Vegan Ice Cream Sandwiches

Ingredients:
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
3 tablespoons golden syrup*
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt



to serve: good quality vegan ice cream

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. Place the sugar in a large bowl. Slowly stream in the syrup and then the applesauce. Mix until well combined and fluffy. In a small bowl, whisk together the salt, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and flour. Slowly add to the batter and beat until well combined. Drop tablespoonful amounts on to the cookie sheet, spacing you have about 6 cookies per sheet. Flatten them slightly with the back of a spoon. Bake 12 minutes. They should look "set" but slightly shiny. Remove to wire racks and cool. Place one cookie on a plate, top with ice cream and another cookie. Repeat.

Yield: about 12 cookies or 6 sandwiches


*You can find this near pancake syrup or in the British foods section.

My thoughts:

After trying the best vegan ice cream I've ever had (Wheeler's Black Label) which is not only good vegan ice cream but one of the best small batch ice creams I've had period, I was inspired to make some vegan sandwich cookies. The cookies are super chocolatey and are a perfect foil to almost any flavor ice cream. My favorite to use was their peanut butter ice cream which was perfectly creamy and lacked that grainy, over powering feeling I generally find in peanut butter ice creams. Normally when I make cookies for ice cream sandwiches, I roll out the dough and cut it into the appropriate shapes. Drop cookies are much quicker to make and since they tend to be thicker, add more chocolate cookie flavor than you normally have without being overwhelming or difficult to eat. These cookies are also good plain, iced or with regular ice cream.