Sometimes the best things in life are even better together, in this case, we’re referring to ice cream and cookies! Our delicious Protein Ice Cream Sandwich recipe ticks all the right boxes. Featuring our Chocolate Cacao Plantiful Protein, you’ll be nourishing your body with a delicious hit of plant based protein and all the beneficial ingredients we’ve added in it.

Our Protein Ice Cream Sandwich recipe is such a treat, though in hindsight calling it a sandwich doesn't quite cut it - its a behemoth and more rightly deserves the title of Ice Cream BURGER. The ice cream recipe itself is free from added sugar as we’ve sweetened it naturally with bananas and our Morlife Monk Fruit Powder. Monk Fruit is roughly 10x sweeter than regular sugar and has a rather unique feature in that it is extremely low calorie and is low GI. Speaking of titles, Monk Fruit took out the title for best healthy sugar alternative by our nutritionists too!

As we’ve mentioned, the star ingredient in this mouthwatering recipe is our very own Morlife Chocolate Cacao Plantiful Protein. Far more than just protein, Chocolate Cacao Plantiful is a comprehensive blend which combines plant based proteins; Cert. Org. Brown Rice & Cert Org. Pumpkin. We’ve also added in key minerals including Magnesium & Zinc to support protein synthesis. Zinc also supports acid-base metabolism, immune function and protects from free radicals. With it’s delicious natural chocolate cacao taste, you wouldn’t even know we added in functional herbs, superfoods and the benefits of greens!

As this recipe is vegan, we’ve substituted eggs with a chia egg. The trick to getting that perfect egg consistency is to grind the chia seeds into a fine powder (you can do this in a food processor). Once you add in the water and let it absorb, the chia egg will be perfect to add into baking. Once you’ve whipped up all your ingredients together for the cookies, place the dough in a bowl and let it sit in the fridge to harden up a little. As we wanted our ice cream sandwiches to be a descent size, we used a medium circle cookie cutter. Place your cookies on a lined baking tray and bake in the oven for around 10 minutes. When you take them out, don’t be worried if the cookies are soft, as they will harden up as they cool.

After around 4 hours, your ice cream should be set and your cookies are chilling on the bench waiting to be united with its mate! So now time for the fun part: assembling! To ensure your ice cream will actually fit in between the cookies, use that same circle cookie cutter to cut the ice cream. If you find the ice cream is still a bit hard when taking out of the freezer, run the bottom of the pan under warm water for 30 seconds. Once you’ve got the ice cream circles, we would recommend popping them back in the freezer for 15 minutes before placing in between the cookies. This just ensures they keep their shape.

So we went all out and dipped our ice cream sandwhiches into melted vegan chocolate then topped with our Certified Organic Cacao Nibs but you could easily choose other toppings such as dried berries or some shredded coconut. The choice is yours, have some fun and go all out in this part! These bad boys are best enjoyed straight away, but you can store them in your freezer ready for your next snack attack.

PROTEIN ICE CREAM SANDWICH

SERVES: 3 large ice cream sandwiches

PREP & MAKE TIME: 5.5 hrs (including freeze time)

INGREDIENTS

COOKIES
1 tbsp Morlife Certified Organic Chia Seeds (ground) + 3 tbsp water
2 cups almond flour
½ cup gluten free flour blend
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1/2 cup vegan butter, softened
¼ cup brown rice syrup
1/2 cup coconut sugar

PROTEIN ICE CREAM
½  cup Morlife Chocolate Cacao Plantiful Protein
4 frozen bananas
¼ cup coconut cream
¼ tsp Morlife Monk Fruit Powder

TOPPING
½ cup vegan chocolate, melted
1/3 cup Morlife Certified Organic Cacao Nibs
1/3 cup shredded coconut

STEP BY STEP

1. Make the chia egg by mixing chia seeds with 3 tbsp water. Allow the mixture to sit and absorb for 5 minutes until it thickens.
2. Add the almond flour, gluten free flour blend, baking soda and salt into a medium bowl, mix to combine.
3. In a large bow, add the vegan butter, chia egg, brown rice syrup and coconut sugar, mix until it is well combined.
4. Combine the wet and dry ingredients together and mix well. Place the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes.
5. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
6. Place roughly 2 spoonful’s of the dough on a lined baking tray, and cut with cookie cutter into individual cookies. Bake for 10 mins and let cool. 
7. To make the ice cream, place all the ingredients in a blender and process until smooth and creamy. Pour the ice cream mixture into a lined baking pan and set in the freezer for 4 hours (best overnight).
8. Using the cookie cutter again, press into the ice cream then place between 2 cookies.
9. Dip into the melted chocolate, then coat with Cacao Nibs and serve.