Claire Makes Homemade Ice Cream Sandwiches

[Man] I gotta say, this is the most adorable thing

I've ever seen in the background.

(laughs)

Look at that.

I was like, oh these ice cream sandwiches?

Yeah they're adorable.

Okay. (laughs)

[Man] I just can't get enough.

So they're having a little chit chat, okay.

[Man] I know it's time sensitive.

The ice cream is melting.

(joyful music)

Hi everyone, I'm Claire, we are in the BA test kitchen

and today we are making homemade ice cream sandwiches

inspired by the Good Humor bars that you grew up with

but with a really lovely homemade cookie

and store bought ice cream.

So it's a little baking, a little assembly,

and the result is a really fun summer time treat.

So, the first step is to make the cookie.

So, we are making a chocolate rolled cookie

that has a little bit of a cakey texture

to sort of mimic that really cakey ice cream sandwich

that you unwrap from the paper package.

So, I start with my dry ingredients.

So, I have two and a half cups all-purpose flour,

three quarters of a cup cocoa powder unsweetened,

the teaspoon and a half kosher salt,

and one teaspoon baking powder.

So, the baking powder gives the cookies

a little bit of lift, a little bit of airiness,

which is really nice in our ice cream sandwich.

You don't want the cookie to be so hard that

when you bite down you just squish together the ice cream.

The first step in building the dough

is to cream together the butter and sugar.

Start with two sticks which is one cup unsalted butter.

One cup of packed light brown sugar,

and three quarters of a cup of white sugar.

I like to use a mix of brown sugar and white sugar

because you get sort of a nice texture

where you get some of that snappy crispness

from white sugar and some chewiness from the brown.

So, these get mixed together really well

for about four minutes and I want to look for

the butter to get very pale and light and fluffy.

The butter is very light and fluffy,

I'm going to now add the eggs.

So, the eggs are room temperature which is important

because cold eggs into room temp butter

will make the butter harden

and then you don't get as smooth a texture.

Now, two teaspoons of vanilla extract.

So, I added quite a lot of salt,

it was one and a half teaspoons,

that's because these cookies are eaten frozen

and when you eat something cold,

it really kind of mutes a lot of the flavors.

So, I added a lot of vanilla and a lot of salt

to these because I really want that chocolate

to be present when you eat them

even when they're frozen.

So, I'm gonna grab a spoon to add my dry ingredients.

It is a relatively large amount of dry ingredients

to butter and that's because I don't want the cookies

to spread a lot during baking.

I'm gonna try to get those nice precise cut sides

and now once that's all incorporated

I'll just pulse it a couple times

to combine and then that's it.

I don't want to overwork it because

working this mixture at this point too much

will make the cookies a little bit tough.

Okay, so now I want to divide it in half

I don't have to be precise at all.

And half the dough just goes, roughly half the dough,

just goes right on the plastic.

So, whatever shape, when you're chilling dough

whether it's pie dough or cookie dough,

whatever shape you chill it in, that's the shape

it's gonna wanna be when you're rolling it out.

I'm gonna press it into sort of a disc slash square.

So, there goes one.

So, the butter which is now room temperature

needs time to harden, this will go into the fridge

for about two hours until it's firm

and then I can roll it out.

So, just gonna bring in the ones we've already done.

[Man] So, I'll take those.

Thank you Tommy. And you can take these.

And here we go, so I have parchment paper here.

That's gonna make it a lot easier

to roll out dough like this that has

the potential to soften a lot especially in summer time.

So, there's parchment, I have my rolling pin right here.

I really like these straight dowel style rolling pins

and here I have a little bit

of all-purpose flour just for rolling.

I want a flour the dough a little bit.

I should say these have also been softening

at room temperature for a few minutes.

It's really hard to roll out something with this much butter

when it's super cold 'cause it's just gonna crack.

So, I wanna roll this out into

kind of a rough rectangular shape

but I don't need precise sharp edges or anything.

What's most important is that I have one large slab

and that it's an even thickness.

I'm going for about one eighth inch.

I want rectangles obviously for that bar shaped sandwich

but most people don't have rectangular cutters,

they're kind of hard to find.

So, rather than use a cutter for this

we're just gonna use a roller and a knife

and cut our own shapes.

So, one recipe makes 15 ice cream sandwiches

which means 30 cookies.

