Cookies & cream

Vanilla cream ice cream packed with pieces of cream-filled chocolate biscuits.

An American classic from the late 1970s that quickly became one of the best-selling flavours. The base is egg-free vanilla, slightly less sweet than usual — the biscuits bring the sweetness. They go in at the end of churning so they stay in pieces instead of turning the ice cream into grey mush. Their creamy filling makes the ice cream even richer.

Type: Classic cream ice cream · Servings: 8 · Difficulty: Easy

Equipment

Ingredients

  • 450 g whole milk 3.5 %
  • 400 g whipping cream 33 %
  • 30 g skimmed milk powder
  • 120 g granulated sugar (sucrose)
  • 30 g dextrose (glucose powder)
  • 3 g vanilla pod (1 pod (or 2 teaspoons of extract))
  • 120 g cream-filled chocolate sandwich biscuits (Oreo-style) (about 10 biscuits, roughly broken)

Making the mix

  1. Split the vanilla pod and scrape out the seeds.
  2. Mix the skimmed milk powder and dextrose with the granulated sugar (mixed dry, they won’t form lumps).
  3. Heat the milk and cream in a pan to about 60 °C, then whisk in the sugar and milk powder mixture and keep stirring until it has completely dissolved.
  4. Add the vanilla (seeds and pod), take off the heat and leave to infuse for 20 minutes.
  5. Cool the mix quickly in a bowl set in iced water.
  6. Cover and age in the fridge for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight.
  7. Break the biscuits into fingernail-sized pieces and put them in the freezer so they’re cold when you add them.

Method — Compressor ice cream maker

  1. Switch on the ice cream maker 5–10 minutes ahead so the bowl can pre-chill.
  2. Pour in the chilled mix no higher than the fill line (with a smaller bowl, churn in two batches) and churn for 30–40 minutes, until it has the consistency of thick whipped cream.
  3. For the last 1–2 minutes, add the chilled biscuit pieces, just long enough to distribute them.
  4. Transfer to a chilled container, press cling film onto the surface and leave to harden in the freezer for 2 hours.

Total time: 7 h 30 min

Method — Freezer-bowl ice cream maker

  1. Take the frozen bowl out of the freezer just before use, fit the paddle and switch the machine on.
  2. With the machine running, pour in the chilled mix — no more than two-thirds full; freeze the rest as a second batch.
  3. Churn for 20–30 minutes, until the ice cream thickens. There’s no point going longer — by then the bowl has warmed up.
  4. Switch off the machine and fold in the biscuit pieces with a spatula — the paddle could stall in the thickened ice cream.
  5. Transfer to a chilled container and leave to harden in the freezer for 3 hours.

Freeze the bowl for at least 24 hours beforehand (until you can no longer hear the coolant sloshing inside). The mix must be thoroughly chilled.

Total time: 8 h 20 min

Method — Ninja CREAMi and similar machines

  1. Divide the chilled mix between CREAMi tubs, filling each no higher than the MAX line (a full batch makes about two standard tubs).
  2. Put the lids on and freeze on a level surface for 24 hours.
  3. Place a tub in the machine and run the Ice Cream program.
  4. Use a spoon to dig a well about 4 cm wide in the centre, all the way to the bottom, add about 40 g of broken biscuits per tub and run the Mix-in program.
  5. If the ice cream is crumbly or powdery, run Re-spin (many users add 1–2 tablespoons of milk first).

Programme: Ice Cream

A standard tub holds about 470 ml, a Deluxe tub about 700 ml. Don’t fill above the MAX line, and freeze it level — the machine doesn’t handle an uneven block well.

Total time: 29 h 3 min

Method — No-machine method

  1. Pour the chilled mix into a deep metal or glass container (a baking dish, for example) and put it in the freezer.
  2. After 45 minutes, stir the mix thoroughly with a whisk, spatula or stick blender, working the frozen edges into the centre.
  3. Repeat every 30 minutes, 4–5 times in all, until the ice cream is thick and smooth.
  4. At the last stir, mix in the biscuit pieces.
  5. Leave to harden for another hour.

Without a machine you get more ice crystals and less air, so the ice cream is denser. Every stir breaks up the crystals, so don’t skip any.

Total time: 8 h 55 min

Stages

Preparation
15 min
Cooking
10 min
Cooling
30 min
Ageing in the fridge
4 h
Churning
35 min
Hardening in the freezer
2 h
Total time
7 h 30 min

Serving and storage

Serve with a whole biscuit stuck into the scoop, or as an ice cream sandwich between two biscuits.

Within 5 days. The biscuits gradually soften in the ice cream — some people love that; otherwise, eat it sooner.

Tips

  • Crush some of the biscuits (about a third) finely so the ice cream gets chocolate “speckles”, and leave the rest in pieces.
  • The biscuits contain gluten and often soya — choose a suitable brand for anyone with allergies.
  • It works just as well with butter biscuits, gingerbread or leftover brownies.

Why it works

The biscuits make up about a tenth of the ice cream’s weight and count towards the composition: they add sugar, fat and starch. That’s why the vanilla base has 20 g less sugar than the stand-alone vanilla ice cream — otherwise the whole thing would be too sweet.

Sources