Cookies and cream ice cream

Martin's rather fond of cookies-and-cream ice cream, but we don't buy it because you can't get it fair trade.  The other day, I decided to see how hard it would be to make it.

I've always been put off, as it involves crushing oreo biscuits into vanilla ice cream: you can't get fair trade oreos, and surely they'd be hard to make?  The answer turns out to be 'not really'.  Especially as you're going to be crushing them anyway, so there's no need to stamp the dough out into circles or assemble them into sandwiches :-)

To be fair, Martin doesn't reckon the biscuits tasted much like oreos (I assembled one just for him), but the icecream worked out well all the same.

A slightly munted chocolate-dipped cookies and cream ice cream :-)

Recipe

Ingredients:

150g butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/3 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

75g butter, softened
4 tsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
pinch salt
2 cups icing sugar (may need up to 1/3 cup more)

2 litres vanilla icecream, softened (e.g. left for 30 min. at room temperature)


Cookies:

Combine the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl, and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy.  Add the egg and vanilla, and beat until well incorporated, then mix in flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt with your hands.

Pop dough in a plastic bag and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

When the dough is chilled, preheat the oven to 170°C.  Line two baking trays with baking paper and set aside.

Divide dough in half.  Roll out one half at a time on a lightly floured surface to approx 2-3mm thick.  Transfer to baking tray (in pieces/sheets, just as it comes).

Put both trays in the oven and bake on fanbake for 10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Crumble into small pieces in a bowl with your hands (you shouldn't have any bits bigger than about 1cm across) and chill in freezer at least two hours.


Cookie filling:

Combine the butter, milk, vanilla and salt with 1/2 a cup of icing sugar and beat until combined.  Add the remaining icing sugar, approximately 1/2 cup at a time, until the filling comes together.  It should be quite stiff.

Spread thinly on a tray and chill in freezer.


Putting it together:

Cut filling into small squares with a sharp knife then transfer to a bowl with the cookie pieces.  Rub with your hands to distribute the filling evenly over the cookie pieces.  Mix as much of this as you want into the softened ice cream with a wooden spoon (probably around 3/4 of it) then chill in freezer at least 2 hours before serving - ideally leave overnight.

Sprinkle any remaining crushed biscuits onto other ice cream or just eat with a spoon :-)

Oreo recipe from here, and this recipe gave me an idea of what biscuit:ice cream ratio to start with.

The perfect treat for a lazy sunny afternoon!