ice cream. in a sandwich

Oh hi everyone!  Didn't mean to disappear for so long.  There has been a lot going on over here and I have tons to share with you, with photos even!  But first, there were ice cream sandwiches.  

I know, I said it.  Ice. Cream. Sandwiches.  As any one of you might have guessed by now, I tend to go a bit overboard when hosting a party.  This is a trait that I most definitely inherited from my grandmother, who was the queen of overboard parties (when I was a kid, she hosted a full luau engagement party for a cousin of mine.  And I mean full-on.  They lived in New Jersey.  I'm pretty sure that the marriage didn't last, but I will never forget that party).  

In any case, when we started planning our housewarming party that we held last weekend, I asked Jared what kind of food we should have.  Being a guy, or maybe just being not me, he suggested that we make whatever we usually make.  To which I responded "noooo."  This was our big housewarming party and I really wanted to make something special.  And of course ice cream sandwiches was the next logical step.  

The process began about a week and a half before the party when I started making all the ice cream.  For the record, there was vanilla, strawberry, coffee, and peach.  The first three were all made using the same base recipe, which comes from Veganomicon (yes, it's vegan ice cream-and no it doesn't taste like regular ice cream, but it's still damn good).  The peach ice cream idea came from Robin (she posted the recipe in the comments here).  I somehow forgot the sugar, but it still came out pretty tasty, so if you're not doing sugar, I'd recommend this recipe.  

And then came the cookies.  There were chocolate chip, chocolate-chocolate chip, and almond cookies.  My initial ideas of combinations were: chocolate chip+vanilla, chocolate-chocolate chip+coffee, and almond+peach.  In the end, there ended up being almost every combination possible and I think my personal favorite was the almond+coffee.  The almond cookies were also from Veganomicon and definitely turned out to be the best consistency of cookie for this purpose.  They were big, flat, and solid.  The other cookies got a bit too crumbly, but were still a great flavor.  

Finally, came the assembly on the morning of the party.  This was definitely the easiest step of this whole endeavor.  Just set out the two cookies, put a scoop or two of ice cream on one cookie, and press down with the second cookie...forming a magical ice cream sandwich.  And then repeat, about forty times...You definitely want to let the ice cream soften a bit before doing this, otherwise it just gets messy.  I wrapped all of mine individually in tin foil, and then labeled them so everyone would know what they were getting.  

Obviously this project took a little planning, and was a bit labor intensive, but it was such a hit!  And they were so delicious.  Even if you don't make the ice cream yourself (or even the cookies), there's something way more fun about eating an ice cream sandwich than just a bowl of regular old ice cream!  I'd highly recommend this for your next summer party.  We have lots of ice cream left, so I may be baking more cookies this weekend to make more sandwiches, just for us!