Grilled Ice Cream Sandwiches

On Sunday Nahid and I volunteered for the Fund Raiser for the Pepper Foundation, a dog rescue project. How can you say no to faces like these?

We offered to make our somewhat famous grilled ice cream sandwiches.  Yes, grilled ice cream sandwiches.  We perfected this somewhat unusual creation when I wanted to compete in the Grilled Cheese Invitational last year.  With my baking background I thought the best category would be the dessert category, aptly named “the Honey Pot”.

On our first night in Buenos Aries we were very jet lagged and hungry so we set out for food.  Two blocks from our apartment we stumbled into a restaurant.  What we had for dinner has become a victim of jet lagged brain cells,  what we had for dessert was  emblazed into our collective memory–goat cheese ice cream with kumquats.  Oh yes, this was definitely a good omen for the rest of our stay…and our inspiration for our grilled cheese sandwich.

I set out to create a winning dish.  The bread had to be brioche.  When I was a baker/pastry chef I was known for my croissants and Danish, never my brioche.  So I went to the best for a recipe, The French Laundry cookbook.  The recipe was simple and delicious.  I mean really delicious.

Next was the ice cream.  We tried the typical creme anglaise with whole milk and cream, but the goat cheese flavor kept getting lost in the richness of the cream.  So we replaced the milk/cream combo with goat’s milk and increased the amount of eggs.  Oh, happy day the result was fantastic!  The Invitational required that there had to be 60% cheese in the middle, so I blended together boucheron, mascarpone, honey to up my cheese percentage and called it the “Sweet Goat”.   Here it is in all it’s glory.

Alas, we didn’t officially win.  Although we did in the eyes of KCRW’s Good Food!!!!  Here’s what they had to say:

“But the hands down show stopper of the event was the sinfully delicious Sweet Goat – two thick slices of homemade brioche brushed with cinnamon sugar butter and bursting with goat cheese and goat’s milk ice cream, mascarpone, bucheron and honey.  Each sandwich, fried perfectly on the outside, yet miraculously frozen in the center, was served with a strawberry balsamic preserve and fresh kumquats.  To.  Die  For.

The oh-so-amazing Sweet Goat.”

For the fund raiser we made two grilled ice cream sandwiches–the aforementioned Sweet Goat and chocolate ice cream between brioche, then traditional ice cream sandwiches; vanilla ice cream between two sweet chocolate wafers and vanilla ice cream between bitter chocolate.  By far the Sweet Goat was the crowd favorite selling out just before the close of the event.

These ice cream sandwiches are insanely time consuming so I won’t bore you with the recipes.  I think the better plan is to let you know when we have our next event.