Homemade Cookie Dough and Maraschino Cherry Ice Cream Cake
Parker’s 11th birthday was a couple days ago. Happy Birthday, Parker!
This kid of mine doesn’t like chocolate. Huh? I know. But one of the things he LOVES is cherries, all kinds. He LOVES maraschino cherries. So I recently made maraschino cherry ice cream, just to make him happy, because we often have ice cream and there aren’t any flavors he likes. Well, I think what is really happening, is he is turning into the kind of person who would rather have savory/salty things than sweets. How dare he! ;)
I guess when a kid is this awesome, you take them as they are. ;)
Here’s the recipe for the maraschino cherry ice cream, it’s a super simple recipe and if you like maraschino cherries, this ice cream is perfect. Parker was pretty happy!
Maraschino Cherry Ice Cream, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup 2% milk
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
*1/3-1/2 cup maraschino cherry juice (from a 10 oz. jar)
*about 24 maraschino cherries, chopped
In a saucepan, dissolve the sugar with 1 cup cream over medium-low heat. Remove from heat and add it in a large bowl to the remaining cup of cream, the milk, almond extract, cherry juice and chopped cherries. Whisk all ingredients together well. The mixture will be cold enough that you don’t need to chill it. You can put the bowl over an ice bath for 15 minutes or so, if you want it colder. I just added it right to the ice cream bowl and began churning it. Churn according to your ice cream makers manufacturer’s instructions, about 20-25 minutes. Remove the soft ice cream from the bowl and store it in an airtight container in the freezer. *I used close to 1/2 cup of juice from the jar of cherries and 24 cherries, which wasn’t the whole jar because a few of them had been eaten before the ice cream was made. ;)
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I made the ice cream a few days before Parker’s birthday. The boys all enjoyed some the day I made it. After asking Parker what he wanted for his birthday—no one here likes cake—he just kept hummin’ and hawin’ about it and couldn’t decide on anything. The day before his birthday, I decided to make him an ice cream cake.
I started with a crust base, which I made up using animal crackers. I really like how it turned out! Sometimes we get tired of the same ol’ graham cracker crust. After making the crust, I stuck it in the freezer for a while.
Animal Cracker Cookie Crust, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!
about 5 1/2 ounces (150 grams) crushed animal crackers
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Pulse the cookie/crackers in a food processor (it was about 2 cups of cookies) until they become fine crumbs. Add the sugar and pulse a few times. Add in the melted butter and the vanilla and pulse until the crumbs are all moistened. Spread evenly and press down in a 9 inch square pan. Can be used for a cheesecake or ice cream cake or any kind of crust you’d like!
Parker doesn’t totally hate all chocolate, he really just doesn’t like too much of it and he really doesn’t like dark chocolate. I’d recently made some eggless chocolate chip cookie dough, which there was still some of in the fridge. Normally, I’d make homemade ice cream, but we happened to have half a gallon of plain vanilla ice cream in the freezer, so I decided to soften it up and add some of the cookie dough to it. Why did I make edible cookie dough? Because Sam had gone to the dentist and then to the store with me afterwards and decided he wanted chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. Can you believe there was none at the store where we went? I promised Sam I’d make him some cookie dough he could have in some vanilla ice cream.
I took little balls of the cookie dough and froze them, then stirred them into the vanilla ice cream.
I stirred about one cup of the cookie dough balls/chunks/nuggets into about half a gallon of vanilla ice cream. (There’s probably another two cups of cookie dough balls in the freezer for use another time!) The now-chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream was spread over the animal cracker crust.
After letting the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream layer freezer for an hour or two, I softened the remaining maraschino cherry ice cream and spread it over the cookie dough ice cream. It was probably about a quart and a half of cherry ice cream. Once that had frozen for a couple hours, I spread Cool Whip over the top and let it freeze more. I know, Cool Whip—it’s a hit here and I wasn’t planning on eating any of the ice cream cake. Okay, I tasted a little. Anyway. The ice cream cake---it tastes great, if you like those cherries. I don’t hate them. I just don’t like what has happened to the cherries. ;)
I am/was so happy that a neighbor recently gave me this great cake pan she didn’t want anymore. It’s a 9-inch square pan with a removable bottom. It was perfect for this ice cream cake!
Kevin put the 11 cherries on the top. (I couldn’t find the candles and I think Parker was much happier with the cherries anyway.) I told Kevin to just put six cherries in one of the “1’s”, but he didn’t like the idea of having them be uneven, that’s why there’s one in the corner. I like the way the sliced ice cream cake came out with perfectly visible pieces of the cookie dough and the layers all prominent.
Here’s the quick, edible/eggless cookie dough recipe. I would probably halve it next time as this made a lot. So unless you have a great use for this much edible dough, go with half.
Edible/Eggless Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
6 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk (I used skim)
1 1/2 cups (180 grams) all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
Cream together the butter and sugars. Add the vanilla and milk and combine. Add the flour and salt and mix just until combined. Stir in the chocolate chips. Store in an airtight container in the fridge. (I will last a couple weeks.) After the dough has been refrigerated for a couple hours, you can roll it into little, tiny balls and freeze them for use in ice cream.
Parker wanted a wallet for his birthday. We surprised him with a $50 bill hiding in it! Next birthday—Kevin, October 5th and Taylor October 12th. Whatever will they want? ;)