Serious Eats: Recipes
Gluten-Free Tuesday: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream
[Photographs: Elizabeth Barbone]
Hailing from the birthplace of Ben and Jerry's ice cream (Burlington, Vermont), my mom has strong feelings about their famous Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream. She hates it. She always says, "Who wants to eat gobs of raw dough in perfectly good ice cream?" Her daughter, that's who! I love the stuff.
When I thought about making gluten-free chocolate chip cookie dough, I knew I could make it by folding cookie dough pieces into soft, freshly churned ice cream. But what if someone doesn't have an ice cream maker, or just doesn't feel like making a batch of ice cream from scratch? Is it still possible to make this ice cream? I needed to find out.
My first attempt was a total flop. Halfway through making it, I couldn't stop laughing. Melted ice cream, everywhere. I even managed to get some in my hair. The reason it flopped? I allowed the ice cream to get really soft then attempted to fold the dough balls into the softened ice cream. Don't do this. Trust me. The ice cream gets way too melty.
But there is hope—I discovered an easier, much less messy way to make this ice cream. Simply allow store-bought vanilla ice cream to soften slightly. Then transfer the softened ice cream into a freezer-safe container. As you do, dot the ice cream with little balls of chocolate chip cookie dough. That's it!
Here's how to do it:
- Allow ice cream to soften but not melt and work from the outside to the inside of the carton. The ice cream melts first around the edges. If you wait for the entire carton to soften, the outsides edges will be soupy. As soon as the edges become soft, begin scooping the ice cream.
- Use small balls of dough. At first, I scooped the cookie dough into, approximately, two teaspoon balls. These seemed a little big. To make this process easy, I split the dough balls into smaller pieces as I pushed them into the dough.
- Freeze leftover cookie dough. This recipe makes a little extra cookie dough. You can freeze the leftover dough for the next time you make chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. To do this: scoop dough into small balls, chill on a baking sheet, and then transfer firm dough balls to a freezer bag. Or, you could bake cookies with the leftover dough! Scoop dough, about one tablespoon each, onto a lined baking sheet and bake in an oven preheated to 350°F until golden brown, about 15 minutes. (And now I am thinking about an ice cream sandwich made with chocolate chip cookies and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.)
Allergy Notes
Egg-Free: Since the cookie dough is consumed raw, the dough is egg-free to avoid salmonella from raw eggs. If you are egg-allergic, be sure to select a vanilla ice cream that's egg-free.
Dairy-Free: Replace the butter called for in the chocolate chip cookie dough with a solid shortening and use dairy-free chocolate chips and dairy-free ice cream. If dairy-free chocolate chip ice cream is hard to find, use vanilla and dot the ice cream with dairy-free chocolate chips as you add the dough balls.
About the author:
Barbone of
GlutenFreeBaking.com joins us every Tuesday with a new gluten-free
recipe. Elizabeth is an alumna of the Culinary Institute of America
and Mount Mary College. With her solid professional baking background,
Elizabeth is known for creating gluten-free recipes that taste just
like their wheat counterparts. She is the author of
Gluten-Free Baking.
