TV Insider Taste Test: Ben & Jerry’s Fallon-Inspired Flavor “The Tonight Dough”

Four years ago, Jimmy Fallon received the ultimate culinary honor: His own Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor. “Late Night Snack” was a blend of salty and sweet that catered to the sort of viewer inclined to stay up until 1 a.m. (You know, caramel, fudge, chocolate-covered potato chips.)

Fallon took the reins of The Tonight Show a year ago, though, so naturally he needs a new flavor to suit his gig. “The Tonight Dough,” a combination of caramel and chocolate ice creams with swirls of chocolate cookie crumbles and two types of cookie dough chunks: chocolate chip and peanut butter. The flavor is available in select stores today, but the Ben & Jerry’s downstairs from Fallon’s studio in Rockefeller Center was handing out free scoops this afternoon, so TV Insider got ourselves a little taste.

Our thoughts:

First bite: That is a lot of chocolate. (Not a complaint, necessarily.)

Second bite: Oh! There’s the caramel.

Third bite: Hello, peanut butter cookie dough. You complement the chocolate ice cream quite nicely.

Fourth bite: Chocolate cookie dough chunk, peanut butter cookie dough chunk, the cookie dust, both ice cream flavors… This is a bit overwhelming, now.

Final verdict: This is some heavy-duty stuff. The kind you bust out when your significant other of several years has just left you for someone else, and you need to consume all of your feelings in the form of a pint of ice cream, in one sitting. It’s just a little too sweet for regular consumption—a single scoop is, quite frankly, more than enough. And while the components go well together, there’s nothing particularly special about them.

Fallon’s bringing a fresh energy to what had become a stuffy, somewhat stale format, and he deserves something with a little more panache.