P.B.C.D.D.L. Ice Cream Sammies
Peanut Butter Chocolate Dulce de Leche Ice Cream Sammies
P.B.C.D.D.L. Ice Cream Sammies
For all the peanut butter and chocolate lovers out there - silky chocolate ice cream, chewy, salty peanut butter cookies, and a generous dollop of homemade dulce de leche. This is one decadent ice cream sammie!
Equipment
- Kitchen scale (to weight out ingredients)
- Ice Cream Maker
- immersion blender, regular blender, or food processor
- 8" x 8" x 2" metal pan
- Set of plain round cookie cutters such as Ateco
- Digital thermometer
Ingredients
Chocolate Ice Cream
- 44 grams dark chocolate, between 60% and 70% cacao, finely chopped
- 94 grams granulated sugar
- 17 grams malted milk powder
- 28 grams cocoa powder, unsweetened, alkalized
- 1/8 tsp sea salt
- 1/16 tsp espresso powder
- 121 grams milk
- 580 grams heavy cream
- 112 grams large egg yolks 6-9 yolks
- 63 grams glucose or reduced corn syrup*
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Dulce de Leche
- 1 gallon whole milk
- 800 grams granulated sugar (4 cups)
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 tsp kosher salt
Peanut Butter Cookies
- 300 grams all-purpose flour (2 ½ cups)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 227 grams unsalted butter (1 cup)
- 200 grams granulated sugar (1 cup)
- 220 grams brown sugar, light or dark (1 cup)
- 250 grams peanut butter (1 cup, crunchy or smooth)
- 2 eggs, large
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions
Chocolate Ice Cream
- Set a fine mesh strainer over a medium bowl and add the finely chopped chocolate. Set aside.
- In another medium bowl, combine sugar, malted milk powder, cocoa, salt, and espresso powder. Set aside.
- In a medium saucepan, whisk together the milk, 116 grams of the cream, and egg yolks. Add the glucose (or corn syrup) and the sugar/malt powder/cocoa/salt/espresso mixture and stir until dissolved.
- Stirring constantly, heat the mixture on medium-low, until it begins to thicken and reaches 170°F on a digital thermometer. You can also tell it's cooked enough if you coat the back of a spoon with the mixture and when you drag your finger across, it leaves a defined line.
- Quickly pour the mixture through the prepared mesh strainer, making sure to scrape the bottom of the saucepan. Press everything through the strainer and scrape the bottom of the strainer as well to get every last bit of the mixture.
- Stir the mixture until all the chocolate has melted. Then slowly stir in the remaining cream and the vanilla. Cover and refrigerate until very cold, minimum 4 hours.
- Line the 8”x8”x2” pan with plastic wrap, allowing extra wrap to overhang on all 4 sides. Run chilled chocolate ice cream base through your ice cream maker and churn according to manufacturer's directions. (Mine usually takes about 20 minutes to churn and I use a KitchenAid ice cream attachment.) Working quickly, spoon the churned ice cream into the plastic wrap lined pan and use an offset spatula to smooth the top of the ice cream. Immediately cover with more plastic wrap and a layer of aluminum foil and store in freezer to firm up completely, at least 6 hours.
Dulce de Leche
- Pour the entire gallon of milk into the stock pot, add the sugar, and stir to combine. Set the mixture over high heat and keep an eye on it so you can catch it before it boils over. This should take 20-30 minutes. Meanwhile, mix the baking soda with 2 tbsp warm water and set aside.
- Once the milk comes to a boil, remove it from heat. Slowly add the baking soda mixture, just 1/2 tsp at a time, waiting 30 seconds between each addition, so that it won't boil over. Give it a very gentle stir (again, to avoid causing the milk to boil over) and immediately return to medium heat.
- Allow the milk to simmer, uncovered, without stirring for at least 3 hours. You can certainly cook the dulce de leche at a boil in less than 2 hours. Cooking it at a lower temperature, however, will give you a deeper, more complex flavor.
