Not Cherry Garcia Or Cookie Dough: This Is The Bestselling Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Flavor

When it comes to premium ice cream, Ben & Jerry's is often considered a top contender with its wide variety of sometimes wild but always delicious flavors. The brand, founded by childhood friends Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield in Burlington, Vermont, in 1978 (and now owned by Unilever) offers nearly 100 ice cream flavors, and that doesn't include the discontinued flavors that some customers would love to see make a comeback. With such a large assortment, some people may think the best-selling flavors are Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough or Cherry Garcia, but it's actually Half Baked, which has been a top contender for over a decade.

For the uninitiated, Half Baked includes both chocolate and vanilla ice cream that's studded with chocolate-chip cookie dough and chocolate brownies. It's rich, gooey, and chewy, and has a dedicated fan base. On the brand's website, it earned a 4.8 out of 5 stars based on 2,427 reviews. Customers describe it as "unbeatable," "perfectly balanced," and "the best ice cream I've ever eaten in my life," among other praises sung in its honor. Ben & Jerry's released the flavor in 2000, and it's actually a mash-up of two of the brand's other flavors.

The two flavors Ben & Jerry's combined to create its best-selling Half Baked back in 2000 have been around for decades longer. The first flavor, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, was actually invented by the company back in 1984, based on an anonymous suggestion for then-brand-new product that today has become pretty ubiquitous. The second flavor, Chocolate Fudge Brownie, has been around since 1991. Perhaps not surprisingly, since Ben & Jerry's is well-known for being socially conscious, it tapped Greyston Bakery from Yonkers, New York, for its fudge brownies. The bakery, which was started by Buddhist monk Bernie Glassman in 1982, has an inclusive hiring policy, giving jobs to folks who might not be hired elsewhere, making for a sweet story to go along with this sweet treat.

Half Baked has other positive aspects aside from its combination of flavors and textures. It uses non-genetically-modified ingredients, cage-free eggs, Fairtrade ingredients — meaning they're more ethically sourced — and the cream comes from humanely operated dairies. While it's most likely Half Baked's flavor profile that has made it such a bestseller, the company's dedication to quality ingredients is part and parcel to why it tastes as it does. And although we ranked this flavor third in our list of the best Ben & Jerry's flavors, it's hard to argue with all of Half Baked's fans.