All my hard work has finally paid off! I've been scheming up this idea for a while now, and with summer just around the corner I wanted to make up an ice cream sandwich that I could be proud of... and this one definitely made me happy.
Maple Macadamia Nut Ice Cream: I take two bottles of real CANADIAN :) maple syrup and some milk, eggs, and cream, and make an amazing maple ice cream. Then, after thinking through all my nut options, I settle for macadamia nuts. Normally I would use pecans or walnuts because those are the nuts I've grown up around. But since I'm in Australia now, and macadamia nuts are typical Australian nuts, I thought I'd throw them in. I toasted them first before lightly crushing them and folding into the ice cream so that they would stand up to the strong maple flavor. I normally find macadamias quite mild, but once they were nice and toasted, their nuttiness jumped up tenfold! Delicious. Creamy, not too sweet, crunch from the macadamias (which I must admit hold up much crunchier than pecans or walnuts which can have a tendency to go soft), and a punch of maple syrup flavor that lingers in your mouth. Perfection!
But maple macadamia nut ice cream is the easy part. The piece de resistance is the bacon brown sugar cookie that holds everything together! Smokey, chewy, bacon-y. It turns your maple macadamia ice cream into breakfast! Well my kind of breakfast at least :D
For my first batch, I sprinkled brown sugar on the bacon and baked it in the oven at 400F until it was crisp and the brown sugar was caramelized.
But I wouldn't advise you to do this. It makes the bacon taste more like brown sugar than anything else and you lose most of the bacon goodness. In the recipe below I have you chop the bacon finely before frying it in a pan on the stove at a medium heat until all the fat has rendered out and you are left with only really crispy bacon. Any fat or rind that remains on the bacon will only go soft and chewy in your cookie, not what you're looking for.
8 rashers streaky bacon
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
First off get your bacon ready. Finely dice it and throw it into a cold frying pan. Put the pan over a medium to medium low heat and render all the fat out of the bacon. Once it's rendered out, fry the bacon until super crispy. In the end you want little bacon bits.
In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and salt until dissolved. Add the eggs one at a time. Then add the flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Stir until almost combined. Add your bacon bits and stir the whole thing until the dry flour has just about disappeared.
Drop the cookie dough by the heaping tablespoonful on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake in a preheated 180C oven for 8 minutes.
Make sure not to over bake these babies! You want them still soft with edges that have ever so slightly begun to caramelize.
Now all that's left to do is sandwich!
Maple Macadamia Nut Ice Cream: I take two bottles of real CANADIAN :) maple syrup and some milk, eggs, and cream, and make an amazing maple ice cream. Then, after thinking through all my nut options, I settle for macadamia nuts. Normally I would use pecans or walnuts because those are the nuts I've grown up around. But since I'm in Australia now, and macadamia nuts are typical Australian nuts, I thought I'd throw them in. I toasted them first before lightly crushing them and folding into the ice cream so that they would stand up to the strong maple flavor. I normally find macadamias quite mild, but once they were nice and toasted, their nuttiness jumped up tenfold! Delicious. Creamy, not too sweet, crunch from the macadamias (which I must admit hold up much crunchier than pecans or walnuts which can have a tendency to go soft), and a punch of maple syrup flavor that lingers in your mouth. Perfection!
But maple macadamia nut ice cream is the easy part. The piece de resistance is the bacon brown sugar cookie that holds everything together! Smokey, chewy, bacon-y. It turns your maple macadamia ice cream into breakfast! Well my kind of breakfast at least :D
For my first batch, I sprinkled brown sugar on the bacon and baked it in the oven at 400F until it was crisp and the brown sugar was caramelized.
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| Looks good for a picture... but these cookies deserve more than just good looks |
Bacon Brown Sugar Cookies
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
First off get your bacon ready. Finely dice it and throw it into a cold frying pan. Put the pan over a medium to medium low heat and render all the fat out of the bacon. Once it's rendered out, fry the bacon until super crispy. In the end you want little bacon bits.
In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and salt until dissolved. Add the eggs one at a time. Then add the flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Stir until almost combined. Add your bacon bits and stir the whole thing until the dry flour has just about disappeared.
Drop the cookie dough by the heaping tablespoonful on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake in a preheated 180C oven for 8 minutes.
Make sure not to over bake these babies! You want them still soft with edges that have ever so slightly begun to caramelize.
Now all that's left to do is sandwich!
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| To make these bars, just bake one big thin cookie on a sheet tray. Cut it in half, pile on the ice cream, top with the other half and cut! |
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