Ice Cream Cookies

I have a specific cake recipe I usually choose when someone asks for a vanilla cake, I have a favorite oatmeal cookie (my oatberries) and I definitely have a standard buttercream, but for chocolate chip cookies, I’m always on a search for the best. Each recipe yields a different cookie consistency, whether that is fluffy and soft or buttery and crispy. With that in mind, whenever I come across anything that looks super interesting, I’m all for it. Enter the ice cream cookie recipe.

Ice cream can usually be found in-between cookies in a sandwich, or maybe with crushed cookies in a sundae… but as an ingredient? Really? Yes, really.

I came across this Ice Cream Cookie recipe a few weeks ago and was super interested in the idea of adding vanilla ice cream to cookie batter. I had no idea what the ice cream would do as an ingredient or how the batter would react to adding the creamy treat.

What I learned was that the addition of the frozen ice cream (the recipe says straight from the freezer, which kind of makes me want to try it with melted ice cream…) extremely fluffed up the batter and made it a thicker consistency. It also added an intense vanilla flavor to the batter. Uncooked this batter was amazing, I had to try it, right? 🙂 And the end result was the softest, fluffiest cookies I’ve made in a while! They reminded me of Chips Ahoy! soft baked cookies, only better of course because they were homemade. I ended up baking them last Sunday and freezing them to bring with to our Fioretti family reunion this weekend. They held up well in the freezer and thawed to perfection. I would probably add more chocolate chips next time and I think it would be really fun to sub different ice cream flavors. I have a feeling that using chocolate would be delicious and have a bi-color effect. Of course, I will let you know the results!

almost forgot about these guys

In addition to my dad’s birthday last week, it was also my good friend, Vanessa’s 23rd! I brought her these ridiculously easy chocolate peanut butter bars. Problem is I forgot to ask her how they were… so all I can say is they only took ten minutes and she returned the pan to me empty, so I hope that’s a good thing!

blackhawks fake-out cake

Like I promised last week, here is my dad’s birthday post.

I baked three layers of yellow cake last Sunday night and froze them until Thursday. Whenever someone requests yellow, they always get Paula Deen’s 1-2-3-4 cake. It’s super easy and I’ve never heard a complaint. I keep moving up in seniority at work, so I’ve got the last few weekends off and had time to bake Sunday night, however this makes mid-week baking impossible, hence the need to bake and freeze.

I hadn’t really decided how to decorate the cake. I was debating between a beer cake, a racetrack cake or a blackhawks cake. In fact, until Thursday I had no idea. I honestly decided to go with the blackhawks because I didn’t want to make green frosting for a racetrack base. I figured I could just do the chocolate frosting my dad requested for a hockey puck. I figured I’d run out of frosting if I filled the cake with it (I was wrong but oh well) so I made pudding, just from a box but subbing some half-and-half for milk, for the middles.

Then I went to work on the frosting, tinting it a little blacker and blacker. I started with my favorite vanilla buttercream and added melted chocolate and cocoa powder, but that was much too light for a puck, so i added the food coloring. Then it got a little gross, not super gross but it began to taste a little too much like black and not enough like frosting. Then I looked on the side of the bowl and there was my extra 3/4 cup of chocolate pudding. I thought to myself, what’s the worst that can happen if I just throw that in? And it fantastically made an iridescent silver color perfectly mimicking the Stanley Cup.

I’ll have to admit, after that I got a bit lazy. I couldn’t figure out exactly how I was going to decorate the top so I was googling blackhawks logos and found one I thought looked good. When I grabbed it off the printer I noticed my cocktail glass rimmer and had the idea to tape the hawks circle on the rimmer top and stick it in the cake. So I did and thus my fake-out cake was complete.

It looked pretty cool, but was amazingly easy. I felt a little like I under-did myself, but everyone liked it and it was delish, so no problem 🙂

My dad also requested a chocolate version of last week’s lime freeze cake. I toyed with that recipe and came up with a cocoa-chocolate chip version that went over really well with all of my aunts, uncles and cousins, it was PERFECT after an intensely hot day outside at the racetrack – and it photographed fabulously too!

Happy Birthday Dad! I know you’re reading this and I hope you tell someone in Canada that your real day is Wednesday so someone brings you some cake! 🙂

Slew of Sweets

I just realized I’ve made six desserts since my last post on Father’s Day, yikes! But I guess that is better than making nothing, plus now there is just more to crave.

1 – Frozen Banana Soft Serve

I’ve read about this “recipe” multiple times via one of my favorite foodie sites, Carrots ‘n’ Cake. It’s the simplest recipe ever. Ingredients: 1 frozen banana, splash of milk. Freeze banana at least four hours, put in food processor with a splash of milk and enjoy because it’s amazing.

2- Cinnamon Choco Chip Cookies

What to do when your sister brings you bags of cinnamon chips? Flip the bag over and make the recipe on the back. Sometimes I wonder how often people make the bag recipes, I think aside from traditional Nestle chocolate chip cookies, it’s probably not very many, so I decided to give this one a try.

I subbed chocolate chips for the raisins and they were super yummy. I brought them to my co-camp-counselors on our movie trip, saved some for my family and brought some to elizabeth, nicki and nanci – I think they are a keeper.

3- 4th of July Star Brownies!

I’m true to my word, I always make brownies from a box. All I did here was bake them, add a few crushed pieces of chocolate, sprinkle powdered sugar on them and cut them into stars, and bring them to work and leave the scraps for my dad 🙂

4- 5th of July Marshmallow Chocolate Chip Cookies

We celebrated the 4th on the 5th with a mini family BBQ lunch, and I of course added dessert to the menu. The lesson I learned from this was maybe don’t add toooooo many marshmallows to cookies because they get toffee like, but honestly these were amazingly delicious! And something I learned from my shopping for these is that chocolate rounds, sold in bulk, are cheaper and more fantastic than chocolate chips, so I’m guessing they are going to be making quite an appearance in my upcoming baking experiences! I pulled a chocolate chip cookie recipe from my drawer of recipes that sounded pretty great, titled something about choc-full of chocolate chips, and like I said although a little toffee-esque and runny, we liked them and they will be re-vamped and re-created.

5- Lime Freeze Cake

I shouldn’t be posting this without the picture of the slice from my mom’s camera, but I’m on a roll. This was a Kraft Foods recipe I stumbled on last week when my mom wanted a light summer dessert for her monthly quilting friends meeting. I lightened it up for her by subbing pretty much everything to be fat-free and I’m pretty sure I didn’t harm it. That’s the thing about making a throw together recipe with things like Cool Whip and condensed milk, since they’re not from scratch anyways, you can sub fat-free or light items and it’s pretty much ok. It’s not like using fake butter or sugar, that usually results in a gross outcome. I’ll update the picture when I get a chance to grab her camera.

6- Tailgate Brownies

Another boxed brownie escapade, but chocked full of marshmallows & chocolate chunks… in case you can’t tell that’s pretty much what I have on hand right now. I also covered them in powdered sugar but I figured we saw that in my stars. I tailgated at a Milwaukee Brewers game yesterday and brought these guys. It was super steamy out so they got a little melty, but melty brownies are never really a problem. Consensus = delicious.

Tonight I baked cakes for my dad’s birthday next week so that post will be up on time after it’s decorated and devoured Saturday and Sunday.