How To Make Ice Cream Sandwiches At Home Street Fair Food Week
Do ice cream sandwiches make you think of the fair? To us, they are the ultimate street food. Whether they are served from a booth at the county fair, or from the back of an ice cream truck that just came up the road sounding like a hurdy-gurdy, ice cream sandwiches taste like summer outdoors.
We’ve talked about ice cream sandwiches a lot before, but here’s our favorite recipe for chocolate cookie ice cream sandwiches.
These cookies are firm and chewy, and they hold the ice cream while still soaking up its taste. They’re rather like those soft, chewy cookies from paper-wrapped ice cream sandwiches — except they’re homemade.
Also, a big shout-out to Jordan Ferney and her fabulous Stuck Labels line for inspiration. I wanted to order her labels for a batch of ice cream sandwiches that I made for a big party last week, but unfortunately they were sold out at the moment. So I made my own stripey labels. I may not be too crafty, but at least sticker paper is within in my purview.
Also check out these Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sandwiches — they’re heavenly when hot from the oven!
Chocolate Cut-Out Cookies
Adapted from Hershey’s. Makes twelve 2-inch sandwiches
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup dark cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Beat butter, sugar, and vanilla in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat for 3 minutes. Add the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt and beat until a soft, dark dough comes together. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and make sure the dough is fully mixed.
Pat the dough out in a long rectangle on a piece of waxed paper. Cover with another piece of waxed paper and roll with a rolling pin into 1/4 inch thickness. Remove the top piece of waxed paper and cut out shapes with a sharp cookie cutter, but don’t try to lift out the cut pieces of dough!
Lift the whole piece of dough on its waxed paper and put it on a large cutting board or baking sheet. Freeze for an hour or until very stiff.
Heat the oven to 325°F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper and remove the frozen cookie dough from the freezer. Using a thin metal spatula, carefully transfer each cut-out cookie to the cookie sheet. If desired, prick each cookie with a fork in a pattern.
Bake 5 minutes or until no indentation remains when touched. Let cool for 10 minutes to firm up, then remove to a wire rack. Let cool completely before making sandwiches.
Ice Cream Sandwiches
1 quart vanilla or strawberry ice cream (or any kind, really!)
1 batch of Chocolate Cut-Out Cookies
Freeze the ice cream until very hard, then turn it out onto a cutting board and cut into large slices about 1 inch thick. Using the same cookie cutter you used to cut out the cookies, cut slices out of the ice cream and sandwich between the cookies. Freeze the sandwiches on a cookie sheet until hard, then wrap up individually.
Of course, you can also just put scoops of the ice cream on the cookies and squish; that is totally acceptable!! (And it’s the way we normally do it.) But if you want that trim ice cream sandwich look, this is how you get it.
What’s your favorite kind of ice cream sandwich?
