Brown Butter Cookie Gelato Bar
Brown Butter Cookie Gelato Bar
There’s nothing more nostalgic for me than an ice cream cookie sandwich and this is my grown up version, with a brown butter chocolate chocolate chip cookie, soft caramel centre, vanilla custard gelato and a milk chocolate glaze.
It takes a bit of effort as there’s a few components going on, but the end result it well worth it! What I found important when creating this recipe was a gelato that was firm enough to freeze in the popsicle mold, but not rock solid when you ate it! If you want to eat this gelato on it’s own (and you’re not freezing it in a popsicle mold) check the recipe steps below as I would recommend adjusting the ingredients for a softer set.
Ingredients
Method
Into a medium saucepan add the milk, cream, dextrose, glucose, skimmed milk powder, and beans scraped from a fresh vanilla pod. Place this on a medium heat. *Note Liquid glucose (DE 42) is the most common type sold for baking, so if your syrup is simply labelled “liquid glucose”, it is likely to be around this value. If your glucose has a different DE value, or the DE is not listed, don’t worry — it will still work in this recipe, although the sweetness and texture may vary slightly but nothing major!
Meanwhile, add the caster/white sugar and ice cream stabiliser to a small bowl and whisk to combine to prevent it clumping when you add it in. Place the egg yolks into a separate bowl too.
Heat the cream mixture, whisking, until it reaches 45C/113F on a digital thermometer. Immediately add in the sugar mixture and the egg yolks.
Continue to whisk until it reaches 85C/185F on a digital thermometer.
Pour the mixture straight into a tall measuring jug (remove the vanilla pod) and blend with a hand blender for 30 seconds.
I find adding the mixture into a vacuum bag for food is a really efficient way to cool and store the gelato base, placing it in a large bowl of ice water to chill for 15 minutes. If you don't have one, simply pour the mixture into a large bowl, and stir it every few minutes in a large bowl full of ice water for about 15 minutes, then cover the surface with clingfilm and refrigerate for a minimum of 12 hours.
Combine the caster/white sugar, glucose syrup and trimoline in a medium saucepan.
Cook over medium heat until the mixture reaches a deep amber colour, stirring it occasionally.
Meanwhile in a small saucepan, heat the cream and water together until it just below a simmer.
Slowly pour the hot cream mixture into the caramel, whisking constantly. Be careful as it will bubble vigorously.
Pour it into a tall jug and use a hand blender to blend in the butter and salt. Blending it is important to properly emulsify the caramel. Cover and cool to room temperature, at least 2 hours.
Add the cooled brown butter into a medium bowl along with the dark brown sugar and trimoline. If you can't get trimoline it's not the end of the world, try honey or just replace it with more dark brown sugar. It just helps the cookie remain soft when frozen so improves the final texture slightly. Stir it all to combine with a spatula.
Add in the whole egg (it about half a a large egg. Crack the egg, whisk it, then weigh the amount) and stir it all until smooth.
Sift in the flour and bicarbonate of soda, then tip in the chocolate chips and a good pinch of salt. Stir with a spatula to form a smooth cookie dough.
Cover the dough with clingfilm and refrigerate it for 15 minutes.
Pre-heat the oven to 175C/345F non-fan assisted.
Scoop 25g portions of the dough into your desired popsicle mold. Flatten it with your hand to spread it across the mold as best as possible. You will have enough gelato for about 6-7 popsicles so make sure to bake enough cookies! If you're popsicle mold isn't oven safe then you could bake rectangles of cookie dough then do a bit of a DIY operation when they come out of the oven and trim them down to size to a rough oval shape to fit your gelato bars.
Place the molds into the oven and bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes, until just baked and lightly golden. Don't go dark on the bake as we want the cookie to be soft.
Remove them from the oven and while still warm, use the back of a teaspoon to create a little indent in the centre of the cookie dough. Allow them to cool for 20 minutes.
Once cooled, pipe a nice thick line of caramel in the centre, then place the entire mold in the freezer for 2-3 hours.
Follow the instructions on your gelato machine to chill the bowl. I would highly recommend a premium gelato or ice cream maker as they really do make a difference. I use the Lello 4080 which was definitely expensive but SO worth it! The built in chiller unit makes sure your gelato sets as quickly as possible, ensuring a much smoother texture.
Remove the vanilla custard gelato from the fridge and pour it into a tall measuring jug. Blend one more time, for about 20 seconds.
Pour it into your gelato/ice cream maker and churn according to the machine's instructions. If you want to be fancy you can check the 'draw' temperature. Put a digital thermometer and check the temp of the gelato. I like to pull mine out around -11C/12F.
While it is churning, pop the frozen cookies out of the popsicle mold as you'll need this to add your gelato into.
Once the gelato has churned, scoop it straight from your gelato maker, into the popsicle mold. As mentioned, depending on the size of your mold you should get around 6-7.
Smooth the top with a palette knife and then carefully sandwich the frozen cookie on top. Place them back into the freezer quickly, around 3-4 hours to set firm.
Just before they are ready, prepare your chocolate glaze. Add all of the ingredients into a large bowl and place it over a pan of gently simmering water. Stir until everything has melted.
Remove the glaze from the heat and stir it occasionally until it reaches 40C/104F on a digital thermometer. Immediately transfer it to a tall jug, just slightly bigger than your gelato bar so you can dunk it fully!
Remove the frozen gelato bars from the freezer and dip them into the glaze.
As soon as you've dipped them, get them straight onto a lined tray and back into the freezer for 15 minutes (or longer) then they are ready to serve. I would recommend giving them just a few minutes at room temperature before eating, just to help give the caramel a little bit of time to warm slightly. It will begin to soften, really improving the texture.
Now if you want to make this as a plain gelato to scoop and serve I would adjust the recipe to the below. This is because the fat levels and PAC needed to be adjusted for this recipe to ensure it came out of the popsicle mold properly. The recipe below, if stored at -18C, gives a lovely smooth texture straight from the freezer, so no rock solid gelato! Follow the same steps for the recipe as above:
550g Whole Milk
85g Cream (35% Fat)
40g Skimmed Milk Powder
1 Vanilla Pod
150g Dextrose
40g Liquid Glucose
30g White/Caster Sugar
2.2g Ice Cream Stabiliser
100g Egg Yolks