Raspberry Ice Cream Sandwich

Raspberry Ice Cream Sandwich

If you like raspberries and chocolate than this is your ice cream sandwich. The raspberry ice cream is not to tart and overly sweet and it compliments the chocolate chocolate chip cookie letting the cookie share the spotlight.

The recipe for the the Raspberry Ice Cream is:

2 cups of heavy cream
1 1/4 cup of whole milk
1/2 cup of sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
4 egg yolk
Raspberry reduction of 1 1/2 lbs of frozen raspberries

To make the raspberry reduction place 1 1/2 lbs of frozen raspberries in a medium size sauce pan along with 1/4 of sugar and 1/4 cup of water let it reduce to a syrup consistency and then strain the reduction through a fine mesh strainer. If you like your ice cream with a little bit of texture and you can place one or two tablespoons of the seed and pulp back in the strained reduction. Let it cool and then we will add it to the ice cream base.

For the ice cream base in a medium size saucepan mix sugar, milk, 1 cup of cream and salt  and place over medium heat stirring occasionally until it begins to bubble on side. In a medium size heatproof bowl place the egg yolks and lightly stir them. Once the milk and cream is at a slight boil temper the eggs with the mixture until all the milk and cream is in the bowl. Then pour the milk, egg and cream mixture back into the saucepan and then bring it up to 170 degrees (F). Then place the ice cream base in an ice bath. Pour in the rest of the cream and then add the vanilla and raspberry reduction. Let the mixture cool and then place in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours before churning in you ice cream maker.

Let me know if you have any question and thank you for all your comments!

Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwiches

Since I began making homemade ice cream, I have had the grand desire to make great homemade ice cream sandwiches. I've seen many reviews of big fat ice cream sandwiches on huge cookies. But I don't necessary think bigger is always better. And I think after a while of eating all that ice cream your frozen taste buds won't be able taste the cookie or ice cream anymore.

This Christmas my lovely wife bought a set of ice cream sandwich molds, which really got my juices flowing. I read the instructions for the molds and they suggest using a store-bought cookie dough and rolling it out into a baking sheet. Once the cookie is baked and still soft, the instructions say to use the mold to punch out the top and bottom part of the ice cream sandwich.

I wanted to bring up the degree of difficulty and make my own cookie dough, so I searched my favorite food sites and blogs and landed on a sugar cookie recipe. When I was rolling out the sugar cookie dough, I thought it would be easier to stamp them with the mold and then bake them since sugar cookies for the most part retain their shape during baking.

I think my steps worked out pretty well, for the most part. I was able to place the bottom part of the cookie in the mold and fill in the chocolaty homemade ice cream. I then removed the mold and placed the top cookie. The ice cream sandwich was good but not great. I'm going to have to try again as it was a little messy to eat.  I was looking for a softer cookie so that when you bite into the ice sandwich it doesn't push the ice cream out.

As a quick alternative, I had some Trader Joe "Joe Joe's" (Oreo-like cookies), so I scraped out the creme and stuffed it with some dark chocolate ice cream. These were delicious and almost bite size, mini ice cream sandwiches.

Thank you for reading my first ice cream post of the year. Stay tuned for exciting new flavors.