Ice cream sandwiches are a classic dessert. My dad loves them which means that at any given moment we had ice cream sandwiches in the freezer, waiting to be eaten. When I moved away from home and to Los Angeles, my dad created this ritual where he would stop at the halfway point on his drives to visit me and get some kind of ice cream bar.
So this dessert is sort of for him. The only problem with this particular ice cream sandwich is that the ice cream is made up of bananas .. and he is allergic to bananas. Major bummer, but I doubt he’ll mind grabbing for his own version of ice cream sandwiches instead!
As reluctant as I’ve been to acknowledge Fall and all things pumpkin I have given in, joyously, once I made these guys up in my head. I’m still living in Summer Land here in Miami but I still love playing with Fall flavors and pretending there are more seasons other than Hot and Super Hot.
I originally drew gingerbread inspiration from this recipe … Amy is incredible and incredibly creative and I feel like her gingerbread recipe is probably killer and could work here beautifully as well. I made my own gingerbread using a lot of the same spices (gingerbread spices, duh) and stuck with the buckwheat base since I was looking for something lower in fat.
Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches
makes 8-12
Ingredients
For the gingerbread cookie:
- 1 cup dried buckwheat
- 1 cup medjool dates, soaked
- 1/2 cup flax meal
- 1 T cinnamon
- 1 t nutmeg
- 1/4 t ginger
- 1/4 t allspice
- 1/4 t clove powder
- 1/8 t vanilla
- 4-5 frozen bananas, chopped
- 1 T cinnamon
- Grind the buckwheat in a food processor blender or mini chopper * until a powder forms.
- Place in a large bowl.
- Process the dates with a couple tablespoons of the soak water until a paste forms and add to the bowl.
- Add the remaining ingredients and mix well until a dough is formed. I used my hands to mix.
- In a food processor process the frozen chunks with the cinnamon until an ice cream is formed. Scrape down the sides as needed. That’s it!
- Line a small baking dish with foil and press down until tight.
- Place half the dough on a piece of saran wrap and cover with another layer of saran wrap.
- Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough to about the same size as the dish.
- Transfer the layer of dough to the dish and press to fit, filling in any gaps and removing excess.
- Pour the ice cream over the top.
- Cover and place in freezer until hard (4-5 hours).
- Once it is hard, do the same steps with the remaining dough as you did with the first layer of dough.
- Place in freezer until you are ready to eat (at least 2 hours).
- Let it thaw for a few minutes before eating so it’s more enjoyable!
Hi, can I replace dried buckwheat with almond meal? 🙂
Hi Ananelia! I think so, if you'd like! I used buckwheat to keep the fat content relatively low, and it provides such a satisfying cookie-factor .. but I think almond meal will work fabulously as well!