Ben & Jerry's ice cream toasts the competition

If you want to make a great ice cream treat, start with great ice cream.

And for great ice cream, grab a pint of Ben & Jerry's.

The Vermont-based ice cream company earned kudos for both its basic vanilla and chocolate ice creams from Cook's Illustrated magazine and its sister publication Cook's Country.

Cook's Illustrated had 21 staffers do a blind taste test of eight national and regional top-selling brands of vanilla ice cream as determined by Chicago-based Information Resources. Ben & Jerry's Vanilla at $4.39 a pint was the only "highly recommended" ice cream.

Tasters called it "indulgent," with "ultra-creamy dense" texture.

In fact Ben & Jerry's was the densest of the ice creams with 24 percent overrun (that's ice cream speak for air pumped into the mixture to give it a lighter texture). For comparison Blue Bunny All Natural Vanilla ($1.55 a pint) has 78 percent overrun and Breyers Natural Vanilla ($1.33 a pint) has 94 percent. Both those brands fell into the magazine's "recommended" category.

On the chocolate side of the aisle, Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Ice Cream (3.99 a pint) drew comments including "pleasantly creamy" with flavor "dark" and "more concentrated" than others in the blind taste test.

Still, Ben & Jerry's chocolate with its 22 percent overrun earned only a "recommended" rating along with Edy's Grand Rich & Creamy Chocolate (97 percent overrun/$3.09 for 1.5 quarts); Blue Bunny Chocolate Champion (97 percent overrun/$3.19 for 1.75 quarts); and Friendly's Rich and Creamy Classic Chocolate (94 percent overrun/$2.99 for 1.5 quarts.

No brand was ranked "highly recommended."