For my first official recipe post, I considered baking something epic, a culinary masterpiece that would impress all of my readers. However, I’d rather show you more of my every-day baking style. My fit-into-busy-work-week and keep-fitting-into-my-clothes style of baking. Don’t worry, though, the more complex recipes will come and this is just as delicious.
I present to you, Personalized Mini Ice Cream Pies.
There are a few reasons I came up with this dessert:
1) It incorporates 3 of my favorite dessert elements: ice cream, chocolate and peanut butter (in fact, I happen to believe that peanut butter deserves to be its own food group)
2) Simplicity. Sometimes on a weeknight, I just don’t have the energy for an elaborate dessert. This is simple yet delicious. Limited baking skills required.
3) Portion. Control. I could take down anyone I know in an ice cream eating contest and win. Enough said.
For this recipe you will need:
1 regular-sized muffin pan sprayed with non-stick cooking spray
1 ½ cups of crushed oreos (~20 oreos)
3 Tablespoons melted butter
1 8-ounce tub of cool whip plus extra for final topping
4 cups of ice cream, flavor of choice (I used ½ vanilla and ½ chocolate)
2 cups of chopped candy (I used peanut butter cups and pretzel M&Ms)
[Sidenote: pretzel M&Ms are a genius new candy. They have the perfect balance of salty and sweet like their cousin the peanut M&M, without the peanut flavor the Executive Taster detests (I know, we almost couldn’t get married because of this)]
Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
Remove ice cream from freezer to soften slightly.
For the crust, mix together the crushed oreos and melted butter. Fill each muffin tin with approximately a heaping tablespoon of cookie mixture and press down with the back of a spoon. You will form a flat base that curves up slightly around the edges.
If you have extra cookie mixture, take whatever small baking dish you have available and bake additional crust in there.
I used this tool for scooping the crumbs:
You don’t really need to use a cookie dough scoop for this, but I take advantage of every excuse I have to use mine. The Original Baker bought it for me and she knows her baking tools.
Now your crusts are almost ready. Place the muffin pan in the oven for 10-12 minutes. You just need to cook the crusts long enough for them to harden, otherwise your ice cream pies will be a melting mess.
Meanwhile, pretend like you work at Cold Stone and mix your ice cream and candy together.
You don’t need to do this on the counter (although I bet it would be fun if you had a cold marble countertop). I did a couple of different combinations: Vanilla ice cream with pretzel M&Ms for the Executive Taster; chocolate ice cream with both candies for me. You can do as many variations as you have muffin tins, I just like to minimize my number of dirty bowls (leftover habit from 2 years living sans dishwasher).
Once your ice cream is done, you can put it back in the freezer until ready for use. Warning: It will be very tempting to eat the ice cream as is, do your best to hold off for the finished product. It will be worth it!
By now your crusts should be almost done. Once out of the oven, allow to cool and then scoop a heaping tablespoon of cool whip into each crust. Flatten it out a bit to be its own layer. Place your intermediate product in the freezer for 1 hour.
When cool whip layer is frozen, scoop about ¼ cup of ice cream mixture onto each base. Press down with the back of your scoop to flatten out. Refreeze until solid.
Serve topped a dollop of cool whip.
Notes:
Recipe serves 12, plus a little extra.
This recipe is great because you can personalize it to your liking. Are you a chocolate lover? Use chocolate ice cream mixed with dark chocolate chunks. Craving coffee? Try coffee ice cream and chocolate covered espresso beans. The possibilities are endless.
I used reduced fat items because I like the way they taste and when mixed with some of the more indulgent ingredients (such as butter and chocolate candies), the finished product will still taste decadent. However, these ingredients can easily be substituted for their regular counterparts.
If you don’t have a muffin pan, don’t fear! You can either buy a disposable aluminum version at the supermarket or put your creation into a pie dish or 8×8 pan instead- good luck with the portion control, though…
The Sister Came to Help! And eat a piece I made her without ice cream…
Of course I had to dig in….
I only had 3 tonight, oops;-)
Question: Is this a dessert you would make? Does it seem easy enough for those of you who don’t consider yourselves bakers?
This is a great one, because Lauren was able to have her chocolate and pb, and I was able to have my vanilla and M&Ms. The M&Ms with pretzels are a great addition because as strange as it sounds, one of the best things a dessert can have is a pinch of salt. Weird, but it makes a huge difference.
These pictures made me so hungry I had to eat lunch early! Recipe looks easy for this non-baker! My only question is what do you mix your ice cream and toppings in Coldstone-style? A bowl, a tray? Great blog!
I mixed the ice creams in a bowl with a spoon and it was really easy since I had let the ice cream soften first. Of course then I had to lick the spoon:-)
this looks so friken good!!!
i don’t bake and i could definitely make (and eat) that – thank you!!!
So glad to hear that!
I finally had a chance to really look at your blog and I LOVE IT! And by the way, I was thinking on my drive today that I hope you post this recipe and here it is! I will be making it this weekend 🙂
thanks! this is actually different from my usual one which I’ll have to put up at some point!
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