Ice cream and brownies

 I made this tiny ice cream dessert for family who came over for lunch this weekend.  Ganache, 3 tiny scoops of vanilla ice cream and a brownie in the shape of a star.  I  loved this dessert.  First of all I love tiny dishes!  I just bought these from Bed Bath and Beyond 12 for $20 and used the $5 off coupon.  And two of my favorite sweets are ice cream and brownies.  I prepared this ahead of time and kept them in my freezer on my tray.

I am a loyal fan of Ghiradelli brownies and have only made those. But I didn't have any brownie mix at home so I found this recipe that I really liked which I used this weekend. 

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease an 8x8 inch square pan.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, butter and water. Cook over medium heat until boiling. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips until melted and smooth. Mix in the eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; stir into the chocolate mixture. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until brownies set up. Do not overbake! Cool in pan and cut into squares. 

Oreo Ice Cream Pie

I've been craving an Oreo Ice cream pie for a long time now. About a month ago, I bought a couple of tart pans and made a few things. One I made with an Oreo crust. When I ground up the Oreos and just had a pile of Oreo dust in front of me, I wished i had vanilla Ice cream to top it. I would eat it just like that, a mountain or Oreo crumbs with a scoop of ice cream on top! Then I thought some day I would buy a spring form pan and make an ice cream pie. Well i didn't buy a pan, I borrowed one from my cousin and I attempted to make one. It didn't work. I think the bottom of the pan wasn't securely snapped into place and look what happened. I was very sad!

A week ago i thought I would try again. It was successful, but it still somehow ended in tragedy.

I bought the big box of Oreos from Costco. Here you can see my little helper on the kitchen floor, playing with the Oreo box and some pots.

As usual, I forgot to take a picture of the crust. I used 15 cookies. Most recipes say to use 10 cookies and scrape off the filling of the Oreo, but i just bended it all up, it seemed to stick pretty well, but after the fact, I should have at least used a T of butter. Then I mixed by hand, half a quart of Vanilla Ice cream with crumbs of 5 cookies for the 1st layer.

The next layer was only vanilla ice cream.

Topped it off with broken pieces of cookie.

Right after I took this picture, I set my camera down on the counter but forgot to check for the camera strap. It was hanging over the counter and baby grabbed it. I was very thankful it didn't hit her head, but it hit the ground right on the lens. When I turned it on it displays "zoom error" on the screen and it sounds like the lens is stuck. I brought it to a camera repair shop yesterday and was told a gear is broken in the lens and only the manufacturer will be able to fix it, and the whole lens will probably need to be replaced. :( so not sure now if I will just have to get a new camera, I'll have to check with the manufacturer to see how much a new lens will be.

The following pictures were taken with my cell phone.

The pie should be frozen for at least 4 hours. But I couldn't wait that long so the pie was a little soft in the pictures.

My husband and I ate the pie in 2 days. It was sooooooooooooo yummy!