So, I'm gonna get about 15 cookies out of this one slab.

So, I'm gonna cut rectangles that are four inches long,

one and a half inches wide.

For 15 cookies, I'll cut it into a five by three grid.

So, that means 12 inches by seven and a half inches.

In this direction we're gonna cut it

into what did I say, five?

Five across, now long ways, I have three cookies,

so every four inches.

So, now I'm gonna line up these marks

that I made on all sides.

I'm just using a long chef knife

which is easier because you can get nice long cuts.

If you have a pizza cutter, you can use that too.

Here we have my grid all cut.

I'm gonna get rid of these scraps.

So again, 15 cookies per slab for 15 sandwiches total.

I will chill these while I roll out

the second disc of dough.

Okay yeah, so you can see that the dough has hardened.

I'm gonna use a fork to prick in several places

and make that classic sort of Good Humor bar shape.

So, I prick in the middle and then two on either side.

I do think it actually helps the cookies bake

a little bit more evenly.

It gives kind of a place for some steam to escape

and it just also lends that

really classic ice cream sandwich look.

These are ready to go into the oven, 350 for.

[Man] 12, 15 minutes.

For 12 to 15 minutes and I'm looking for them

to be baked pretty much all the way through

and firm around the edges.

So, they're already cooled just to prepare them

for the ice cream, all I'll do is turn over half of them.

And these will be the bottom of the sandwich

and these will be the tops.

Okay, this recipe is exactly four pints

of ice cream for 15 sandwiches.

Now, because I think it's a little more fun

and you get some neat flavor combinations

I'm using two different kinds, so two pints of each.

What we are going to do is create

sort of a two toned ice cream sandwich.

In the same way that we cut out our cookies,

I'm also going to cut out the shapes

of the ice cream so that they fit onto the sandwiches.

So, I'm gonna basically work this ice cream into a mold.

I'm using ice cream flavors that have contrasting colors

and also but are complimentary in flavor.

So, I have green tea which is a really, really

vibrant green color and then vanilla, obviously is white,

just as an opportunity to have

a couple flavors going on at the same time.

I like to take it out of the pint

and cut it up into big pieces.

The idea here is to use a spatula or wooden spoon

to stir this ice cream into a smooth mixture

and a really good visual queue for this

is it's going to look like a thick cake batter.

So, not melted, still really cold but totally smooth.

So, here I have a 13 by nine pan that is lined

with a couple of layers of plastic wrap

and it was in the freezer so it's important

that the pan has had time to get cold

and if you have a metal 13 by nine,

I recommend using that because metal cools down really fast

and things will freeze solid in it faster

than if you use glass.

So now that it's all in here I use this off set spatula

to spread this ice cream into an even layer.

The more even you have it, that means you'll just get

that nice clear line in between the two flavors

when you cut the sandwiches to assemble.

So, that looks good, this should go back into the freezer

so that it can harden again and the ice cream will solidify.

And then I'm ready to do the exact same thing

with my second flavor.

So, back into the freezer.

So, vanilla, which is a nice compliment

to the kind of earthy flavor of the green tea.

Exact same process and now I'm ready to bring out

the slab of ice cream that's been hardening.

All right, so here's that green tea.

So, you really want to do this step

the day before you assemble.

So, this whole recipe really benefits from

a couple days of prep because at this stage

once the second flavor is on you really wanna

let it have a good long while

in the freezer to freeze totally solid.

So, this is really best on the day before,

you can leave it in the freezer overnight,

and then assemble the next morning.

After this is frozen solid,

and we'll bring in a swap for that

we're going to unmold it, cut the shapes,

and you'll see that they'll be on those exposed cut sides

it'll get kind of that cross section

and you'll see the two flavors stack on top of each other.

If you are pressed for time or you just don't feel like

dividing this into two steps, you can just take four pints

of ice cream of all the same flavor

do the softening, put everything into the pan,

and just let it freeze.

Okay, into the freezer and just for the sake of this video

we're gonna bring in one that's already frozen and assemble.

Okay, here's my frozen slab.

We're gonna cut it into the exact same dimensions

as I used to cut the cookies.

I do want to work quickly because

especially in a kitchen that's a little bit warm like this

it will start to melt pretty quickly.

So I'm gonna bring these over here.

So, this side is 12 and then seven and a half.

So, I'm going to cut this into three by five.

