Ah, ice-cream sandwiches! If there’s one thing that takes me back to my childhood it’s hearing the sound of the local ice-cream truck doing its rounds. For those few moments, I feel the urge to check my pocket for spare change and get that feeling that I wish I was a kid again.
Well, no matter, whatever your age I think there are few people who can resist the temptation of a delicious ice-cream on a hot summer afternoon. My favourites were always ice-cream wafers. Oh, ice-cream wafers what better combination is there than chocolate sponge cookies and vanilla ice-cream.
Whatever your age, there are something’s you never grow out of and me that’s ice-cream wafers. Fortunately for sweet lovers everywhere, the recipe is surprisingly simple for making your own.
You just need the right ingredients and the right know how.
So many homemade recipes do it wrong, there is a fine art to this and no one wants thin wafers with concrete solid ice-cream. The best food is made with a bit of love and ice-cream wafers should be no different. The following recipe will show you just how to do that.
Vanilla Ice-Cream Sandwiches Recipe
Yield: 12 ice-cream sandwiches
Active Time: 45 minutes
Total Time: 24 hours
Ingredients:
· 4 ounces of unsalted butter at room temperature
· 5 ounces of sugar
· 2 ounces of brown sugar
· 1 �teaspoons of salt
· � teaspoon of baking powder
· 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda
· 1 � teaspoons of instant expresso powder
· 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
· 4 egg yolks
· 5 ¼ ounces of all-purpose flour, shifted
· 4 ounces of cocoa powder
· 6 ounces of hot coffee
· 2 quarts of vanilla ice-cream
Directions
1. Making the chocolate wafers
Preheat the oven to 350 and line two baking pans with parchment paper. With a mixer combine the butter sugars, expresso, vanilla, salt, baking soda and powder on medium speed for roughly two minutes.
With the machine still running, add in the egg yolks one at a time. As you’re doing this turn off the mixer and scrape the bowl down with a rubber spatula. Add the cocoa and flour and mix until they have all combined. With the mixer on a low setting slowly add the hot coffee until the mix turns into a paste. There should be no lumps.
Pour the mix into the pans and spread it as evenly as you can. Stick it in the oven for 7-10 minutes or until the chocolate sheets and puffed up.
2. Prepare the wafers
With a 9″ x 13″ pan, layer it with parchment paper until it overhangs the sides. With a knife cut the wafers in the chocolate pans into 9 x 13″ rectangles.
Place one of these huge wafers, shiny side up into the pan. If it cracks then patch it up with excess parts from earlier. Stick the pan in the freezer until further use.
3. Add the ice-cream
Make sure the ice-cream is soft and spreadable. With a spatula or spoon spread the ice-cream as evenly as possible around one of the chocolate pans. Remove the other frozen chocolate wafer from the pan and place it on top of the ice-cream.
With either parchment or plastic wrap cover the wafer and gently press the top wafer down to seal it. Stick the pan back in the freezer and let it sit for at least 12 hours.
4. Cut the Ice-cream Sandwiches
Remove the pan from the freezer and run a knife along the edges to loosen it. Then grip the overhanging parchment and pull the entire thing out. Place it on a cutting board and cut it into 12 pieces. Wipe the knife with a warm towel between each cut to ensure a smooth and clean cut. Store in an airtight container.
And there you have it. Perfect homemade ice-cream sandwiches just like you remember them. You may be thinking the addition of coffee is an odd choice but trust me it won’t have a strong taste once finished.
Was it worth it?
You bet it was! I’ve had some pretty good ice-cream in my time but nothing quite beats homemade and especially homemade ice-cream sandwiches at that.
This is a simple recipe that anyone can follow. Just be sure you get the measurements right and they will come out perfectly.
Other Ideas
When it comes to home cooking the sky almost is the limit with what you can do. Why not add nuts or Oreo bits to the ice-cream mix?
You can cook a regular brown cookie mix and add snickers to the ice-cream and smoother it with honey.
Use your imagination and see what you can come up with.
