This is one of my oldest recipes for homemade ice cream sandwiches. Since posting it, I've filled them with different flavors of ice cream including chocolate mint, Neapolitan and even bourbon. Choosing an ice cream flavor has always been the easiest part, but it took me a while to find a chocolate ice cream sandwich cake base that I really liked.
Ice Cream Sandwich Base Recipe
The recipe was originally adapted from one I found in the 2002 July/August issue of Cook's Illustrated. Over time I found myself making more and more changes, from the pan size to the ingredient ratios, until it became the version I now use. The recipe below reflects those updates.
Ice Cream Sandwich Shape
The CI team made their sandwiches round because they wanted to show how you could slice through a pint size paper ice cream carton and make instant round circles of ice cream for your sandwiches. I wanted mine to be rectangular like traditional ice cream sandwiches, but the rectangular ones were a little too large.
Squares worked out best for more reasonable portion sizes.
Taste and Texture
There's plenty of chocolate flavor from the cocoa powder and chocolate syrup. For the cocoa powder, I prefer natural here because it makes the cookie just slightly puffier and lighter, but Dutch works well too. More flavor is going to come from the ice cream, which is the star of the show. These are tasty and wouldn't be overly rich if used in ice cream sandwich cake. They're soft and tight crumbed without being at all greasy tasting.
Also, sorry I can't get rid of this picture of Neapolitan, but I like it. Plus it's a reminder that I need to make these again with Neapolitan and position the squares so that each ice cream sandwich has three different flavor stripes.
Recipe
Homemade Ice Cream Sandwiches
Ingredients
- 1 quart of your favorite ice cream, or mix and match
- ⅔ cup unbleached all-purpose flour (90 grams)
- ⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (28 grams)
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ⅛ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- ½ cup granulated sugar (100 grams)
- 3 tablespoons chocolate syrup (60 grams)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled (56 grams)
- 2 tablespoons neutral vegetable oil
Instructions
- Line an 8-inch square pan with plastic wrap, leaving enough overhang to lift out the ice cream later. Spread slightly softened ice cream evenly in the pan. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and freeze until completely firm.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Spray a 9x13inch pan or two 8-inch pans with cooking spray and line with parchment paper.
- In a medium size bowl, thoroughly mix together the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda.
- In a large mixing bowl using an electric mixer, beat the egg, yolk and sugar for about a minute. Beat in the chocolate syrup and vanilla extract and beat for another 2 minutes. Add butter and oil and beat until mixed, then with a heavy rubber scraper or a spoon, stir in the flour mixture until incorporated.
- Pour batter into lined pan. Using a rubber scraper, scrape it as evenly possible across the surface of the pan. For extra smoothness, you can dampen your fingers ever so lightly with water and tap, tap, tap across the top.
- Bake 10-12 minutes or until until it seems firm and set. Remove from oven and let cool completely. Lift from pan and set cookie on a large cutting board.
- Cut the cooled cookie into two equal rectangles. Place one rectangle, cut side up, on a large sheet of plastic wrap. Lift the frozen ice cream from the pan, peel away the plastic, and center the ice cream square on top of the cookie. Place the second cookie rectangle on top, cut side down, gently pressing just until the layers adhere.
- Wrap the entire sandwich tightly in plastic wrap and freeze until very firm, at least 2 hours. Cut into bars or squares with a large sharp knife, wiping the blade clean between cuts if needed.
Anna says
Hi Katie,
I'm glad you liked them! Thanks for the tip on flattening the dough. Mine was definitely too thin to roll, but I suppose if you used a greased rolling pin you could gently roll it over it to flatten -- I think that's what you meant, right?
By the way, did you weigh your flour or just measure it? I always weigh mine. If you measured by volume, you could have used up to 5 1/2 or even 6 oz of flour which might have contributed to the thickness of the dough.
Katie says
MADE IT: They were quite good, almost fudgy. But for a heads up, the "dough" was very very thick in my case. I would even recommend using a rolling pin greased with butter to get it nice and thin and flat, and using parchment paper instead of tin foil.
Amy @ What Jew Wanna Eat says
Ice cream sandwiches are one of my favorite desserts ever! Besides mint chocolate chip ice cream. This combines them both- yum!
Holiday Baker Man says
Perfect for the upcoming long weekend!
Rebecca says
I might need to make these soon! They look just the thing for the heat wave we're expecting.
Darlene says
Carla Hall (on the Chew) gave a great suggestion for filling homemade ice cream sandwiches. To prevent ice crystals from forming when you let store-bought ice cream soften and then re-harden, she cuts down the sides of a rectangular ice cream container, peels it away, and then slices the still frozen hard ice cream. I think she then used a biscuit/cookie cutter to cut the ice cream and brownies into round shapes, assembled, and rolled the edges in assorted treats (mini chocolate chips, M&Ms, etc).
Gloria says
These look delicious. I have a batch of your vanilla ice cream in the freezer now. Wish I would have done my homework better and read your post on how to make melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chunks for ice cream. I ended up with tasteless, hard chunks. I think I'm going to pick them out and try your oil method!!! Hate to ruin a batch of delicious ice cream!!!