- Once you hit the 3 hour mark, stay close to the pot. The dulce de leche should be a deep brown color and reduced by over half. Watch for it to start boiling slowly, like molten lava. This is the point where you have to start stirring. Use a wooden spoon to stir continuously, for 10-20 minutes, constantly scraping the bottom of the pan, to allow the dulce de leche to continue to thicken without burning.
- The dulce de leche will be properly thick when: 1. As you quickly scrape the pot, you can see the shiny metal bottom for a flash of a second. 2. It coats the back of the spoon without running off. 3. It is a very dark brown, almost the color of melted dark chocolate.
- Turn off heat and allow the dulce de leche to cool for 10 minutes before pouring it through a strainer into a medium bowl. You should have between 5 and 6 cups. Stir in the vanilla and salt and adjust to taste. For an extra smooth product, run an immersion blender through it for 30 seconds. If you don't have an immersion blender, a regular blender or a food processor will work just fine. Pour the dulce de leche into heat-proof containers and allow to cool completely on counter before refrigerating. Dulce de leche will keep well for several months in the fridge but there's not much chance it will be around for that long!
Peanut Butter Cookies
- In a medium bowl, combine flour, salt, and soda, and whisk until homogenous.
- Beat butter with both sugars until light and fluffy -about 5 minutes. Add peanut butter and vanilla extract and beat until well combined. Add eggs, 1 at a time, and beat after each addition.
- Add flour mixture and beat on low just to combine - do not over mix!
- Weigh out 26 gram portions of dough, roll into balls, and arrange on a lined half sheet (18”x13”), close together, until all dough has been used up. It should all fit on 1 sheet. Cover the dough balls with plastic wrap and chill or freeze until firm. You can then transfer the dough balls to a gallon freezer bag and chill or freeze until ready to bake. (For best texture and even baking, it’s strongly advised to rest the dough for minimum 1 hour, maximum 36 hours. I usually rest my dough overnight, so about 24 hours.)
- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 F and adjust rack to middle position. Arrange 9 balls on a half sheet (18”x13”) pan and allow to come to room temperature. Use a fork to press a crisscross pattern into the dough, as you can see in the photos. Bake for 9-10 minutes. Repeat this process until you've used up all the cookie dough.
- Cookies should spread to be between 2.5” and 2.75”. 30 seconds after you’ve pulled the cookies from the oven, use a 3.5” or 4.0” round cookie cutter to shape up the cookies that aren’t completely round: Place the cutter over a cookie, directly on the cookie sheet and gently move it around the edges of the warm cookie to push it into a rounder shape. Repeat with all cookies that are a bit irregular in shape.
Assembling the Sammies!
- When the cookies are completely cool, match them up to create 9 pairs. Line up the pairs, bottom side up, and spread 1-2 Tbsp of dulce de leche on the bottom side of 1 of each pair of cookies.
- Working quickly, pull your pan of chocolate ice cream from the freezer, unwrap, and use the plastic wrap overhang as handles to pull the ice cream completely out of the pan—this makes it much easier to punch out your ice cream circles. Use your 2.5” cookie cutter to punch out 9 ice cream circles- 3 rows of 3. (The cutter is just the right size to punch out 9 circles from this pan with minimal ice cream left over.) Immediately transfer each ice cream circle to a cookie WITHOUT dulce de de leche and sandwich with the second cookie WITH dulce de leche on top. Press lightly to help the cookies adhere to the ice cream. Transfer the cookie sandwiches to 13” x 9” pan, cover well with plastic wrap and aluminum foil, and return to the freezer to firm up - at least an hour. Then it’s time to enjoy!
Notes
*How to make reduced corn syrup: Measure 80 grams of light corn syrup into a glass measuring cup with a spout (like Pyrex) and bring to a boil in the microwave. Remove from microwave and stir in another 80 grams of light corn syrup. Now the corn syrup will have the same consistency as glucose and can replace glucose in your ice cream recipes.
