- Hey guys, today I'm gonna show you
how to make a really fantastic summertime treat,
my version of a soft-serve ice cream sandwich.
They are really easy to make at home,
and you don't even need an ice cream maker to master them.
Let me show you how to make them.
So first thing we're gonna do is make the chocolate cookie
that's going to hold our sandwiches together.
So we're gonna electric mixer.
You want to beat together one cup of unsalted butter,
and one and a half cups of sugar.
Just go ahead and beat that up for about five minutes
until your butter is nice and fluffy,
and then we are going to add one egg
and one egg yolk.
And then you're also gonna add
two teaspoons of vanilla extract.
Go ahead and combine that, scraping down the bowl as needed.
You can set that aside,
and then we're gonna combine our dry ingredients,
and it's a really simple mixture.
All we're gonna do is add two cups of all-purpose flour
and one cup of unsweetened cocoa powder.
And then to just punch up all of that chocolate flavor,
we're also gonna add three-quarters of a teaspoon of salt.
Go ahead and just give that a whisk
until everything is combined.
Then we're gonna add the flour mixture to the butter mixture
just in thirds, beating it in between each addition.
Then you're gonna end up with a very sticky dough
on your hands, and you're gonna wonder
how this thing is actually gonna roll out.
That's where we need to refrigerate it.
So you do need to take the dough,
put it on some parchment paper or plastic wrap,
whatever you have, roll it into two balls,
flatten it into a disk, and then wrap it up,
and pop it in the fridge.
This is a great thing that you can do
actually the day before.
Then once your dough is ready to go,
you're gonna roll it out on a floured surface,
and you do want to make sure you have extra flour on hand
because these do get sticky
and it does help to do it quickly
so that that dough does not warm back up.
And then using a cookie cutter,
I like a cookie cutter with a little scallop
because it does just sort of remind me
of that soft-serve style sandwich, but really,
any cutter you have will do.
I'm using a three-inch cookie cutter.
I don't think you really want to go bigger than that,
but you could go smaller.
You want to place it on a parchment-lined cookie sheet,
and if you help transferring it,
a little cake server really does the trick.
But we do want to take our baking sheet
and pop it in the freezer for at least five minutes,
just to allow that dough to harden back up,
and the reason we want to do this is
this is going to preserve a beautiful scalloped detail
on our cookies.
If we popped it in the oven now,
they are a little bit too soft
and those edges would not be as precise.
Then we're gonna bake our cookies at 350 degrees Fahrenheit
for just eight minutes.
Now I say just eight minutes,
because we do want to preserve the chewiness of the cookie,
because we are going to be freezing these sandwiches
and if they're too crisp, they'll just kind of crumble,
so eight minutes, they're good to go.
You'll know that they're ready when you start to smell
that delicious chocolate aroma coming from your oven.
When your cookies are done,
you can take them out of the oven,
place them on your cooktop, and allow them to cool.
You can leave them just as is.
No need to actually take them off
and put them on a cooling rack
because I find that they actually set up a little bit more
just from that remaining heat of the baking tray.
Okay, here comes our little cheat for homemade ice cream
without a machine.
We are basically just going to prepare a heavy cream mixture
that we are going to freeze, and when we do,
it is going to create that similar texture
so associated with that soft-serve style of ice cream.
So in an electric mixer,
you're going to add two cups of heavy cream,
and then we're gonna use two types of sugars,
and the reason we're gonna do that
is they each will do something different.
So you want to use a half a cup of just plain white sugar.
Now this is the most refined processed sugar you can get,
and the reason why we want it for this
is it's going to give our ice cream a nice smooth texture.
If you've ever tried to make homemade ice cream
and it's kind of crystallized and icy,
usually it means there's not enough sugar,
so the sugar really helps with the texture.
And then we're also gonna use
a quarter cup of powdered sugar.
So powdered sugar is really just finely-processed sugar
with a little bit of corn starch in it,
and we want the corn starch because that is going to give us
great stabilization for this cream,
which is going to help when we go to pipe it out.
And then to flavor our cream,
we're going to add two tablespoons of vanilla extract.
So we are going to beat that up until very stiff peaks form.
Then once your cream is ready to go,
you want to take a pastry bag
and fit it with a large star tip,
transfer the cream into the pastry bag,
and making sure that those cookies are nice and cool,
you're going to flip them over on their backs,
and then you're going to pipe some cream
just on half of them.
And the way you want to pipe it is
you want to do like a little nest.
Then do one row, and then a second row,
and then a little dollop in the center.
And just go ahead and do that on all the bottoms.
And then here is the other secret to success.
You do not want to put your top onto the cream at this stage
because then you have to move it into the freezer
and they do have a tendency of kind of shifting
while in flight.
So you want to actually put it in your freezer first
and then put the cookies on top,
because once it's in the freezer,
you know it's not gonna move and you'll start to see
your beautiful little ice cream sandwiches emerge.
And you do need to freeze these for a minimum of two hours.
That will do the trick.
But these are really great to make the day before,
so you could also just leave them in there overnight.
I love this recipe idea because you've got that richness
of the chocolate cookie that has a wonderful chew to it
mixed with the creaminess of that homemade ice cream.
It really is such a fun and festive thing to serve
when you're entertaining in the summer,
and they're especially great if you have kids and adults
coming to your party,
because everybody in that crowd loves an ice cream sandwich.
I hope you guys give this one a try,
and let me know what you think,
and I will see you back here next week
for another easy and delicious recipe.
Until then, bye.
(folksy music)