Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches combine the best of two worlds: summer and Christmas. Homemade vanilla ice cream between soft and chewy gingerbread cookies-it’ll have you singing “fa-la-la!”
Bulk Items used: flour, brown sugar
I’m gonna state the obvious here, but cookie are the best! Seriously, a good cookie, eaten at the right moment, solves most of life’s problems. Gingerbread cookies happen to be one of my very favorite kind.
But the problem with gingerbread is that it just reminds me too much of Christmas. I mean, you can’t just be “feeling that gingerbread feeling” all year long. (Those are lyrics to a song from Home Alone, btw. I hope you already knew that).
Last summer we came up with the perfect solution: Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches. On June 25th, we were looking for a reason to celebrate that Christmas was only 6 months away. We were also going through a big ice cream sandwich phase. The two ideas merged into one delicious new tradition.
Tips for Making Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches
- In reality, you can use any gingerbread cookie recipe you like, but what I like about this particular cookie for the ice cream sandwich is the little hint of orange in it. It gives it a small burst of citrus flavor that makes it that much more tasty.
- You can also use store bought vanilla ice cream if you are not in the mood to make homemade. It’ll still be great, but trust me when I say, that homemade ice cream will take these bad boys to the next level.
- When assembling these cookies, you really want to make sure your cookies are 100% cooled down. If not, you’ll have a very runny mess very quickly. After the cookies are assembled, they can be eaten right away, but if you want them to be a bit more stable, freeze for about 1 hour.
- If they’ve been in the freezer for a while, you may want to put them in the microwave for 15 seconds or so to soften them up.
Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches
Ingredients
- 2 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 2½ tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp cloves
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup butter, room temp
- 1/4 cup vegetable shortening
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup molasses
- 1 tbsp orange zest
- ¼ cup sugar, for rolling
Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream
- 1 cups heavy whipping cream
- 1 cups half and half
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
Instructions
Cookies
- In your mixer, combine butter, shortening and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add in egg, molasses and orange peel. Beat until blended.
- Stir flour, baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt together in a medium bowl.
- Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Cover and chill for 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 350° and grease 2 baking sheets (or line with silicone baking sheet). Place sugar in small bowl. Form cookie dough into 24 equal balls (about ***). Roll each ball in sugar and transfer to prepared baking sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Cookies should be cracked on top, but still soft.
Ice Cream
- In a large bowl, combine all ingredients. Stir until sugar has dissolved. Pour into an Ice Cream Maker and freeze according to the maker's instructions.
Ice Cream Sandwiches
- Place 12 cookies onto your work surface. Make sure the flat side is facing up. Top each cookie with about ⅓ cup of ice cream. Spread the ice cream out evenly, but not to the very edge, leave about ¼ inch. Top the ice cream with a second cookie.
- Place cookie sandwiches in the freezer for about 2 hours. Keep frozen until serving*.
That Is a bit of heaven right there. I love gingerbread and I love ice cream. Bringing these 2 together is brilliant. I will certainly give this recipe a try.