Ice cream sandwiches are the best, but they get even better when you make them yourself with your own homemade mini waffles.
Have you ever made your own ice cream sandwich? I haven’t done it too often but I have never regretted doing it and I doubt I ever will.
My sister in law and her kids were visiting us from California. Our family does a popcorn and ice cream movie night on Sundays, so I thought why not make it more special by serving up the ice cream between two mini waffles.
Why Mini Waffles are Best
Mini waffles are the perfect size for a sandwich. They are a nice round shape. You can of course do this with a full size round waffle but you will have to cut it into wedges and that makes it harder to make them. If you have a regular sized waffle maker that makes square shaped waffles, you can cut them into 4ths. I love the round shape as it’s easier to smooth out the ice cream without the corners.
What Waffle Recipe to Use
You can use any waffle recipe you like. I recommend our basic mini waffle recipe. It’s pretty straight forward and uses ingredients most people have on hand at all times. You will find the recipe below in the recipe card too including how to add the ice cream and dip the chooclate.
How to Make It a Chocolate Waffle
When I made the waffles for the ice cream sandwiches, I did two batches. One was just my basic waffle and the other was a cocoa waffle.
You pick out whatever cocoa powder you like. I used black cocoa powder. We first spotted it at the King Arthur Flour headquarters in Vermont. They had jars of different types of cocoa powder for you to look at. Here is the black cocoa:
The black cocoa we used for these waffles were found at our favorite bulk food store in Ann Arbor, Michigan called By the Pound. It’s not far from where the 2023 National Champion, Michigan Wolverines play football!! My kids love the place because I usually left them pick out a small bag of candy from the bins when we shop there.
Read all about the adventures of “Chocolate the Bunny”.
So black cocoa powder is really dark in color. It will make your waffles look like Oreo cookies and taste like that. It’s not super easy to find so don’t worry if you can’t find it, just use whatever you have.
In order to make them chocolate, I replace 1/4 cup of the all purpose flour with the cocoa powder. I found that this worked out well, creating a waffle that wasn’t too dry. I also didn’t up the sugar at all. Since the ice cream will pack plenty of sugar, I didn’t feel that I need to make my waffles taste any sweeter than normal.
Tips for Assembling the Sandwiches
Let me give you some tips for when it’s time to assemble the sandwiches.
- You don’t want to scoop rock hard ice cream. Let is sit out for a bit until it’s easy enough to scoop. Then work quickly!
- Packed on small spoonfuls to form your ice cream filling, since waffles are soft they won’t break so you don’t have to worry about it.
- I pack the sandwiches with about 2 inches of ice cream.
- Once you got enough ice cream, add the top waffle.
- Smooth out with a spoon as shown in the photo above.
What Ice Cream We Used
We had two different ice cream options, the vanilla bean ice cream and the dark chocolate cookies & cream. The latter is a part of the new Tillamook Chocolate Collection and was the first one we got to try. It did not disappoint in the least.
Any ice cream you pick will be great.
Mini Waffle Ice Cream Sandwiches Dipped in Chocolate
Ingredients
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tbsp pure cane sugar
- 1 cup buttermilk (or whole milk)
- 4 tbsp salted butter
- 1 large egg
- extra butter for greasing the waffle maker
- 8 ounces dark chocolate for dipping
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl combine: the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix well.
- Melt the butter in the microwave and allow a few minutes to cool.
- Take the egg and separate the yolk and the white. Mix the yolk in with the 1 cup of milk. Put the white into a mixing bowl.
- Whip the white with a hand mixer until a stiff peak has formed when you turn the mixer upside down.
- Add the melted butter into the milk/egg yolk mixture.
- Make a well in the center of the dried ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients.
- Mix it all together until it is just combined and there is no dry flour. Don't worry about it being lumpy, the lumps will cook out. You don't want to overmix the batter.
- Gently fold in the whipped egg white into the batter.
- Allow the batter to sit out while the waffle maker heats up.
- Once the waffle maker is hot. Brush butter on both top and bottom of the waffle maker then add your batter. Cook until the light goes out.
- Place the waffles on a drying rack to cool completely.
- Remove the ice cream from the freezer. If the ice cream is too hard to scoop, let it set out until it's soft enough.
- Scoop ice cream onto one waffle until it's about 2 inches thick. Add the top waffle and smooth out the ice cream with a butter knife. Make all the sandwiches and then place in the freezer until the ice cream has hardened back up.
- You could eat as is but if you want to dip in chocolate – first melt your chocolate in the microwave in a wide enough bowl to dip the sandwiches in. I first microwave the chocolate for 1 minute, then stir. Then do 30 seconds intervals until fully melted.
- Immediately dip the sandwiches in the chocolate, allow to drip before placing on a small sheet pan or anything with a flat surface that will fit in the freezer. Add sprinkles to the chocolate if you like.
- Freeze the sandwiches until the chocolate completely hardens. Should be rather quick. Then you can enjoy.
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