white chocolate brownie ice-cream sandwiches

icecream sandwich

Nigella Lawson has a very good recipe for white chocolate brownies, or blondies.  I have used this as a brownie mixture over the last year, simple substituting the flour for a mixture of equal quantities of urid lentil flour, tapioca and ground almonds.  Using ground almonds in cake recipes gives a moist cake that keeps well. The original recipe also calls for Macadamia nuts which I don't use.  Even people who dislike white chocolate love this brownie.  It is sweet and gooey without being sickly or cloying.

Today I started with this recipe to make white chocolate cookies to use for ice-cream sandwiches for the big family party we are having on New Year's day.  After the formality of a lot of meals at this time of year it seamed amusing to create a picnic style desert but with great ingredients.

I haven't tested this recipe yet with my standard flour mix.  I will do that later and post the results.

I increased the amount of flour to the other ingredients to give a batter that would allow me to make thickish round cookies.  I didn't want to make a thin sheet of cake and then cut out the individual cookies as I wanted the slightly crisp edging you get with an individual cookie.  If you are in a hurry you can just make two thin sheets of the brownie, slather on the icecream and sandwich together and cut to shape when it is frozen.



Ingredients:
125g butter
250 white chocolate
4 eggs
350g sugar
2 tsp vanilla
400 g flour (one third each ground almond, urid lentils and tapioca flours)

Method:
Melt butter and chocolate together.  I find 2 minutes in the microwave on medium, stirring half way through, works well.  Leave them to cool a bit so they don't cook the eggs.
whisk eggs and sugar together
mix chocolate mixture into eggs and add vanilla
mix flours into mixture

Make individual cookies or pour into a lined tin.  Leave plenty of space between the dollops for the cookie to spread.  Just put a spoonful of dough on the tin - it flows out to shape by itself.

Cook for about 8 minutes for cookie at 170C, on until just faintly tinged with gold. They are easier to manage if the underneath is a light brown; if this is still pale they tend to stick and smudge a little.  Cool briefly on the tin to make them easier to handle then place on a cooling rack.

When they are cold take slightly softened icecream and dollop some on half the cookies.  Place a second cookie on top and squeeze gently together.  Make them as neat or casual as you like or have the patience for.  You could no doubt make discs of icecream ahead of time and just assemble them as needed.

I tried freezing blobs of dough and then cooking from frozen.  This works fine and allows you to make a couple of fresh cookies whenever you want. They look particularly nice with flaked almonds sprinkled on top but this doesn't make much difference to the flavour or texture of the cookie when it is used with icecream.


The cookies do get firmer when they are frozen but are still easy to bite through.  They hold their shape well so will work as a vehicle for icecream and shouldn't be too messy.

These are sweet cookies and are probably best with a slightly tart icecream like raspberry or gooseberry.  I'll add further photos and tasting information after the hordes have tried them.

(Random notes:  I have a turkey carcass cooking down for stock at the moment.  If I was Heston Blumethal I would make use of the random juxtaposition of scents and activities and make a sage flavoured biscuit with turkey flavoured icecream.....)