Shortbread is and will always be my favourite cookie, my cookie of choice, my “if you could only eat one type of cookie for the rest of you life, what would it be?” type of cookie. When I want a shortbread cookie, I want it in it’s purest form — a plain shortbread cookie, vanilla-scented is fine, but I definitely don’t need a jammy centre of a chocolate drizzle. I don’t need any nuts or fruit pieces. I want to taste just the butter (good quality butter, of course) and allow the sandy cookie to melt in my mouth, without any distractions. I grew up eating Walker’s Shortbread with my mom (she always kept a box of it tucked inside a drawer in her room) and to me, having a rectangular piece of shortbread with fork marks pierced throughout will always bring equal amounts of joy and nostalgia.
For this ice cream sandwich, I really wanted to capture everything I love about shortbread in ice cream form. The ice cream should be rich and buttery. It should be so smooth like when a perfectly sandy shortbread melts on your tongue. And of course, it should have a shortbread crust to tie everything together.
This little part is for the recipe developers out there who are interested in the process of getting to this final recipe. My original thought was to create a shortbread-infused cream for the creme anglaise — an overnight, cold steep of shortbread cookies and heavy cream. But the cream couldn’t get into the centre of the shortbread cookies, and in turn the flavour of shortbread didn’t get extract into the dairy. Instead, the shortbread cookies are blended into the hot cream to incorporate the cookie flavour. This also thickened the cream and added body and richness, hence why we add one less egg yolk than my other ice cream recipes. From there, everything is pretty straightforward. We churn the ice cream base and sandwich it between a crust of shortbread cookies.
Shortbread Ice Cream Sandwich
Ingredients
Shortbread Creme Anglaise (Ice Cream Base)
- 625 ml (2.5 cups) heavy cream
- 250 ml (1 cup) whole milk
- 150 g (3/4 cup) granulated sugar
- 150 g shortbread cookies, (I used one pack of Walker's Shortbread)
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 4 large egg yolks
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
Shortbread Crust
- 300 g shortbread cookies, (I used two packs of Walker's Shortbread)
- 100 g (1/3 cup and 2 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted
- 1 tbsp granulated sugar
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
Instructions
Shortbread Creme Anglaise (Ice Cream Base)
- In a medium pot, combine heavy cream, whole milk, sugar, shortbread cookies, and vanilla. Bring mixture to a light simmer. Remove the pot from heat and allow the mixture to sit for 10 minutes. The cookies should start to get soft at this point.
- Transfer the mixture into a blender and blend until smooth. The mixture should still be hot.
- Gradually pour the mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly as you pour. Scrape the warmed yolks and milk back into the pot.
- Cook over low heat, whisking constantly until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.
- 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 shortbread crust below.
Shortbread Crust
- Line a square baking pan (both 8×8 and 9×9 are okay) with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Blitz cookies in a blender or food processor until it becomes a fine crumb. Transfer crumbs to a medium bowl.
- Add melted butter, sugar, and salt to the biscuit crumbs and mix until mixture resembles wet sand.
- Transfer half of the biscuit 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 biscuit 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
- Once the ice cream has been churned, remove the pan with cookie crust layer from the freezer.
- Transfer the ice cream onto the cookie 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 layers.
- Remove the first biscuit 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.
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