Ice cream sandwich summer continues and we’ve made it to the second ice cream sandwich (second on the blog, but fifth in this year’s hyperfixation with ice cream sandwiches), which happens to be a flavour I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Corn is one of my favourite foods and to be honest, I was low key jealous of Corn Kid’s rise to fame because I’m quite confident that my love and passion for corn is greater than his. Jealousy and pettiness aside, corn ice cream is the flavour that really sums up peak summer and takes everything wonderful about summer sweet corn and packages it into a creamy dessert. I’ve had my fair share of corn ice cream but it is never a flavour I can reliably count on ice cream shops to carry each year. I will always order Earnest Ice Cream’s sweet corn and blueberry swirl when it’s in their scoop shop, and I still catch myself thinking about Rain or Shine’s corn ice cream with black pepper (which they told me was one of their worst sellers… which really makes me question my taste). Rarely will I find corn ice cream. Just pure corn ice cream without the distractions of any swirls or mix-ins. That’s truly what I want. And this is what that is.
Corn has a such a clean and delicate flavour and that is what I wanted to shine with this ice cream. To really get as much corn flavour as I could into this ice cream, corn is incorporated in two ways — once the kernels were removed from the corn, the cob was steeped in the cream. Then the kernels are cooked in cream before they’re blended into the ice cream base. The first few iterations of the corn ice cream were too grainy and icy due to adding too much corn into the cream (corn has water content which caused the ice cream to become icy). After playing around with the ratio of corn to cream, doing a longer steep of corn cob in the cream provided as much corn flavour as adding more kernels into the base. This yielded a much creamier and smoother ice cream without sacrificing any corn flavour.
The corn ice cream is perfect as is but turning it into an ice cream sandwich was my ultimate goal. You can use you favourite cookie or biscuit for the crust, but I opted for a press-in Corn Pops cereal crust to really amp up the corn flavour.
Sweet Corn Ice Cream Sandwich
Ingredients
Corn Anglaise (Corn Creme Anglaise)
- 525 g (from 3 ears) fresh corn kernels
- 500 ml (2 cup) heavy cream
- 250 ml (1 cup) whole milk
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 175 g (3/4 cup and 2 tbsp) granulated sugar
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 4 large egg yolks
Corn Pops Cereal Crust
- 320 g (1 box) Corn Pops cereal
- 227 g (1 cup) unsalted butter, melted
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
Instructions
Corn Anglaise (Corn Creme Anglaise)
- Remove kernels from 3 ears of corn. Cut the cob into halves.
- In a large pot, combine corn kernels, cobs, heavy cream, whole milk, and vanilla.
- While stirring often, bring the corn mixture to a light simmer. Turn off the heat and place lid on the pot. Allow the mixture to steep for at least 90 minutes.
- Remove the cobs from the corn-milk mixture and transfer the kernels and the cream to a blender. Add sugar and salt, then blend until completely smooth. I find doing this in two batches makes a much smoother ice cream base.
- Separate four large eggs and place egg yolks in a large bowl. Lightly whisk egg yolks.
- Gradually pour the corn-milk mixture into the yolks, whisking constantly as you pour. Scrape the warmed yolks and milk into a medium pot or saucepan.
- Cook over low heat, whisking constantly until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 5 minutes
- Refrigerate the ice cream base to chill thoroughly, at least four hours, preferably overnight.
- Once thoroughly chilled, churn ice cream based on ice cream maker's instructions, after making the cereal crust below.
Corn Pops Cereal Crust
- Line a square baking pan (both 8×8 and 9×9 are okay) with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Blitz cereal in a blender or food processor until it becomes a medium-fine crumb. Transfer crumbs to a medium bowl.
- Add melted butter and salt to the cereal crumbs and mix until mixture resembles wet sand. Add more melted butter if needed, 1 tbsp at a time.
- Transfer half of the cereal mixture to the lined pan. Using your hands or the back of spoon, press down the mixture until it forms a flat layer.
