A special, frosty treat for the holidays! Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches have an easy, no-churn, lemon-flavored ice cream sandwiched between two gingerbread cookies.
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At this chilly time of year, ice cream treats are not always the kind that come to mind. Cookies? Of course! Candy, chocolates, and hot drinks? You betcha. Well, it's time to get ice cream on that list, and here's a delicious way to do it: Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches!
Two gingerbread men hold a frosty filling of ice cream, but it's no ordinary ice cream—it's a homemade lemon ice cream. Don't worry: this ice cream is an easy, no-churn variety that comes together in a snap with no special equipment: just mix it up and freeze it.
The ice cream is packed with fresh lemon juice and zest, for a bright, citrus flavor that pairs really beautifully with the classic flavor of gingerbread: cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, molasses, and brown sugar.
What is no-churn ice cream?
Regular ice cream is made with an ice cream maker, which can be an electric machine, a hand-cranked bucket with rock salt, or those little balls that you roll back and forth with the liquid inside. They all make ice cream by freezing the ingredients while churning them to incorporate air.
This ice cream is called no-churn because it doesn't require any of that equipment—instead, the ingredients are simply stirred together and then frozen until firm. It's a little more dense and icy than churned ice cream, but still very delicious. This method is perfect when you want a no-fuss way of making ice cream.
Why you'll love this recipe
The instructions in the recipe show you how to make a batch of simple gingerbread cookies from scratch. They're very tasty on their own, but don't eat them yet!
Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches are a special treat to serve at a Christmas party, to bring to work on the last day before the holiday break, and to have on hand as a fun dessert for your Christmas guests.
The ice cream has an overnight chilling step, so plan for this extra time when getting ready to try the recipe. The ice cream sandwiches are great to make in advance as they'll last in the freezer for awhile.
🔪 How To Make Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches
Ingredients:
- Sweetened Condensed Milk: Sold in the small, 14-ounce cans. Be careful you don't grab evaporated milk by mistake!
- Lemon: Both fresh juice and zest go into the ice cream.
- Heavy Cream: Very cold heavy cream gets whipped up before it goes into the ice cream base.
- Vanilla Extract: Use a good, quality brand like Nielsen-Massey.
- Molasses: Dark, sweet, and sticky molasses is a must-have ingredient in good gingerbread cookies.
- Brown Sugar: The recipe calls for light brown sugar, although you can use dark for a stronger flavor.
- Butter: Use a good, unsalted butter in the cookies, such as Cabot or Kerrygold.
- Egg: Just one egg for the cookie dough.
- Flour: Use all-purpose flour—my go-to brand is King Arthur Baking Company.
- Spices: The yummy gingerbread has cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and a little salt.
- Baking Soda: This leavener helps the cookies puff up.
- Sprinkles: They're optional, but sprinkles look very festive on the sides of the ice cream sandwiches.
Step 1: Make the ice cream
Combine ingredients like lemon juice, sweetened condensed milk, and whipped cream to create the ice cream base. Scoop it into a dish and freeze overnight.
Step 2: Make the cookie dough
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Combine dry ingredients first. Blend butter, brown sugar, molasses, and egg, and then combine this with the dry ingredients to make the gingerbread dough. Divide the dough in half and chill it for at least an hour.
Step 3: Roll and cut cookies
Roll out the gingerbread cookie dough to a ¼-inch thickness. Use a gingerbread man cookie cutter to cut out the shapes. Move them to a baking sheet; chill the cookies briefly.
Step 4: Bake
Bake the gingerbread cookies and then let them cool completely.
Step 5: Assemble the sandwiches
Soften the ice cream a little, then spread a layer of it onto a gingerbread cookie. Top with another cookie, and then hold it in the freezer; repeat until all the sandwiches are made. Chill them in the freezer for an hour.
Step 6: Decorate—then wrap or enjoy!
Cover the edges of the ice cream sandwiches in sprinkles if you'd like. Then, wrap the sandwiches in plastic and store them in the freezer. Or, if you just can't wait, dig into a Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwich immediately!
