Make the ice cream sandwich of your summertime dreams with this infinitely customizable recipe
When we decided to make a homemade version of ice cream sandwiches, we thought it would be as easy as smooshing some ice cream between two chocolate chip cookies. But all that gave us were rock-solid cookies that we struggled to bite through while we squished the ice cream out the sides. The takeaway: Cookies that are best eaten with a glass of milk are not perfect in an ice cream sandwich.
To make cookies that were easy to bite through, we focused on an ingredient rarely considered in cookie composition: water. Our recipe includes almost twice as much water than most chocolate chip cookie recipes. That may sound counterintuitive — you’d think frozen water would make cookies harder — but it works because the sugar in the dough lowers the temperature at which water freezes, keeping it fluid. By increasing the amount of sugary water in the dough, we were able to make cookies that were sturdy enough to sandwich the ice cream but tender enough to bite through with just a hint of snap.
We also wanted a thinner, flatter cookie so we could still use a good amount of ice cream without making the sandwich the frozen-dessert equivalent of a New York deli sandwich. To do that, we dropped the baking temperature to a relatively low 325 degrees so that the dough had more time to spread before it set. And to compensate for the freezer’s flavor-dulling effect, we packed the cookie with deep toffee notes that came through even when frozen.
The result? An infinitely customizable, perfectly engineered version of this summertime dessert. Fill them with the ice cream flavor of your choice or press mini chips around the rim of each sandwich for a dose of Chipwich nostalgia.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches
Makes 12 sandwiches
10 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup (5 1/4 ounces) packed dark brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon table salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (5⅔ ounces) all-purpose flour
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