ice cream sandwiches

serious eats

Made ice cream sandwiches for my b-day dessert. Tried out a new cookie recipe for the occasion, developed by Kenji on Food Lab. The cookies were a disappointment. The recipe had needlessly technical steps that didn't end up working, and the instructions had incorrect timing. Firstly, it took much longer than a few minutes to beat the eggs and sugar until they had a ribbon-like consistency. Secondly, the brown butter was still quite liquid-y after cooling in the fridge for well over 20 minutes. I proceeded with the recipe as written, but the cookies spread like crazy when they baked. Based on similar feedback in the recipe comments, it seems that the butter needs more time to cool, so that it's closer to solid when you add it to the other ingredients.

Despite my grievances, the ice cream sandwiches were fantastic. It's pretty hard to be unhappy with an ice cream sandwich, at the end of the day. For future reference, I found one pint of hagan daz ice cream to be the perfect amount for making four ice cream sandwiches. It's best to assemble the ice cream sandwiches at least a few hours ahead of time so that the ice cream can re-freeze, and the sandwiches aren't a melty mess.

If I make ice cream sandwiches again, I'll perhaps revert to the king arthur cookie recipe that I've been using. There's a recipe on sally's baking addiction that specifically makes cookies designed for ice cream sandwiches, in the sense that they're softer than most CCC recipes, and so won't get as hard when you freeze them. I'm not sure this is necessary; the cookies in an ice cream sandwich haven't been too hard in my experience. But this is something to consider, and maybe try eventually.