- This episode is sponsored by Four Sigmatic.
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and have loved using Four Sigmatic protein powder
to recover from workouts.
It's amazing flavor comes from real ingredients
and no artificial flavors.
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The link is in the description.
- [Kid] Cookie Cat, he's a pet for your tummy.
Cookie Cat, he's super duper yummy.
Cookie Cat, he left his family behind.
Cookie Cat. Now available at Gurgens off route 109.
- Hey what's up guys,
welcome back to Binging with Babish
where this week we're taking a look at Cookie Cat
from Steven Universe.
Now, I am no stranger to ice cream sandwiches.
Here's one leftover from the basics episode I did on him.
Let's see if this is still good.
That was 10 months and a whole apartment ago.
That's a little freezer burn.
Anyway, first things first
we got to make us a custom Cookie Cat cutter mold.
So I got one of these make your own
custom cookie cutter kits.
Basically a strip of aluminum
that you have to bend and crease
and arts and crafts were never my strong suit
so I don't think this is going to go terribly well
and it came out perfect. Wow, that was surprisingly easy.
And speaking of which,
we're going to start off with a super easy version.
If you're just looking for a fun project to do
with the kids on a rainy Saturday.
I got a pint each vanilla and strawberry
store-bought ice cream that I'm going to press
into a quarter sheet using some parchment paper.
Send it back into the freezer
for at least an hour to firm back up
and for the exterior of the ice cream sandwich,
I'm going to take a page out of my own book
and make it out of cake.
I think that cake is a superior ice cream sandwich vehicle
because it stays soft in the fridge.
So I got a simple boxed chocolate cake mix here
that I'm preparing according to manufacturer's instructions
but then deviating wildly
from said instructions by spreading thin
in a large rimmed baking sheet.
Baking for about 15 minutes
until the top is glossy and the cake is set.
Then we'll let it cool for just about five minutes
before applying my Cookie Cat cutter
mold-shaped cutting tool.
And using the back of a large piping tip
to cut out the eyes.
Then we're going to remove the excess cake
and grab our ice cream out the freezer.
and store-bought ice cream freezes up pretty hard
so you're probably gonna want to use
the bottom of a large saucepan to press down evenly
and get your Cookie Cat cutter through the s'cream
And we're going to break off the excess s'cream,
don't throw it away or anything,
it's still perfectly edible.
You can use it to make a weird shaped sundae.
Then on some parchment paper,
we're going to plop down one of our cake pieces,
top that with our ice cream cutout, and one more cake piece.
We're throwing that back in the freezer for a couple hours,
both to bind the cake to the ice cream
and to firm up the cake.
And there you have it.
A quick and easy Cookie Cat
you can knock out as a fun project with kids
or with your inner kid.
Per Steven's instructions,
we're starting with the ears and it's certainly good.
It's chocolate cake and ice cream,
but it's still more of a cake cat.
To make the genuine article,
we're going to start by making our own no-churn ice cream.
We're combining one cup of cold, heavy cream,
half a can of sweetened condensed milk, about seven ounces,
half teaspoon of kosher salt,
and one teaspoon of vanilla extract,
and our secret weapon, about two ounces of clotted cream.
This stuff's pretty widely available in jars
at the supermarket but an acceptable substitute
is one ounce of mascarpone cheese,
diluted with two ounces of heavy cream.
This is going to crank up the fat content of our ice cream
which is going to help keep it soft in the freezer.
Using a hand mixer,
we are beating this stuff to stiff peaks.
So basically what we're making here is
kind of like an enriched whipped cream,
which when frozen will make for a smooth creamy
and most importantly, bite-able ice cream.
We're spreading that out in half our sheet pan
and then it's time to make our strawberry ice cream
for which we're going to need some strawberries.
Which we can optionally roast
to amplify their strawberry flavor.
You definitely don't have to place small cut side down.
Why'd you do that, Andy?