Tips:
- The Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches can be eaten right away, but they're the best the next day when the cookies has softened just a little!
- You'll notice that this no-churn ice cream has a slightly icier texture than traditional ice cream—that's normal. Once it softens a little, it's easy to spread inside the cookies. And it tastes fantastic.
- The dough is very sticky, so use a generous dusting of flour on your work surface and rolling pin. If the dough does stick, a bench scraper like this one will help move the dough and will clean stuck-on bits from the board.
- There are lots of chilling times in this recipe but they're important:
- to let the ice cream properly freeze
- to make the cookie dough easier to handle
- to help cookies hold their shape when baked
- to let the ice cream sandwiches firm up. So factor these into your plan!
FAQs
It's certainly tempting to add eyes, mouths, and gum drop buttons to these cookie sandwiches. You can decorate them if you want, but keep in mind that it will be hard to keep icing, candies, etc. intact as they're wrapped, frozen, and handled while eating. An easier decor option is just to add colorful sprinkles to the sides.
I hope you'll give this lemon no-churn ice cream a try, because it's just lovely with the gingerbread. However, if you'd prefer, you can use another flavor of no-churn or regular store-bought ice cream instead.
This recipe and the nostalgic, holiday ice cream sandwiches from the midwestern dairy company Kemps have a few things in common: they're both ice cream sandwiches made with gingerbread men cookies. However, Kemp's are made with vanilla ice cream and this recipe uses lemon no-churn ice cream.
For the cookies on their own, it's a matter of personal preference whether they're baked to be really soft and tender or firm and crispy. For these ice cream sandwiches, I bake the cookies on the firm side so that they'll hold up well when spreading them with ice cream.
Who's ready for an ice cream sandwich, Christmas-style!?!
Find the Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches recipe below. And here are more treats that really make the holiday tasty and bright:
💬 How do you like these frosty, gingerbread treats? Leave a comment below.
📖 Recipe
Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches (With Lemon Ice Cream)
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Equipment
- Rolling Pin
- Bench scraper (Optional, but very handy)
Ingredients
For the ice cream:
- 14 ounces sweetened condensed milk
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoons lemon zest (approximately 3 large lemons worth)
- ¼ cup fresh lemon juice (approximately 2 large lemons worth)
- 1 pinch sea salt
- 2 cups heavy cream
For the cookies:
- 3½ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¾ cup unsalted butter, softened (1½ sticks or 12 tablespoons)
- ¾ cup light brown sugar, packed
- ½ cup molasses, unsulphured
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- Optional: holiday sprinkles to decorate the sides
Instructions
Make the ice cream:
- Place the bowl and whisk attachment for a stand mixer into the freezer. (Or, if using a hand mixer, put the beaters and a large bowl in the freezer.)
- Whisk together the sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract, lemon zest, lemon juice, and pinch of salt in a large mixing bowl. Set this aside.
- Get the stand mixer bowl and whisk from the freezer and attach them to the mixer. Pour in the heavy cream; whisk the cream on medium-high speed for three to five minutes, until it becomes whipped cream with stiff peaks. Watch the cream carefully and don't overmix it!
- Fold the whipped cream into the sweetened condensed milk mixture, scooping from the bottom of the bowl and gently folding the ingredients together. The goal is to keep as much of the airiness of the whipped cream as possible in the mixture.
- Scoop the mixture into a 9-inch loaf pan or an 8-inch square baking dish. Cover the dish tightly with plastic wrap and freeze it for at least 8 hours or overnight.
Make the cookie dough:
- Whisk together the flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cloves in a large bowl.
- Beat together the softened butter and brown sugar on medium speed in the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl with a hand mixer. Cream the ingredients for about five minutes, scraping the bowl once, until they look light in color.
- Add in the molasses and run the mixer to mix it in. Scrape the bowl. Next, beat in the egg, and finally, the vanilla extract.
