This week’s BSM baking assignment was brioche ice cream sandwiches for an Italian Holiday called Ferragosto. I live in Utah the ice cream capital of possibly the world, and yet I had never had heard of sandwiching ice cream between bread. It seemed odd, and maybe disastrous. Would bread hold up to melty ice cream? I was also hesitant about this project as my bread skills, well they suck, and my last yeasted project although delicious, wasn’t quite right. Was I ready to battle with bread again? Well this bread was adapted for an eleven-year-old, just imagine the horror if I couldn’t bake better than a fifth grader.
The mixer really does all of the work for this recipe. There is some measuring and a lot of waiting, but it is surprisingly easy. The hardest part is actually shaping the rolls. Some of mine looked amazing, others really odd. Although the recipe should yield twelve rolls, I came up with fourteen even after weighing each roll.

I was over the moon, dancing through the house after my rolls came out and I tried one. Somehow, I had managed to make eatable and more importantly delicious bread. I sandwiched some pistachio gelato and toasted oatmeal ice cream between two cold cut rolls. The crumb and texture of the brioche was a nice complement to the soft icy texture of the gelato/ice cream. And although this rocked my unciviled world, I think I may do things different next time-mostly bake my brioche as a loaf instead of rolls as I think sliced bread would be a better vehicle for the ice cream. Dorrie Greenspan bakes her brioche for ice cream sandwiches in a coffee can, but we really never buy our coffee in cans, only in bags, but if I come across a used can I will be sure to save it for this purpose. It would also be fun to play around with this. You can add Nutella, sliced bananas, nuts…really nothing is off limits here. I will be making this recipe again and again.
Recipe from: Baked Ocassions by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito