Salted Vanilla Bean Coconut Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches

I LOVE anything sweet that's salted. 

Starbucks' Salted Caramel Apple Cider anyone? 

Heaven in a cup.

Trader Joe's Fleur de Sel Caramels?

 I die.

So I needed a dessert to bring a to a friend's summer BBQ the other evening, and thought of these. The recipe started out with a vanilla bean ice cream, but during the process I decided to make it a salted vanilla bean. Then...wait for it....coconut.

Oh yes.

The flavors are actually really subtle and taste divine with the 

sweetness of the dark chocolate chip and white chocolate chip cookies I made.

This recipe will definitely be made again, and I plan on experimenting with more flavor combinations.

Molasses cookie with pumpkin ice cream.

Snickerdoodle cookie with butter pecan ice cream.

Double chocolate chip cookie with strawberry ice cream.

White chocolate macadamia nut cookie with key lime ice cream.

I mean, seriously, the combinations here are endless. As are the sprinkles.

I'm thinking a little American pride with red, white, and blue sprinkles for 4th of July!

For the cookies, try our chocolate chip cookie recipe here.

Salted Vanilla Bean Coconut Ice Cream

3 c heavy cream (I use organic)

3/4 c sugar

1/2-1 t salt

1 vanilla bean

1 t vanilla extract

1/2-1 t coconut extract

This was my first time using a vanilla bean.

This little baby was $4 at Sprouts, but I've read that you can rinse it, dry it, keep it in your freezer and reuse it. I have not done this yet, but I plan on reading up on it more to try it!

 Lay the bean flat and use a sharp knife to slit open the top of the pod.

Use a butter knife to scrape out the millions of teeny tiny seeds.

 Heat and stir 1 c heavy cream with the sugar and salt in a saucepan on low until sugar and salt are dissolved.

Depending on your preference, start with 1/2 t salt. Taste, add more if you'd like. I had about 1 t.

Add vanilla bean seeds and pod to the mixture, keep stirring! Do not let the cream sit on the bottom of the pan long enough to either start curdling or scald.

 Remove from heat and add the remaining 2 c cream, vanilla extract, and coconut extract. Remove the vanilla bean and place mixture in container and wrap with plastic wrap to form air-tight cover. Chill in refrigerator in preparation for ice cream maker or place into freezer if not using ice cream maker. 

If using ice cream maker, chill mixture until chilled, then follow the instructions of your ice cream maker. The husband decided to break the churner of my ice cream maker as I was doing this, 

so we went the alternate route:

after mixture has been in freezer for a couple hours, use spoon to blend up mixture. 

It will still be very soft.

Recover with plastic, and place back in freezer for another couple hours.

This time it will be more like ice cream consistency, but still soft. Restir to break up any ice crystals. You could use an electric hand mixture to stir/cream at this point, since it will be more firm.

 At this point, you've already made cookies and they should be cooled AT LEAST to room temperature, but your life will be much easier if they've been in the freezer for a little bit. 

Trust me. 

If they are warm AT ALL, the ice cream will start to get all melty and the cookies will just smoosh the ice cream right out the sides and create a cookie monster mess. You don't want that. 

So freeze your cookies.

When the ice cream is pretty firm, scoop a couple scoops onto a cookie and plop a second cookie right on top. Do not attempt to sprinkle-ize (or bedazzle) your cookies now.

Place your ice cream cookie creations into the freezer.

Let them be, do not touch.

After they've really gotten to know one another and bonded, take them out.

Bedazzle those suckers.

Again, the sprinkle combinations are at your whim.

You could get patriotic, romantic, festive, whatever your heart desires.

I LOVED how these turned out. They were so incredibly cute!

 And seriously so good. My husband couldn't get over how good they were, even the next day when he  beelined for the freezer after church to grab one, he said, "I just can't get over how good those are!"

Awww, shucks.

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