Yeah, that's what I thought.
Anyway, we're roasting these at 350
for about 25 minutes.
After which time, they'll look very much the same
but they'll be soft and poke-able
and they will have a deeper, more jam like flavor.
So we're going to let these cool off for a few minutes
before dumping them into a food processor.
Pureeing them into a puree
and straining said puree through a fine mesh sieve.
Now our puree is going to, obviously,
add a lot of liquid to our ice cream.
So, we need to alter the formula a little bit.
This time, six ounces of heavy cream,
six ounces of sweetened condensed milk,
three ounces of clotted cream or clotted cream substitute,
half teaspoon of kosher salt,
and one teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Beat this to stiff peaks
and then we're going to fold in our strawberry puree,
in an effort not to deflate all the nice air
that we've whipped into our ice cream base.
Once you got that all folded in there,
you can optionally add some pink food coloring
which I definitely should have done.
Otherwise, you can just pour it in
next to your vanilla on the sheet tray,
smooth it out using an offset spatula.
That's kind of satisfying looking.
And just to make sure it's extra flat,
top it with some parchment paper
and press it down lightly with another rim quarter sheet.
And we're going to wrap this guy thoroughly in plastic wrap.
Don't want to any freezer burn going on
and stick 'em in the freezer for at least four hours.
Plenty of time to make the cookies for our Cookie Cat.
Now Kendall and I ended up making
seven different batches of cookie here
because we really wanted to nail the look and the texture.
It had to be smooth, it had to have clean edges,
had to not fall apart when you try to pick it up,
and we wanted it to have a slight cookie crunch
and I think we finally nailed it.
Into the bowl of a stand mixer
goes 75 grams of softened butter,
100 grams of granulated sugar,
50 grams of light brown sugar,
and a half teaspoon each, baking soda and salt.
And we're going to cream everybody together on high speed
until it is light and fluffy.
While that's creamin',
we are sifting together 80 grams
of high quality cocoa powder
with 160 grams of all purpose flour.
Adding a third of that mixture
to the stand mixer on low speed,
combining one teaspoon of vanilla
with 110 milliliters of whole milk,
which likewise, we're going to add a third of to the mixer,
allow it to completely incorporate
before adding a third of the dry, a third of the wet,
repeating until everything is added and incorporated
and we have a thick dough resembling playdough.
Which we're going to place between
two sheets of parchment paper
and roll out to an even thickness,
about four millimeters thick.
Peeling off the top layer of parchment paper
so that we can cut out our shapes.
It took us several batches to realize
that we should cut the cookies out first
to prevent cracked and or messy edges.
So we're going to cut out our Cookie Cats,
cut out their eyes, that sounds wrong,
and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for seven to 10 minutes
until they look dry on the top.
Allow those to cool completely
and then it's pretty much the same assembly as last time.
We're gonna peel the parchment paper off
our homemade no-churn ice cream, remove it from the tray
and then use our mold and a heavy bottom saucepan
to cut out two pieces of ice cream filling
that we're gonna place betwixt our cookies.
I made mine kind of gigantic
so this recipe is only going to yield two Cookie Cats
but likewise, once we get them assembled,
we're going to place them in the freezer
for at least two hours before consuming immediately
or wrapping in plastic wrap for longer term storage.
And there you have it, Cookie Cat, as I always imagined him.
The pet for your tummy, that's super duper yummy,
that left his family behind.
The ice cream is super soft
and bite through-able.
And despite being frozen solid, the cookie yields as well,
despite having a cookie-like crunch.
And Stephen is correct to start with the ears.
I don't think there's any other way
to feasibly eat this thing besides, I don't know,
maybe cutting it in half and sharing it
because it's the size of a softball.
Thank you again to Four Sigmatic
for sponsoring this episode.
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I added a couple of scoops
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which I sandwiched together with some whipped cream
to make protein ice cream sandwiches.
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(upbeat music)