Ice Cream Sandwiches

Every summer as a kid my parents packed me off to stay with my grandparents in Waco, TX. You see, along with my uncle they ran a Chinese restaurant - the only one in town for 20 years, most of which I was toddling around in it. When I was about 13 or 14, my uncle got a moped and a scooter and after the restaurant closed at night, we'd tool around the neighborhood soaking in the cool air, stopping at the nearby 24-hour filling station for gas and ice cream. Those nights were liberating for me - I'd been working since I was 5, starting by bussing tables - so sneaking out and acting like a teenager, even if it was under the supervision of my uncle, was supremely pleasurable.

I always ate the same ice cream on those nights - a banana fudge bomb pop - probably because it was the most decadent thing I could buy with my hard-earned dollar. But truthfully, my ice cream preferences are really more pedestrian, and despite the anecdotal evidence suggesting otherwise, they always have been. And if there was one thing I never turned down, it was the humble ice cream sandwich (unless it was mellorine instead of ice cream - YUCK). I love the plainness of the vanilla layer just as much as I like to lick the soft and mushy cocoa wafer-melt from my fingers. And those do taste like cocoa to me, not just chocolate - which is why I wanted to try them for myself. I figure I can make them even less sweet with a deeper cocoa flavor, and then pair them with a complimentary, creamy filling.

I thought I'd gotten it right with a black cocoa wafer and passionfruit ice cream - tart meets smoky cocoa, creamy insides with a crunchy-from-the-freezer cookie. Imagine my surprise when Todd told me I hadn't made humble ice cream sandwiches at all. I'd made a dessert instead. A delicious, devour-in-a-minute dessert, yes. But this isn't the ice cream sandwich of our memories, and that's not such a bad thing after all. 

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