Vanilla ice cream sandwiched in between fluffy, cakey spiced pumpkin cookies. These mini ice cream sandwiches are worth the effort! See how they’re made here.

Makes ~20 Mini Ice Cream Sandwiches

Total Time: Overnight

Special Equipment

• 2 ¼ inch biscuit cutter

• Parchment paper

• Offset spatula

Ingredients

• 1 cup light brown sugar, packed

• ½ cup vegetable, avocado, or canola oil

• ¾ cup pumpkin puree

• 1 egg

• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

• 1 cup flour

• 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

• ¾ tsp. salt

• ½ tsp. baking soda

• ½ tsp. baking powder

• 1.5 Quart of Ice Cream (caramel sea salt, pumpkin spice or vanilla)

• Garnish: salted caramel sauce, sprinkles (both optional)

Make it!

1. Pull ice cream out of the freezer for 20 minutes, to get VERY soft so that you can spread it easily.

2. Meanwhile, make your pumpkin whoopie pie cookies! Preheat the oven to 350 F. In a large mixing bowl, combine brown sugar and oil. Mix until combined and add in the pumpkin puree, egg and vanilla extract, mix again (but don’t overly beat it). In another bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients and fold into the wet mixture until no streaks or clumps remain.

3. On a parchment lined baking sheet, drop EXACTLY 1 tablespoon of the dough, trying to keep it as circular as possible. We want these to be as uniform as possible! Drop 12 on one try and then carefully swirl each one to smooth the top and fix any oval edges or odd shaping.

4. Bake for 7-8 minutes, or until the top is still a bit wet and shiny, but the rest is cakey. We don’t want any browning on the bottom because we want the fluffiest texture possible! Allow to cool completely. Carefully place in a plastic bag (tops facing up) and freeze for a minimum of 1 hour. 

5. While the cookies bake, line a 9x13 metal rectangular baking dish with parchment. Dump out the contents of the ice cream and flatten it to the bottom of the dish, making it as smooth as possible. Cover the top with parchment and place in the back of the freezer.

6. Assemble!Lay out half of your bottoms in a row on the counter and place the top right above each one. Smear 1 teaspoon of caramel on each bottom cookie. Remove the flatted ice cream from the freezer. Using the 2 ¼ inch biscuit cutter (or whichever one is the closest in diameter), cut out the ice cream rounds and lift them off of the parchment with your offset, or a butter knife. (The first one will be hard to remove, but the rest won’t be). Place the ice cream round on the bottom cookie, sandwich the other cookie on top and place it in the freezer before moving on to the next. Repeat for all cookies. 

7. Freeze for a minimum of 30 minutes to reset the ice cream and then enjoy!!