Family Recipe: Ice Cream Sandwiches + 5 Saint Paul Ice Cream Shops

Mother and son making cookies for ice cream sandwich recipe: "The Best Ice Cream Sandwich Recipe"

Today we explore Saint Paul ice cream shops and make a homemade Ice Cream Sandwich recipe, with the help of Dining with Alice. Make this fun and yummy treat using your favorite ice cream and homemade Double Chocolate Cherry Cranberry cookies!

While our agenda here at FFTC has typically been — and will continue to be — lending inspiration for family outings around the Twin Cities, we also recognize the value in simply spending quality time at home together. “Family fun” doesn’t always have to mean “on the run”, right? This is the goal behind our new special Wednesday series. And in keeping with the original mission of FFTC to promote local, we’re partnering with businesses and personalities to provide ideas on how you can spend this time at home.

Meet Alice Seuffert of Dining with Alice

First up, we’d like to introduce Alice Seuffert, a St. Paul mom, Twin Cities Live Kitchen Star and food blogger on the wonderful site Dining With Alice. Her website is packed with tempting recipes, the kind that make a time-crunched mom such as myself resolve (yet again) to break out of my dozen-meals-on-repeat cooking rut. She’s also got some ideas that are just plain fun — such as her recipe for Double Chocolate Cherry Cranberry Ice Cream Sandwiches — and sure to be a hit with kids.

How to Make the Ice Cream Sandwich Recipe

This recipe uses home-made cookies and store-bought ice cream, but it lends itself well to adaptation. Don’t want to whisk together cookies? Buy your favorite brand. Love making your own ice cream? Go for it.

Start by getting your workspace ready. Heat oven to 375 and pull out the equipment you will need: measuring cups and spoons, a large bowl and medium bowl for mixing the dry and wet ingredients, baking sheets, cooling racks. You may want a mixer with paddle attachment or you can use a whisk. This recipe does not need to chill in the refrigerator, so you do not need to make room in the fridge.

Next pull out your stand mixer, hand mixer or whisk and cream the unsalted butter, sugars and ground chocolate, adding two large eggs last. In a separate bowl, mix the all purpose flour, soda and a teaspoon of salt.  Add the flour mixture to the butter and egg mixture to create your batter. Add cranberries and chocolate chips.

Use a spoon to place cookie dough on a greased cookie pan and to flatten the dollops. Bake for eight minutes.  You should get 60 cookies out of this recipe.

Let the cookies cool on a wire rack before spreading the ice cream between two layers of cookie and rolling the sandwich in chocolate chips. Freeze the sandwiches if you don’t eat them right away.

Double Chocolate Cherry Cranberry Ice Cream Sandwich Recipe

Two platters of Homemade Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches made by Alice Seuffert of Dining with Alice
Image credit: Alice Seuffert

We’re sharing Alice’s recipe below plus more than 20 ideas to get a local scoop when you’re ready to go out and about:

Double Chocolate Cherry Cranberry Ice Cream Sandwiches

Today we explore Saint Paul  ice cream shops and make homemade Ice Cream Sandwiches, with the help of Dining with Alice. 

  • 2 sticks butter (unsalted)
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 2 eggs (room temperature)
  • 2 1/2 cups flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 5 oz dried cranberries (cherry flavor)
  • 10 oz Ghirardelli 60% Bittersweet Chocolate Chips
  • Breyers Cherry Vanilla Ice Cream
  • Mini Chocolate Chips
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees

  2. Cream butter, brown sugar, white sugar and ground chocolate.  Add eggs one at a time. 

  3. Blend flour, baking soda and salt.  Add to mixture and stir to combine.  Once mixed, add cranberries and chocolate chips.

  4. Place spoonfuls on greased cookie sheets and flatten.  Bake for 8 minutes

  5. Makes 60 cookies to use in ice cream sandwiches

  6. Once cookies have cooled, place 2 spoonfuls of ice cream between cookies and gently press so ice cream is visible on sides.  Roll sides of ice cream in mini chocolate chips. 

  7. Store ice cream cookie sandwiches in freezer or serve immediately.

Dessert
ice cream sandwich

Make this a quick and easy ice cream sandwich recipe by pre-making the cookies, wrapping in plastic wrap and parchment paper, and freezing for later! One of our favorite things about this recipe is that you can easily convert it to other flavors. Prefer cookies and cream ice cream sandwiches? How about a brownie cookie? Change up the recipe to fit your cravings. Other flavor additions could include cocoa powder, nuts, or a couple teaspoons vanilla extract or mint extract.

Recipe and featured image courtesy of Alice Seuffert of Dining with Alice. 

St. Paul Ice Cream Shops

Ice Cream Cones at Cold Front in St. Paul Minnesota via Family Recipe: Ice Cream Sandwiches + 5 St Paul Ice Cream Shops
Cold Front

And when you’re in the mood to explore some ice cream shops around town, here are 5 of my local picks from St. Paul:

Nelson’s Ice Cream

454 Snelling Ave S, St Paul, MN 55105

The scoop: Look forward to an incredible amount of ice cream for your money. I only had enough cash on me for a kid’s scoop (no credit cards accepted when we visited) and as the girl kept piling the scoops on, I thought she had misheard me and was about to hand over a triple. Four kids and one hungry mom were completely satisfied with that sole kiddie scoop for $3.50. Tip: ask for two flavors in a single order; so many great ones to choose from!

Cold Front

490 Hamline Ave. S., St. Paul, MN 55116

The scoop: Visit Cold Front not for a bargain, but for delicious, inventive flavors (“This $&@! Just Got Serious”, for instance, is a divine salted caramel flavor with sea salt fudge and cashews) and the old-fashioned soda fountain feel. The kids and I recently treated ourselves to two of their “Snowball Flights” – each one includes four mini-cones ($4.75).

St. Paul Corner Drug

240 S Snelling Ave, St Paul, MN 55105

The scoop: The drugstore opened in 1922 and still retains an old-timey charm much due to the soda fountain at the front. It’s a family tradition to bring the kids each summer for a scoop in a tulip dish. Though it’s been many years since the cones cost a quarter, the prices still evoke a different era — and are generous enough to split. Grab a nickel cup of coffee as well.

Conny’s Creamy Cone

1197 Dale St N., Saint Paul, MN 55117

The scoop: Conny’s claim to fame is her 27 flavors of soft-serve ice cream offered at great prices ($1.09 for a kid’s scoop, only $2.69 for a waffle). The sweet corner shop with the walk-up windows also serves burgers, hot dogs and appetizers.

University of Minnesota Dairy Salesroom

1334 Eckles Ave, Falcon Heights, MN 55108

The scoop: This little hidden gem of an ice cream shop is tucked away in Room 166 of the Andrew Boss Lab of Meat Science on the U of M St. Paul campus. It’s only open on Wednesdays from 3-5pm but a trip over is worth it for the bevy of flavors made onsite by students. We like to split a pint; a great deal at $3.50.


Don’t live near my neck of the woods? Gianna has compiled a list of 18 more ice cream shops you can hunt down across the Twin Cities Metro.

ice cream

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If you like this recipe, check out a few more that Alice has shared with us over the years:

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