Food Truck Tuesday – Salted caramel ice cream sandwich

Ingredients

for the ice cream:
• 2 cups whole milk
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 8 large egg yolks
• 1 ¼ cup granulated sugar
• 1 Tbsp Maldon sea salt*
for the cookies:
• 2 stick unsalted butter
• 2 cups packed light brown sugar
• 1 large egg + 1 large egg yolk
• 1 tsp natural vanilla extract
• 2 cups sifted flour
• ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• ½ tsp kosher salt
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Place a deep baking dish, or bowl made of plastic, stainless steel or glass in the freezer (or the bowl of your ice ceam maker if you have one)
2. In a 4-quart saucepan, combine milk and cream and heat over medium-high heat until just before boiling. Set aside.
3. Meanwhile, beat yolks and half of the sugar with a whisk until smooth, heavy and pale yellow, about 30 seconds.
4. Heat a large, heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. When hot, sprinkle remaining sugar into pan by the spoonful. As each spoonful melts, add another and gently mix with a long-handled whisk or wooden spoon. Repeat until all sugar is used.
5. The sugar will begin caramelizing very soon. The color will go from pale to golden to amber to dark. When the bubbles get foamy and smoke rises, remove pan from heat. Do not allow caramel to burn!
6. Whisk a small amount of hot cream mixture into caramelized sugar. Be careful: It will steam up and bubble. Keep adding cream mixture, whisking, until it is all incorporated.
7. Return pan to medium-high heat and gently bring mixture to a boil. Whisk to gently incorporate any hardened pieces of caramel sticking to the side of the pan.
8. When caramel-cream mixture comes to a boil, in a slow stream, pour half of cream mixture over yolk-sugar mixture, whisking constantly until blended.
9. Return pan to stovetop over low heat. Whisking constantly, stream yolk-cream mixture back into pan.
10. With a wooden spoon, continue stirring until mixture registers 165 to 180 degrees F, about 2 minutes. Do not heat above 180 degrees, or eggs in base will scramble and you have to start over again. Mixture should be slightly thickened and coat back of spoon, with steam rising, but not boiling.
11. Transfer to a bowl and mix with an immersion blender or a hand mixer. Mix in sea salt.**
12. Pour into a clean baking dish and cool over an ice bath.
13. Get your baking dish from the freezer and pour the mixture into it. Place in the freezer.
14. After 45 minutes, take the dish from the freezer and stir thoroughly to break up the ice crystals. Repeat this every 30 minutes for 2 – 3 hours until the ice cream has the desired consistency. You can use a whisk, hand mixer or a spatula for this.
15. While the ice cream is in the freezer you can start with the cookies:
16. Place butter in a sauce pan and set over low heat until just half is melted. Cool for 5 minutes.
17. Pour cooled butter into a large bowl. Add sugar and whisk to combine. Whisk in egg and yolk, one at a time, then whisk in vanilla. Set aside.
18. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, kosher salt and baking soda.
19. Add dry ingredients one third at a time, to wets, mixing with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon to combine. Fold in chocolate chips until evenly distributed.
20. Wrap bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.
21. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F, with racks in lower and thirds of oven. Line two baking pans with parchment paper.
22. Form dough into balls about the size of whole walnuts and place 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets.
23. Top eat cookie with a few flakes of sea salt en push down gently.
24. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until edges are light brown and centers are still wet. Don’t overbake because the cookies need to stay soft so you can easily eat them as an ice cream sandwich.
25. Transfer cookies immediately to a cooling rack. Let cool for at least 1 hour before serving.
26. For serving: Place 1 scoop of salted caramel ice cream between two double chocolate cookies.

Notes