All right, so now everything's cut

all I want to do is assemble and I'm using

this little offset spatula to lift off the ice cream

place it on top of the sandwiches,

so it is the same dimensions as the cookie

but the cookie spread a little bit in the oven,

so you get what is kind of a little bit of a lip

on the end of the sandwiches.

And then just kind of gently press to adhere.

So, here's the thing, you do all that work,

make the cookies, you do the ice cream slab,

but then you can't eat them because

they should really, really rest overnight.

And here's why, when you let the ice cream sandwiches sit

in the freezer the cookie will pull some of the moisture out

of the ice cream and it will hydrate.

That just means when you bite into the cookie,

it's soft enough that you can cleanly bite through

without compressing the sandwich

and kind of squeezing out the ice cream.

So, I know it's tempting to assemble them

and eat them right away but you really want

to let them sit overnight because the ice cream

needs to have a chance to harden

and the cookies need to have a chance to soften.

Here they are, so our homemade,

Good Humor style ice cream sandwiches.

These have been hanging out.

So, should I take a bite?

Here you see.

What I said before about how the cookies

have a lot of salt and a lot of vanilla.

It really helps pull that chocolatey flavor

out of the cookie.

You get that little bit of salt which helps

off set all the sweetness.

I love that you can kind of customize it

according to any flavors of ice cream that you like.

And then another fun thing which,

I just got excited and took a bite

before I showed you this, is that you can take the sides

and pat sprinkles into them.

Wait, hold on, I'm gonna grab sprinkles I have some.

What, should we do that, okay, hold on.

No, I got it, I need sprinkles.

Sprinkles!

And all you do, is take the sandwich

and because you have these nice flat cut sides

you can kind of press the sprinkles onto the sides.

I love kind of these pastel colors.

It's really, really, fun.

You can use crushed pretzels, any kind of chopped up candy,

you can dip them in a little bit of melted chocolate

or something, white chocolate,

anything kind of in that nostalgic ice cream truck lane.

So, there you have it, maybe we want our

test kitchen friends to come and try them.

Hey Brad, do you want just a little bite?

Yeah. Okay.

Chris? Sure.

Yeah, right. Reminds me of my childhood,

Claire, these are-- Oh yeah?

Far more fancy.

Fancy, but homemade, right?

Yeah but I mean green ice cream.

It's green tea, yeah.

Yeah. Do you want--

Wait, I got excited thought it was mint chip.

You're saying it's not mint chip.

It's green tea, you'll love it.

Just try it, just try it.

We can cut it and share.

Do you want the sprinkle one?

I'll take a sprinkle one.

Oh, I love the sprinkles.

Yeah, Brad, here take a bite,

I already took a bite out of that one.

On the count of three everyone.

I already ate it.

Oh, sorry.

Thoughts, yeah it's salty right?

Like you get that good salt

from the cookie? Oh yeah.

It's not overly sweet, the cookie's nice.

It has a slight cakey-ness that we were going for

'cause when you eat the Good Humor bar all of it comes off

all on your hands. Stick to your fingers.

Yeah the best part.

I think that you would achieve that

with a little time in the freezer

wrapped in parchment paper.

It sat overnight.

Oh okay.

(laughs)

Well, maybe a little more time.

Maybe a little more time, yeah.

For like two days, duh.

But you really want it wrapped in parchment,

do you want me to take it and wrap it in parchment

and then you can unwrap it?

Well, it brings me back to that,

I grew up in a little lake community.

You did?

Yeah.

I've never heard that before.

I've never heard it referred to as a lake community.

Well, there were was a lot of lakes

and people lived there.

It was a community of people with lakes, right?

Community. Okay.

It wasn't a gated thing.

Okay. No one cared about us.

Okay.

But they sold these at the clubhouse.

There was a clubhouse.

When did that, at a clubhouse?

No but it was like a shed where

teenage people would, it wasn't really.

Listen I grew up poor.

You're getting the wrong idea.

Anyway, this is great. Oh my God,

I never in my life heard that.

All right, we have quite a few left over.

I'll put 'em back in the freezer wrapped tightly.

They'll last for the better part of a week

and we can continue to enjoy them.

So, thanks for watching.

Great, okay.

Perfect. Cool.

If you're really pressed for time

you can buy some Good Humor bars and eat those.

They're actually pretty good.

We're gonna cut that part. (laughs)