- Place the pan in the freezer to firm up. Keep the bowl with the remaining crumb mixture at room temperature for later.
- Once the cereal layer has firmed up (about 20 minutes in the freezer), carefully remove the crust and transfer to a baking sheet and return the crust to the freezer. With the remaining crumb mixture, repeat the steps above. This second layer will be our 'bottom crust.'
Assembly
- Remove the pan with biscuit crust layer from the freezer.
- Transfer the churned ice cream onto the cereal base using a large spoon or ice cream scoop. Using the same large spoon, press down the scoops of ice cream to make sure there are no gaps in the ice cream layer.
- Remove the first cereal layer from the freezer and place on top of ice cream. Gently press down to make sure there are no gaps between ice cream layer and crust.
- Transfer to freezer to freeze overnight.
- Gently run a knife around the edges of the pan. Lift the ice cream sandwich block out of the pan by lifting it up with the parchment paper overhang. Cut into desired sizes.
![day two: sparkly matcha neapolitan shortbread cookies ✨
the instructions might seem confusing, but if you watch the video to see how the different flavour layers are stacked, it will make much more sense! these slice and bake cookies freeze extremely well so you can make the dough now and bake them off when you want to gift them. (makes 40-44)
vanilla dough:
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g (6 tbsp) powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
matcha dough:
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g (6 tbsp) powdered sugar
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
2 tsp culinary matcha powder
1/4 tsp salt
strawberry dough
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g 6 tbsp) powdered sugar
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
2 tbsp freeze-dried strawberry powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg white
coarse sanding sugar
for the vanilla dough, combine butter and powdered sugar in a bowl. mix until smooth. add vanilla. add flour and salt and mix until no dry streaks remain. do the same for the matcha and strawberry doughs in separate bowls
place one portion of the dough between two pieces of parchment paper and roll into a 5 x 9-inch rectangle that is about 1/4-inch thick. slide rolled out dough onto a baking sheet and freeze for 10 min until firm. repeat this step with the other portions of dough
remove the top piece of parchment from each slab and stack the strawberry, vanilla, and matcha dough layers. cut the slab down the middle the long way to form two 2.5 x 9-inch rectangles. with one half, carefully swap the order of the layers (example: if the first half of the dough is stacked svm, swap the second half so it’s msv. this will ensure that same flavour squares don’t stack on each other). stack the halves. press the layers gently to adhere them. return the stacked dough to the freezer for another 10min
[recipe cont’d in comments]
#christmasbaking #christmascookies #holidaybaking #holidaycookies #cookiedecorating](https://constellationinspiration.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)
Kelly Choi says
I made these last week and they were soooo incredible, they taste like summer! I thought the ice cream as a stand alone was delicious but the added corn flake cookie really elevated it with a nice crunch. Will be making again for sure!
Hana says
Made this bc my grandma loves loves corn icecream, but she barely got any bc i cant hold myself back from this thing lol, add some homemade cornflake crunch instead of the cereal sandwich layer but still so goooooood!!!
kait says
The ice cream is so good!! I needed 4 ears for the amount of kernels. I used an 8×8 pan and only used about 2/3 of the ice cream for the sandwiches (that came out about 2.5” thick), so I will cut down the recipe in the future. The box of Corn Pops only had 260g and my food processor had a hard time getting the cereal to a medium-fine. I also definitely needed to add more butter, which I didn’t realize until making the second layer, so the crust was too thick and too crumbly. I’m seeing the other comments say Corn Flakes?? I maybe would have preferred that. Overall, a bit of a letdown but again, the ice cream part is so yummy.
Lauren says
Great recipe, very easy to follow. I absolutely love the flavor of this ice cream, but the texture is not the best. Maybe it was an error of mine, but my ice cream just wasn’t as smooth and creamy as I wanted it to be. I will definitely be making this again in the future!