Tuesday, September 28, 2010

It's freezing outside... so let's make Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream Sandwiches!

So for the month of September, my staff who celebrated their birthday in September got to decide what I would attempt to make for the birthday treat. I say attempt because sometimes this is like a challenge of can you actually make what I'm suggesting. This was not the case for September. It was four lovely men who celebrated their birthday this month. And here are the responses that I got:

"What ever you make Pennie will be good."
"Isn't there a recipe you want to try?"
"I like ice cream."
"I don't really like sweets, but I like cookies."


So I took all of those things, talked with one of the birthday boys and the decision was Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream Sandwiches. When this decision was made though, it wasn't 55 degrees fahrenheit and rainy- which isn't exactly frigid weather in Michigan, but its also not the time that you think you need an ice cream sandwich.

I, of course, have never made this before. I didn't have a recipe. So I did what anyone would do... I found two recipes and combined them, and didn't follow their rules, and made up my own. So yes, this is a recipe that has been Pennified but still has elements of the two original recipes that you can click on.

Pennie's Pennified Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream Sandwiches!

Ingredients for the icecream:
2 pound of strawberries
1 cup of sugar

3 egg yolks
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 cups whole milk (I used lowfat)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
a pinch of salt

1 pound cream cheese (I used lowfat)
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

Ingredients for the crust:
2 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 stick butter - softned (the first version I used margarine)
1 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large egg (the first version I used the egg whites left from the custard)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Special Equipment you will need:
Ice Cream Maker
Aluminum Foil and Cake Pans OR Aluminum Foil Cake Pans

First make sure your ice cream container is in the freezer so it will be ready to go for the churning process.

Then, I prepped the strawberries by getting rid of the stem and adding in a cup of sugar. Cover them and put them in your refrigerator for later.

Next, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together

                                
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In a saucepan, bring the milk to a gentle simmer.
Remove from the heat and slowly add the egg yolks while stirring. Then put back on stove and heat over low temperature until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.
Remove from the heat and stir in the heavy cream along with the vanilla and salt.
Cool the custard completely at room temperature and then refrigerate in an airtight container until chilled (and your ice cream maker is ready.)
While you are waiting for this to happen, move on to the crust.
The original recipe says that you should use a 9x13 pan and put in aluminum foil that extends past the pan and then grease it well with butter. I chose to buy aluminum foil pans so that I could just peel them away when I wanted. I did grease them well as well.
Preheat oven to 375°F with rack in middle.

Beat together brown sugar and butter with an electric mixer (or your kitchenaid!) for about three minutes until fluffy. Then add in the vanilla and eggs.
Then add in flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. You may need to add the flour into parts to not make a mess.
Or if you are like me, you will definitely make a mess no matter what you do!
Divide batter between the 2 pans and spread into even layers (I've doubled the original recipe, as I didn't think the first amount of batter looked correctly... you certainly can choose to go with the original as I do not follow rules, so why would I expect you to?) 
Bake until golden-brown, 10 to 12 minutes. Cool completely the pans for approximatley 30 minutes.
Now remember I told you in the ingredients that I used egg whites and margarine for one and the full egg and butter for another? Here is the difference in looks:

Can you guess which one is which?

Now let these bake and cool off before you move back to your ice cream- or you'll have a mess.

To finish off the icecream, take your cream cheese and mix it in your mixer with the remaining sugar, lemon zest, and lemon juice until it is smooth. I decided at this point to also add some of my strawberries. Not all of them because my ice cream churner wouldn't be able to handle all of them... but a few I thought we could do.

Next, add the ice cream base and mix it until smooth.
 

Now get that glorious ice cream maker out that you bought on a whim one day because you figured, hey why not? Put the mixture into the ice cream maker and churn to the ice cream manufacturer's directions.

Pour the icecream onto one of the crusts. Then lightly stir in the remaining strawberries in the ice cream. Make sure to not accidently stir up the crust as well. Cover the top and put this in the freezer for a little bit to make the ice cream harder.

Then you need to remove the top crust and put it on the top of the ice cream/crust in the previous pan. This is where the aluminum that you can cut into is handy. You can also lift out the aluminum foil and peel that off if you would like. 
 

Then go ahead and cover and freeze for a bit longer. Then its time to cut the pieces. I got out the largest knife I could find and got to work. I think my freezer is set too high.... which make this semi difficult.



I finished it off by individually wrapping them to make it easier for my staff.

Conclusion: They loved them!

Notes for next time: I ended up making the crusts a few times because I had one that crumbled. Due to this, I did the pan, aluminum foil method, and this worked out well too. In the future, I'll make the top crust in the pan with aluminum foil and the bottom crust in the aluminum foil pan, as it helps that you can peel it away a bit when cutting.

I also put in double the strawberries than the original recipe (this recipe has my measurements). The strawberries were rather frozen in the ice cream, but I also liked that there were a ton of them. Maybe mushing them more than I did this time would help.

When was the last time you ended up with a crazy project that just kept on going forever? This particular project was a three day period of fun, although it wasn't difficult.

1 comment:

  1. These sounds delicious and I love the recipe combining you did to create them...they will be on my summer must have list definitely

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