If necessity is the mother of invention, then the lack of basic necessities is its father. (On second thought, in that context, “necessity” can mean “lack of basic necessities,” so I guess you’d have to say that necessity is the multi-headed monster that parthenogenetically reproduces in the form of invention. But then wouldn’t invention have to be genetically identical, barring random mutations, to necessity? This is why we don’t demand scientific accuracy of our metaphors.)
When I first moved to this city, I signed a lease for an apartment sight unseen. Among the many, many signs that this was an idiotic decision was a freezer not quite broken enough to justify repairs but not quite functional enough to actually freeze anything. (This was one of the apartment’s most minor problems; it was practically a luxury when compared to the nocturnal, techno-loving neighbor so devoid of rhythmic ability that he mistook angry pounding on his door for the beat and who, after finally answering in nothing but dirty boxers, slack-jawed expression, and cloud of pot smoke, would grudgingly turn the volume down from 11 to 10.)
This “junior freezer” or “refrigerator-plus,” as it would be marketed on craigslist, generally wasn’t much of an issue; it certainly made defrosting a cinch. However, one day I optimistically decided to make The Exploited an ice cream cake for his birthday. I should have given up and made a regular cake, but The Exploited has a perhaps unhealthy obsession with ice cream (nutritionally unhealthy is a given; I mean psychologically unhealthy. This is a guy who unconsciously revises childhood memories to increase the amount of ice cream involved), and I hoped that maybe, just maybe, if I put it in the very coldest part of the freezer, the ice cream would attain some semblance of solidity.
This did not come to pass. Instead, the ice cream ended up with the approximate consistency of a thick pasta sauce. Thick pasta sauce?
And thus Ice Cream Lasagna was born.
Ice Cream Lasagna
- 1/2 batch of Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever*
- about 1/2 gallon ice cream of flavor of your choice, either softened or put in my old freezer. To set world record of chocolate chip cookieness, use cookie dough ice cream.
- 1/4 cup butter
- chocolate sauce to taste
1. Reserve six or seven cookies for decoration. Crumble the rest. A good way to do this is to put them in a resealable plastic bag and run a rolling pin over it a few times.
2. Mix about 2/3 of the cookie crumbs with melted butter. Spread onto bottom of 9″ x 9″ baking pan to form a crust (a.k.a. “lasagna noodles”). Freeze about 15 minutes, or until relatively hard.
3. Spread chocolate sauce on crust. (This is the “cheese.”) Freeze another 15 minutes.
4. Spread half the ice cream on top of sauce. Freeze about 30 minutes, or until ice cream is reasonably solid. (You can wait for full solidity if you have a real freezer.)
5. Spread remaining cookie crumbs on top. Freeze 15 min.
6. Spread another layer of ice cream on top. Decorate, then freeze for a few hours or overnight.
*The best chocolate chip cookies ever, as determined by a year of unscientific experimentation with various recipes, can be found here, at the Guittard Chocolate Company. Their chocolate chips are also good, even better than those of their famous and expensive neighbor, Ghirardelli.
Tags: chocolate chip cookies, dessert, freezers, ice cream, ice cream cake, lasagna
