Film Reel Ice Cream Sandwiches

Whether you are hosting an Academy Awards party of just having friends over for a movie night, these Film Reel Ice Cream Sandwiches are red-carpet worthy and a sure win for the award of best dessert.

I’ve personally never hosted an Oscar party, even though I think it would be fun, but I do love hosting movie nights now that we have a cozy movie theater in our basement .

We’ll be having some friends over soon for a movie night and I wanted to create a really festive treat that both kids and adults would love and thought it would be great to share it before the Academy Award air this weekend, in case any of you are hosting an Oscar party.

After, Kim, The Partiologist, shared her Academy Award Cookies here a few days ago, I was inspired to make some cookies of my own to use as ice cream sandwiches.

Kim’s cookies are decorated with fondant and look really cool, but I didn’t want fondant on a frozen cookie, so I chose to just cut my cookies to look like film reels then sprayed them with silver food coloring spray to give them that shiny finish.

Sandwiched in between each cookie is a frozen treat. I say frozen treat, because although I called these “film reel ice cream sandwiches,” I didn’t actually use ice cream. I meant to. I wanted to. But, in the end, I didn’t. Instead I made homemade chocolate mousse which I shaped into round discs to use inside my frozen dessert.

Using ice cream could have reduced the amount of time it took me to make these treats and certainly would have cut down on the dirty dishes, but I came up with the idea for these crafty treats yesterday and it snowed all day. Being I don’t like driving in the snow and didn’t have any chocolate ice cream in my house, I had to get creative.

I made do with what I had on hand, and that meant whipping up a batch of my favorite chocolate mousse and freezing it in discs so that I could make these frozen treats.

The frozen chocolate mousse made for a really decadent dessert and I was so happy I used it, but you can use chocolate ice cream if you want to make authentic ice cream sandwiches. Either way, they are fun movie night sweets.

 

Film Reel Ice Cream Sandwiches

Ingredients: (makes 24 cookies = 12 ice cream sandwiches)

Cookie Dough:

2 cups all purpose flour, plus more for dusting cutting board
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup butter, softened slightly
3/4 cups sugar
1 large egg
3/4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Chocolate Mousse Layer: (use chocolate ice cream if you prefer)


1 cup heavy whipping cream
8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
3 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons sugar
2 egg yolks, room temperature

Supplies:

rolling pin
3 1/4 inch round cookie cutter
3/4  inch round cookie cutter
12 – 3 inch round metal pastry rings, if making mousse
or a 3 inch round cookie cutter,  if using chocolate ice cream
12 – 10 inch acetate strips to line pastry rings, if making mousse
parchment paper lined baking sheets

Instructions:

Whisk together 2 cups flour, salt, and baking powder together. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in egg, vanilla and almond extract.

 

Add dry ingredients and stir just until combined.Pat dough into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap or place in a zip top bag, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Dust a cutting board lightly with flour.

 

Roll dough out to 3/8 inch thickness. Cut rounds using the 3 1/4 inch cutter. Remove excess dough, set rounds about an inch apart on a parchment paper lined baking sheets.

Use a 1/2 inch round cookie cutter to cut 5 holes around the outer edge of each cookie, so that each cookie looks like a film reel.

Place in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.Bake one tray of cookies at a time for 10-12 minutes until dry around the edges.

Allow cookies to cool completely on the baking pan.

When cookies have cooled, spray them with silver food coloring spray. Allow them to dry completely. I lined a large box with parchment paper and set the cookies inside before spraying to keep the spray from getting on my table.

If making chocolate mousse, follow these instructions:

Whisk whipping cream to soft peaks. Set aside. Melt the chocolate in a large bowl. See my Chocolate Making Tips page for detailed chocolate melting instructions. Set aside. Pour water and sugar in a small saucepan and bring it to a boil over medium heat. Stir until the sugar is dissolved creating a simple syrup.

Whisk egg yolks in a medium bowl.  Continue to whisk while slowly adding a small amount of simple syrup.  Slowly drizzle in the remaining simple syrup continually whisking.

Combine eggs with melted chocolate, stirring until well incorporated.  Heat chocolate mixture in the microwave for 20 seconds then stir until smooth.

Add one third of the whipped cream and whisk until well incorporated.  Gently fold in the remaining whipped cream until fluffy.

 

Line twelve 3 inch round pastry rings with acetate strips.

 

Pour mousse into a 16 inch disposable pastry bag and pipe into the rings, filling each about 1 inch deep. You can also just spoon the mousse into the rings, if you prefer.

Freeze for at least one hour.

Remove mousse discs from freezer, pop out of the rings, and peel off the acetate.

If using ice cream, cut ice cream into 1 inch thick slices, then cut into discs using a 3 inch round cookie cutter. Set on parchment paper lined baking sheets and freeze until firm.

Just before serving, sandwich one round of  frozen mousse or icing cream in between two cookies.

You can assemble these ahead of time, wrap them in plastic wrap, and freeze until ready to serve. Allow them to sit at room temperature for 5-10 minutes before eating so cookies soften slightly.

Fun Party Recipes

Items used to make this project that are available on Amazon.com (commission earned for sales)

 

More Academy Award 
Movie Night Treats

Academy Award Cookies

100% Edible White Chocolate Popcorn Bowl

Peanut Butter Popcorn with Twix Bites

Chocolate Chip Cookie Serving Bowl

Polka Dot Pepperoni Bread and
Fried Pepperoni Ravioli

Meatball Lasagna Lollipops

 

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