Ice Cream Pie

Who came up with ice cream pie? He or she is awesome.

I love having an ice cream maker because the ice cream straight out of the machine is so soft, it's perfectly spreadable and ideal for making ice cream pie. This is a great dish for serving to guests because you can buy all of the necessary ingredients and then just do the assembly bit and it'll look so impressive! You'll bring it to the table in your glass pie dish and everyone will be like, "Whoa! You made that?!" and you'll feel great. Psst, you could also totally lie and say that all of the components are homemade as well. Just make sure to bury the Haagen Dazs containers in the bottom of the trash so no one stumbles upon them by accident.

Ingredients:

2 cups cookie crumbs (graham crackers, Nilla wafers, chocolate cookies, any of these would be awesome)

4 tablespoons melted butter

2 pints softened ice cream (4 cups) store bought or homemade

2 cups mini marshmallows OR homemade, if you're ambitious
*you could also use a store bought graham cracker pie crust but it's not going to be as thick and a thick crust is kind of an important factor in this dish (at least for me)

I used a combination of homemade graham crackers and Nilla wafers for my crust. But honestly, if I had some chocolate cookies in the house, those would've been the number one contender because my favorite part of an ice cream cake (I know, I know, this is ice cream pie but right now I'm talking about cake) is the chocolate crunchies! You know what I'm talking about, and if you don't, I'm so v. sad for you.

Melt the butter, crush the cookies, and mix both of them together in a bowl until the cookie crumbs look all greased up and awesome. Two cups of cookies is a lot but we're aiming for a nice thick crust for this ice cream pie.

Pour the cookie and butter mixture into a 9" pie pan and press it down. You can use your fingers (which is what I did) or a mug to tamp the crumbs down.

Bake the crust in a 350F oven for 10 minutes and then let it cool completely.

I used homemade marshmallows (1/6 of the recipe) but that's just because I'm a freak. You could certainly use regular marshmallows or marshmallow fluff.

I put the marshmallow mixture into a 9" cake pan so that after it set up, I could slide it out and it would fit perfectly on top of my pie! I also made sure to tap the top with my spatula to give the surface some texture - which was for both aesthetics and to create some crispy tips after toasting.

To assemble the pie, spread the softened ice cream right on top of the cooled crust, top with the marshmallows, and then cover the whole thing in plastic wrap and stick it in the freezer to set up for 2 hours. I used the freshly made ice cream straight out of my ice cream maker; obviously it's chocolate. If you're using store bought ice cream, you should let it get soft in the fridge for 30 minutes or at room temperature for 10 minutes. I recommend the fridge method because the downside of doing it at room temperature is that the ice cream will melt a lot more unevenly. If you're using regular marshmallows, press them into the ice cream a bit so that they stay stationary.

Defrost the pie in the fridge for 20 minutes before you're ready to serve. Defrosting the pie is important for two reasons. For one, it will be easier to cut into the pie and secondly when you and your guests are enjoying it, your spoons will sink into the ice cream much more easily. If you skip the defrosting step, you'll hear many loud clangs of spoons slamming into plates because everyone will be struggling to push their utensils through a frozen mass. To cut into the pie, run your knife under some hot water, dry it off, and then slice into it; like a hot knife through butta ice cream.

For some added flair, toast the marshmallows with a torch. Fancy shmancy. Normally, for those of you who are torchless, I would suggest sticking it in the broiler instead. In this situation, I do NOT recommend this. Sticking ice cream into an oven just sounds completely counterintuitive and it is. The ice cream will start to melt too much before the desired toastiness on the marshmallows is achieved. So, no torch, no toasting.

YUM x 100. The cookie crust adds great crunch, the toasted warm marshmallows add a lovely gooeyness, and the ice cream is rich and creamy. What a delicious looking dessert, right? As you can see, the crust is pretty thick and that is important because you need a good ratio of crunch to squish. Otherwise, you might as well just be eating regular ice cream, just in a triangular shape.

Anyway, go make this today, tomorrow, next week, there's no due date. Just make it whenever you get a chance and your happiness will increase. Hey, why don't you make this in about a week and a half? On 3/14, a.k.a. pi day; that would be perfect!

Here's the recipe page: