Halva Ice Cream Sandwich Cookies with Hazelnuts and Cacao Nibs
We’re four days into September and I feel summer is melting into fall faster than I can keep up. Green apples are sharing space with the last mangoes of the season and I’m not ready for the transition. Maybe because I haven’t checked off every item on my summer bucket list, and I probably won’t. But who says reality needs to roll in so quickly and tell me that school, structure, routine, early mornings, and daily homework are the new everyday? I’m happy they started, but their presence will soon turn into a race against the clock and welcome in the pressure of daily life as a family. So to me, it’s still summer, until of course the holidays start. That always elicits contentment for what’s coming up mixed with a tinge of anxiety for the meaning of the holidays and all that’s involved in planning and cooking for them. I haven’t started. I refuse to hurry up the season and though it leaves me sometimes pressured, I get to summer a little longer. That means I’m still making galettes and tracking down figs, and maybe eyeing the pomegranates to see whose arils sparkles brightest.
Of course no summer is complete without a stellar ice cream sandwich. And I humbly say that this one should be yours this year. It has it all. The smooth vanilla ice cream is speckled with flecks of nutty halva and roasted hazelnuts, with the bitter nibs cutting right through all the sweetness. Of course it’s sandwiched between two glorious discs of a cookie I find hold their own but make a lovely complement to the ice cream.
Halva is one of my favorite sweets. So much so that I started a editing a feed based on halva and sweetened tahini recipes that you can see here. Its nutty flavor and crumbly texture makes it an addictive confection that I find myself tucking into brownies, yogurt bowls, cakes, and cookies. I can’t resist buying a slab every time I’m at the shuk, and I’ve tried many flavors with roasted hazelnut being my favorite with whiskey and pistachio being strong contenders. It offset the inspiration for these ice cream sandwiches which I think you should make asap. Before summer really departs and the crisp air warrants the things of fall like apple cider and root gratins. So hurry up!
