See, I told you these were coming. I had to really make a concerted effort hide the ice cream in the back of the freezer to ensure there was enough ice cream for these but I’ve been wanting to make ice cream sandwiches ever since I got my hands on these incredibly cute moulds. If you use the honey ice cream recipe from the previous post, you’ll have leftover ice cream after sandwiching all these together – but that’s more of a bonus than a drawback in our house because honey ice cream goes with pretty much any dessert you can think of. Strangely enough, the spices help bring out the treacly, butterscotchy notes and making the honey flavour more pronounced.
These rather nifty moulds help give you a perfectly portioned and almost-too-cute-to-eat ice cream sandwich. Incidentally, the cheapest place to buy them is at this questionably named website. Just cut a sheet cookie, fill with ice cream and top with another cookie. Sheet cookies always expand slightly when baked so you have to make a sheet cookie and cut it while it’s still warm. A bit of wastage, but there’s lots of uses for gingerbread off cuts – I like to blitz it into crumbs and use it as a base to hold a scoop of ice cream in place when serving a simple dessert.
If you can’t be bothered to make your own, just use any decent store bought ice cream. If you want to switch out the cookie, opt for a chewy rather than crunchy cookie (or just underbake it a little) so that it holds together better.
You don’t need these moulds to make these either – just bake the dough as tablespoonful balls, allow to cool and use them to sandwich a scoop of ice cream (press down using the flat of your palm to make sure the cookie doesn’t break). Allow to cool then cut the ice cream into matching size squares and sandwich. To store, pack in a flat layer in a Ziploc bag or store with sheets of parchment paper to separate as the cookies will freeze together.
- 170g butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp water
- ¼ cup treacle
- 2¼ cups flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ¼ tsp mixed spice
- ¼ tsp salt
- 2 tbsp crystallised ginger, finely diced
- 1 portion honey ice cream, or other store bought ice cream
- Preheat the oven to 180C.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy - about 3 minutes. Add the egg, water and treacle and beat until smooth.
- Add flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, mixed spice, salt and crystallised ginger then mix until just combined.
- Roll to approximately 3mm thickness between two sheets of parchment paper, then bake for 12 minutes. While still warm, cut to shape using the moulds, then allow to cookie to cool before assembling.
- Bake cookies as above and cut into evenly sized squares and allow to cool. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, fill to 1-inch thickness with ice cream then place in freezer to harden. Cut ice cream to size with a warmed knife, then assemble ice cream sandwiches. This also works for any other cookie cutter shape - not sure I'm explaining it very well here, but drop me a comment if you need further clarification.
- Make sure to store with sheets of parchment paper to separate the cookies, or in a single layer Ziploc bag or they will join together as they freeze.
- A tablespoon at a time, roll the dough into balls and arrange on a baking sheet at least an inch apart. Press down slightly with your fingertips, then bake for 12 minutes.
- Allow to cool then assemble with a scoop of ice cream. Press down with your palm to flatten the ice cream sandwich.
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