After making the cinnamon ice cream I wanted to push the envelope a little further by having a go at making ice cream sandwiches.
These were not going to be any ordinary ice cream sandwiches though.
I wanted to apply my "Greek touch" to the whole process. For quite a while I had wanted to incorporate the flavours of baklava into some kind of ice cream dessert.
I tinkered with the idea of making my own ice cream cones and incorporating a honey flavour through them but I had no success in this area. They usually ended up in a soggy mess.
Then I remembered those ice cream sandwiches you used to buy as a kid. Australians seem to have a fascination with these-the Monaco Bar was brought back after heavy pressure from an online petition!
To achieve the baklava style flavours I was after, I mixed honey into a biscuit dough and baked these in the oven.
Once they had cooled I scooped my pre made cinnamon ice cream in between the two biscuits and rolled them in a crushed walnut/cinnamon/brown sugar combination. The flavours were spot on!
I had cinnamon, walnuts and honey...all the flavours of a Greek baklava.
My biggest disappointment is the presentation.
If I had known I would be making these before hand, I would have poured the freshly churned ice cream into a shallower pan and "cut out" the ice cream to sandwich them perfectly around the biscuit.
I found scooping it and shaping it a little frustrating as it kept on melting.
Trying to photograph these without the ice cream melting was also challenging!
The heatwave showed no mercy folks. I tried refreezing them but they were still too soft.
Overall though, I was quite happy with the flavours.
They turned out a little bigger than what I would have preferred and a little messy to eat but hey, that's the price you pay for wanting to be nostalgic.
Pin it- 120 grams of unsalted butter at room temperatue
- 1/2 a cup of brown sugar
- 1/2 a cup of Greek honey
- 2 medium sized eggs
- 1 tsp of vanilla extract
- 1 tsp of baking powder
- 2 cups of plain flour or “all purpose” flour (may need to add a little more to get a good, pliable dough)
- a pinch of salt
- Using an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter, sugar and honey until you have a creamy consistency-this will take between 2-3 mins. Lower the speed on your mixer and proceed to add the eggs one at a time ensuring they are well incorporated. Add your vanilla extract.
- In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Slowly add this flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until a dough begins to form. You may need to add a little more flour to form the dough.
- Roll the dough into a ball, wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for one hour.
- Pre heat your oven to 180 deg C and line a baking tray with some baking paper.
- Remove the dough from the fridge and on a lightly floured surface proceed to roll it out to 1/4 inch thick.
- Using your preferred cookie cutter cut out as many pieces as you can. Line the cookies on the baking pan and pierce the tops with a fork.
- Bake for 8-10 mins, remove from the oven and allow them to cool completely before sandwiching the ice cream.
- Once you have sandwiched the ice cream, roll the sides of the sandwich in the walnut mixture (1 cup of coarsely chopped walnuts, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon)
The cookie cutters I used measured in at 9 cms. I think it would be better to use smaller ones say 6-7 cms. I’ll leave that up to you. Also as I stated earlier, it would be preferable to use the same cookie cutters to cut out the ice cream once it had frozen in a shallow pan. That way they would fit perfectly around the two biscuits.