Ice Cream Sandwiches and a Graeter’s Ice Cream Giveaway

I got the best email the other day. It pretty much read, “would you like to sample some ice cream?” Um, yeah. Do you really need ask a girl if she wants to sample some ice cream? Might as well just send it and assume no one will turn down the mail man when he comes knocking.

Graeter’s Ice Cream quickly shipped out 6 pints of their signature flavors in a sturdy styrofoam cooler with dry ice and it arrived pretty much over night and really …uh, annoyed Handsome by telling him we couldn’t eat any until I could figure out how to review it. Not one bite.

Now, I know I read that this ice cream was featured on Opera and if she says it’s good the whole world knows about it and so on and so forth. But I don’t watch Opera and I’m not down with reading her magazine reviews.

What I can say about Graeter’s is that it’s the only time I’ve ‘sampled’ more than a spoonful of chocolate ice cream. Normally I hate it – but there is something about their chocolate that isn’t too thick or artificial tasting. There are chunks of delicious chocolate that are soft to the bite and yet still tact and firm. Not like that one time I broke a tooth…

The black raspberry has large chunks of black raspberries in it. No difference with strawberry and the vanilla is so simple and smooth it’s just pleasant to enjoy one spoonful at a time.

This ice cream is also very very scoop-able (which makes it really hard to prep for photographs. It’s so soft there is no struggling with the spoon. I thought maybe my freezer had just changed its setting but I had another brand in the same freezer and well, we’ll just say my spoon was not as happy to by in that container.

I did check the Graeter’s website after licking the bowl clean to find out if it was stocked any where near me. It’s not. But they do offer mail order and if it is nearly as quick an efficient as my sample I’m sure it wont disappoint.

Now let’s sample this ice cream together:

Ice Cream Sandwiches

From Annie’s Eats, adapted from Tartlette

Ingredients:

• 4 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. salt
• Ice cream for the centers

 

Preparation:
In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter, vegetable oil and brown sugar.  Beat on medium speed until combined.  Blend in the eggs one at a time, and the vanilla extract until smooth.  In a separate bowl combine the cocoa powder, flour, baking powder and salt; whisk to blend.  With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients to the bowl with the wet ingredients and mix just until incorporated and a soft dough forms.  Gather the dough into a disc, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until well chilled, at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 350˚ F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.  On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough to about ¼-inch thick.  Use a cookie cutter to cut out as many pieces as you can, transferring the cut outs to the prepared baking sheet.  Gather and re-roll the dough scraps as needed.  If desired, use a wooden skewer to make a dotted pattern on the cookies.  Bake 8-10 minutes.  Let cool on the baking sheet a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

To assemble the sandwiches, use the same cookie cutter that was used for the cookies to cut out pieces of ice cream.  Layer one piece of ice cream between two of the cookies and return to the freezer immediately.  Wrap the sandwiches individually as desired.  Keep frozen until ready to serve.

I used black raspberry, mint chocolate chip and vanilla for these ice cream sandwiches.

Now the best part about this post? Graeter’s is also going to be sharing a sample pack with one lucky reader!

Leave a comment here telling me what your favorite flavor of ice cream is.

Earn Extra Points by (each action gives you an additional chance to win – you can really rack em up this time). You do not have to leave an additional comment for each, just tell me if you are doing any of the following:

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Entries accepted through May 8th at Midnight EST. Winner will be announced on 5/10/11.