Spicy Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwiches

Helloooo, long-lost chums! I just got back from a week in New York City. It was 75% work, 25% play, and 100% humidity fun. (Seriously, though, can we talk about the humidity? I had unsightly sweat stains and Sideshow Bob hair the entire time. NYC, you are not messing around, and for those of you who live there and cope with it gracefully, I salute you.)

So yeah, I was that out-of-town jerk who kept wanting to talk about the weather and collapsing in dramatic heaps whenever the subject came up. Regardless, I had an amazing time, because New York is one of the best cities in the world and is one of my top “if only” dream destinations. (As in, “If only I had quintuple my actual income, I would move there in a heartbeat.” Siiigh.) During the course of my last day there, my brother, sister-in-law, and I walked miles and miles, managed to not get lost on the subway, ate tiny pieces of pizza, and gorged ourselves on desserts.

We stopped by Dominique Ansel Bakery, home of the much-lauded and now-overhyped cronut. The cronuts were long gone by mid-morning, but we did get an assortment of other fun things–full description & pictures on Instagram! Honestly, my favorite dessert of the 5 we tried was the most standard, least “creative” dessert we ordered: a thick chocolate cookie, loaded with melty chocolate chips and super fudgy in the middle. It was half the price of the fancy souffle I bought, but twice as satisfying. I love playful desserts, and I respect chefs who are constantly reinventing familiar favorites, but sometimes, I just want to bury my face in a big pile of chocolate. No judgment please.

In the spirit of burying my face in chocolate, and as a tribute to New York’s mini heat wave I endured like the brave hero I am, I bring you Spicy Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwiches. The cookies have the soft texture of a brownie, and a hint of cinnamon and cayenne to make them interesting. They’re sandwiched with a big scoop of ice cream (I used cinnamon swirl!) and finished with a ring of sweet and spicy candied pecans.

The pecan recipe is actually one from my About.com Candy site, and it’s one of my favorites! The nuts are super crunchy and deeply flavorful, since they’re baked until they’re dark brown in a slurry of butter, salt, maple syrup, brown sugar, cinnamon, and cayenne. I could lie and say I usually use them to top a salad or something, but the truth is, I most often end up eating them plain. In this recipe, they add the perfect sweet-and-salty crunch to the ice cream sandwich.

The cookies get hard when they’re cold, so these aren’t sandwiches you can assemble in advance and eat straight from the freezer. Rather, they’re a slap-it-together-and-shovel-it-down situation, which is my preferred dessert consumption method anyhow. They’re the best way I can think of to beat the heat. Now to figure out what dessert will beat the humidity…

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