Cornbread Ice Cream Sandwiches Are The Frozen Dessert You Need To Try

America absolutely loves corn, and with good reason. This North American native vegetable can seemingly do it all, spanning breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You can eat it fresh, freeze it, make it into soup or chowder, and even make ice cream. The possibilities grow when corn is dried and ground into cornmeal and masa, which brings us tortillas, polenta, and cornbread. If you're a cornbread fan who also likes ice cream (which, who isn't?), it's super easy to bring these two great tastes together as an ice cream sandwich. All you need to do is make a batch of cornbread cookies. You don't even need a recipe; you can simply add a few extra ingredients to a boxed cornbread mix.

Cornbread ice cream sandwiches are a fun way to use cornbread mix in something other than the same old side, and you can add flavors like chocolate chips and raisins. Homemade ice cream sandwiches are also easily customized by mixing and matching your cookies with different flavors of ice cream to make a batch of totally original desserts.

Ice cream sandwiches are essentially just two cookies with ice cream squished in the middle. While we're all accustomed to seeing the chocolate wafer variety sold in stores, no rule says they can't be made with any kind of cookie you want. The only limit to your ice cream sandwich imagination is that you should use crispy cookies that won't get soggy when combined with ice cream. Cornbread cookies are sweet but also a little salty, which is a nice contrast to sweet ice creams. Plus, cornbread ice cream sandwiches are a little unexpected, making them a great addition to any get-together.

To make cornbread cookies, you can start from scratch with a recipe or add a few extra tablespoons of flour and butter to a pre-made cornbread mix. If you're not a confident baker, you can quickly search the internet for "cornbread cookies from a mix" and find many specific recipes.

Once you've mixed up your cookie batter, scoop or pipe them onto a cookie sheet and bake them slightly longer than the recipe calls. The goal is to make a very crispy finished cookie because the ice cream and the freezer will soften them.

When your cookies are cool and snap when you break one in half, you're ready to start making sandwiches. Take your ice cream out of the freezer and let it stand on the counter for about 10 minutes so it's soft but not melted. When the ice cream is soft enough to scoop but not soupy, lay your cookies on a sheet tray that will fit into your freezer and spread a thick layer of ice cream on half the cookies. Top them with the rest of the cookies, then transfer them to the freezer for a few hours to let them set. If you want to give them something extra, roll the edges in chocolate, rainbow sprinkles, or mini chocolate chips before putting them in the freezer. Once your ice cream sandwiches are completely frozen, they're ready to serve.

As for flavors, cornbread cookies with vanilla ice cream will be delicious all on their own if you want to keep things simple. But since you're already experimenting, play with different ice creams and add ingredients to jazz up your cookies. Cornbread has a pretty neutral flavor that plays well with all kinds of herbs and spices, and you can use any variety of ice cream as long as it's not so chunky with ingredients that it's hard to spread when it's softened. The only limit to your cornbread ice cream sandwiches is your imagination.