Pumpkin ice cream sandwich is loaded with the goodness of pumpkin. Vegetables in an ice cream, you say? Well, stranger things have happened. I just love pumpkins but I rarely do much with them beyond the usual pumpkin curry or pumpkin raita which are family recipes. Every year, come October, I decide to do something really different with it. but then, life intervenes.
Ya know how that goes. Yup!
Gladly, my determination won out this year and I actually created this super simple, super decadent luscious ice cream. To top it all, it takes the form of a sandwich, wedged between my favorite GoodDay cookies. These are pretty much like shortbread cookies and are totally buttery and loaded with cashews or other nuts. So they gave the perfect textural variety for the ice cream.
I came up with this recipe on a flight on a recent trip to Goa. The food scene is Pune has been pretty vibrant, and I have hardly got time to create or write recipes or even write about Goa. But that ends with this ice cream recipe. I think the best thing I did was come up with an ‘ice cream’ because I will move heaven and earth to eat some.
Let me say right up – I don’t have an ice cream maker, although it is a coveted kitchen gadget for me. Generally, we make ice cream by boiling milk down to half and thickening it further with corn starch, Mawa etc. Evaporated Milk is not handy, neither is half and half. This time I went with a no cook method, and I am surprised it worked.
The star here is the pumpkin itself and the pumpkin spice. Once again, I made a small batch of fresh spice mix and used it here. I am not sure if I could taste the pumpkin, because I have no idea how it tastes when combined with cream or milk. The spice was evident though, very much so.
I will let you decide how ‘spicy’ you want to make this. I kept adding a little more because I couldn’t taste it much, but then when we ate the ice cream, the spice was quite potent.
I used only brown sugar or jaggery, and that too, not a lot. I did not use condensed milk because it tends to be too sweet and I wanted to keep the sugar to a minimum. But the ice cream could have been sweeter – it is all a matter of taste.
If you live in canned pumpkin land, use pumpkin puree and not pie mix. If you do use the pie mix, then no sugar is needed. Libby’s is a brand I like.
So here is the recipe for my pumpkin ice cream sandwiches. As I said, I did not heat the ice cream mix, and mostly eye balled it.
Pumpkin Ice Cream Sandwich Recipe
Ingredients
- 3-4 cups chopped pumpkin
- (1.5-2 cups puree)
- 2 cups milk
- 3 cups cream
- ½ cup brown sugar or jaggery
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1-2 Tbsp pumpkin spice
- 2 Tbsp cinnamon sticks
- 2 tsp ginger ground
- ½ tsp cloves
- ½ tsp+ nutmeg
Method
- Powder the cinnamon sticks, cloves, ground ginger in a spice grinder. Add some grated nutmeg. Add some sugar if you need to add volume to grind the mixture.
- Set the spice mix aside to use later. Bottle remaining for later use.
- Boil or pressure cook pumpkin until well cooked. Drain completely.
- Mash the pumkin and heat it. Stir until the moisture evaporates. Remove as much water content as possible.
- Add the sugar/ brown sugar to the pumpkin mix and stir until combined and until the sugar melts in.
- Cool completely.
- In a mixing bowl, add milk, cream and cold pumpkin mixture. Add 2 tsp of spice mix.
- Whisk using a stick blender. Be careful not to over whisk or the cream might turn into butter.
- Alternately, you can whisk the mixture by hand.
- Adjust level of spice as needed.
- Transfer to an air tight container and freeze overnight or 6-8 hours until well frozen. This time depends on your fridge.
- Take out the ice cream container and set it out until it is scoopable.
- Place a scoop of ice cream between two cookies.
- Sprinkle some toasted coconut flakes on the sides.
- Serve right away, or freeze again until you are ready to serve.
- Note – Use any store bought cookies of choice. White Chocolate macademia nut cookies will be great here. So will ginger snaps.
Pumpkin ice cream was so easy and came out great. This is the first time I have used cream to make ice cream. And I think I will be using this method with other fruits now.
BTW, have you noticed how the ice cream is melting in the pictures? It is so hot and humid here right now – in the 90s, so ice cream is just perfect for Halloween this year.
Got a big pumpkin crop, or have a lot of ‘innards’ from carving that pumpkin? This pumpkin ice cream is the answer to your woes.
