't terrible but it is unmemorable. Keeping two disparate flavors side by side might work from time to time. Slopping them together as one messy concoction never does. So when it comes to the one redeeming quality of Half Baked, the fudge brownies, no doubt you'd be better off sticking with a singular pint of Chocolate Fudge Brownie. And so would I.

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