Brownie ice cream sandwiches

Tomorrow night, we won't be eating these.



Instead, we'll be hand cranking homemade ice cream with friends at the fifth semi-annual Summerscream, which began as a backyard bash in Ottawa in 2005 and has evolved into an in-condo affair (the tomato plants have overtaken the balcony) in Vancouver in 2011. Last year, we expanded from one ice cream maker to two. And, if this year's yes list is any indication, we might be looking for a third (not to mention a backyard) in 2012.

It's our first time holding Summerscream mid-week, so I've been plugging away at the preparations bit by bit in the evenings: sauces yesterday, ice cream batters today, toasted toppings tomorrow. In the meantime, we've been eating homemade ice cream sandwiches with store-bought ice cream. Technically speaking, it's probably not a homemade ice cream sandwich unless the ice cream is homemade too, but I dare you to care.

He sure didn't.



Brownie Ice Cream Sandwiches

Tops and bottoms:
Let's talk pet peeves briefly. One of mine is when people insist on making ice cream sandwiches with regular cookies. They look amazing until you try to take a bite: the cookie goes one way (your mouth) and the ice cream goes the other (your hand, and eventually down your arm). Thankfully, there is a tasty solution: brownies.

I used this cocoa brownie recipe posted by Ashley over at Not Without Salt. To make the brownies thinner—and more ice cream sandwich-friendly—I baked them in a 9x13-inch pan.

Filling:
Ever the traditionalist, I used vanilla ice cream. That being said, you could use any flavour of ice cream, gelato, sherbet or sorbet, provided that it freezes fairly solid.

I'm (not so) secretly hoping there will be chocolate sherbet left over from tomorrow's Summerscream so that I can give that a go between blondies in what I'm calling (as of now) a reverse ice cream sandwich.

Tool:
Someone (was it you?) gave me a set of William Sonoma ice cream sandwich presses a few years ago. This one looks kind of nifty though and would eliminate brownie scraps. Not that brownie scraps are a huge problem.