Instructions for making ice cream sandwiches

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Step 1: Mix the dough: With your electric mixer, beat 12 tablespoons of cold butter with the contents of the sugar until it is light.  Add two large eggs and continue beating until the mixture is lemony and fluffy.  Scrape the sides of the bowl, add the flour mixture, and continue beating.  The mixture will gradually clump.  Add a tablespoon of water if needed.  Divide the dough into two equal parts.

Step 2: Roll the dough.  Place one-half the dough on parchment sheet template provided and press into a flat.  Cover with a larger sheet of parchment or waxed paper and roll the dough between the two sheets.  Roll the dough until it extends to the edge of the template sheet trimming and patching as needed until you have a rectangular sheet of dough the size of the cut parchment sheet.  The dough sheet does not have to be perfectly smooth and uniform.

Step 3: Bake the dough.  Slide the parchment paper with the dough sheet onto a large, dark-colored baking sheet.  Bake for eight minutes at 350 degrees.

Step 4: Cut the cookies.  Remove the pan from the oven.  Before the cookie sheet has cooled, use the clear plastic cutter to cut the cookies in the pan.  Cut 12 cookies, four rows of three each aligning the cutter with the edge of each cookie as you go.  Let the cookies cool for a few minutes on the pan without removing them from the parchment paper and then move them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Step 5: Assemble the sandwiches.  Placing the tops of the cookies to the outside, assemble the cookies per the instructions that come with the tool.  As you assemble them, wrap them in plastic wrap and freeze them for a couple hours.

Repeat the process with the other dough ball.

To make ice cream sandwiches without the ice cream sandwich making tools.

Mix and bake the dough per the above instructions.  Use a ruler to measure and cut the baked cookie sheet into cookies of uniform size.

Lay a cookie on the counter.  Pile slightly softened ice cream on the cookie and spread and smooth with spatula.  Lay another cookie over the ice cream and gently press the cookie down.  Wrap and freeze for two hours.