- Run the mixer on low and add in the dry mixture, half at a time, until the dry ingredients are completely mixed into the wet.
Refrigerate the dough:
- Heavily flour a cutting board. Turn the cookie dough out of the pan onto the board.
- Squeeze the dough together with floured hands until it all holds together. Divide the dough in half and flatten them into disks. Wrap each half in plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough for at least an hour, or as long as overnight.
Roll and cut the dough:
- Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Have your cookie cutter ready; a bench scraper if you have one is also very handy here.
- Note: this is a very sticky dough, so it's important to keep your board and rolling pin floured as you work. A bench scraper is helpful to help carefully move cut pieces that are sticking, and to clean the board.
- Flour the cutting board again as well as your rolling pin. Take a disk of dough from the fridge; unwrap and dust both sides with flour.
- Roll the dough to a ¼-inch thickness: to do this, roll from the center of the dough outwards; turn the dough a quarter-turn, and repeat. If the dough sticks when you move it, dust more flour underneath.
- Cut out the gingerbread men with your cookie cutter and move them to the baking sheet, leaving about an inch between them.
- When the pan is full, pop it into the fridge (or outside on a porch or deck if it's very cold out) and chill it for 10 minutes.
Bake:
- Then, bake the cookies for 11-12 minutes. They should be set enough to move, but soft enough that they don't get too firm once cooled. Move the cookies to a cooling rack.
- Continue these steps with the rest of the dough, including the scraps, until all the cookies are baked and cooled.
Make the ice cream sandwiches:
- Pull the ice cream out of the freezer to soften on the counter about 15 minutes before you want to begin assembling the sandwiches, so it has time to soften a little.
- Have ready a small spoon and place a tray or large plate in the freezer to hold the sandwiches once you put them together.
- Spoon about a ¼-cup of softened ice cream over the bottom of one cookie, getting it onto the arms, legs, and head. Make the ice cream as even a layer as possible.
- Top it with another cookie, with the good side facing up. VERY GENTLY squeeze the cookies together, just enough to force the ice cream to the edges of the cookies.
- Use a small spoon to scrape away any excess ice cream around the sides. It will be melty, so just do the best you can; you'll have another chance later to clean up the sides.
- Place the assembled sandwich on the plate or tray in the freezer.
- Continue with the rest of the cookies until all of the ice cream sandwiches are made and chilling in the freezer. Let them set for an hour.
Add sprinkles and wrap:
- If your ice cream sandwiches need any tidying along the edges, do that now: use a small spoon to scrape away the excess, smooth the sides, and make them look neat.
- To add sprinkles: Pour the sprinkles of your choice into a shallow bowl. Working one at a time, hold an ice cream sandwich over the bowl and press the sprinkles onto the sides, turning and pressing them in to coat the sides completely. Return the sandwich to the freezer, and continue with the others.
- Wrap each ice cream sandwich in plastic, or slide them into clear plastic treat bags tied tightly at the top. You can then put them into a larger container or freezer-proof bag if you'd like, to keep them together in the freezer.
- While they can be eaten right away, they're the best the next day because the cookies have had time to soften just a little.
- Store the ice cream sandwiches in the freezer for one month.
Notes
- The Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches can be eaten right away, but they're the best the next day when the cookies has softened just a little!The Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches can be eaten right away, but they're the best the next day when the cookies has softened just a little!
- You'll notice that this no-churn ice cream has a slightly icier texture than traditional ice cream—that's normal. Once it softens a little, it's easy to spread inside the cookies. And it tastes fantastic.
- The dough is very sticky, so use a generous dusting of flour on your work surface and rolling pin. If the dough does stick, a bench scraper like this one will help move the dough and will clean stuck-on bits from the board.
- There are lots of chilling times in this recipe but they're important:
- to let the ice cream properly freeze
- to make the cookie dough easier to handle
- to help cookies hold their shape when baked
- to let the ice cream sandwiches firm up. So factor these into your plan!
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