Binging with Babish: Cookie Cat from Steven Universe

- This episode is sponsored by Four Sigmatic. I've been trying to stick to my New Year's resolutions and have been loving using Four Sigmatic protein powder to recover from workouts. Its incredible flavor comes from real ingredients and no artificial flavors. Head over to foursigmatic.com/

babish

for an extra 10% off their winter sale. The link is in the description. - Cookie Cat, is a pet for your tummy. Cookie Cat, it's super delicious. Cookie Cat, left his family behind. Cookie cat. Now available at Gurgens off Route 109. - Hey guys, welcome back to Binging with Babish where this week we're taking a look at Cookie Cat from Steven Universe.

Now, I'm no stranger to ice cream sandwiches. Here's a rest of the basic episode I made for it. Let's see if this is still good. That was 10 months and an entire department ago. That's a little freezer burn. Anyway, the first thing is to make us a custom Cookie Cat cutter mold. So I bought one of these custom

cookie

cutter kits to make your own. Basically a strip of aluminum that you have to bend and wrinkle, and crafts were never my strong suit, so I don't think this is going to turn out very well and it turned out perfect.

Wow, that was surprisingly easy. And speaking of that, we'll start with a super easy version. If you're just looking for a fun project to do with the kids on a rainy Saturday. I bought a pint of store-bought vanilla and strawberry ice cream that I'm going to press into a quarter sheet with parchment paper. Send it back to the freezer for at least an hour to harden, and for the outside of the ice cream sandwich, I'll take a page from my own book and make it out of cake. I think cake is a superior vehicle for ice cream sandwiches because it stays soft in the refrigerator.

So here I have a simple boxed chocolate cake mix that I'm making according to the manufacturer's instructions, but then deviating greatly from said instructions by spreading it thinly on a large rimmed baking sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes until the top is shiny and the cake is set. Then we'll let it cool for about five minutes before applying my Cookie Cat Cutter Shaped Cutting Tool. And using the back of a large piping tip to cut out the eyes. Then we are going to remove the excess cake and take our ice cream out of the freezer. and store-bought ice cream freezes quite a bit, so you'll probably want to use the bottom of a large saucepan to evenly press and run the Cookie Cat cutter through the cream.

And let's break the excess. s'cream, don't throw it away or anything, it's still perfectly edible. You can use it to make strangely shaped ice cream. Then, on parchment paper, we will place one of our pieces of cake, cover it with our ice cream cutout and one more piece of cake. We will put it back in the freezer for a couple of hours, both to bind the cake to the ice cream and to firm it. And there you have it. A quick and easy Cookie Cat that you can do as a fun project with children or the child in you.

As per Steven's instructions, we start with the ears and it certainly is good. It's chocolate cake and ice cream, but it's still more of a cat cake. To make the genuine article, we'll start by making our own no-churn ice cream. We combined one cup of cold heavy cream, half a can of sweetened condensed milk, about seven ounces, half a teaspoon of kosher salt and one teaspoon of vanilla extract, and our secret weapon, about two ounces of heavy cream. This product is widely available in jars at the supermarket, but an acceptable substitute is one ounce of mascarpone cheese, diluted with two ounces of heavy cream.

This will increase the fat content of our ice cream, which will help keep it soft in the freezer. Using a hand mixer, beat this until stiff peaks form. Basically, what we are making here is like a spiked whipped cream, which when frozen will result in smooth, creamy, and most importantly, biteable ice cream. We'll spread it on half of our baking sheet and then it'll be time to make our strawberry ice cream, for which we'll need some strawberries. Which we can optionally toast to amplify its strawberry flavor. It is definitely not necessary to place the small cut down.

Why did you do that, Andy? Yes, that's what I thought. Anyway, we'll roast them at 350 for about 25 minutes. After that time, they will look very the same but will be soft and easy to pierce and will have a deeper, more jam-like flavor. So we're going to let them cool for a few minutes before pouring them into a food processor. Puree them until you obtain a puree and strain the puree through a fine mesh strainer. Now our puree is obviously going to add a lot of liquid to our ice cream. So, we need to alter the formula a bit.

This time, six ounces of heavy cream, six ounces of sweetened condensed milk, three ounces of clotted cream or clotted cream substitute, half a teaspoon of kosher salt, and one teaspoon of vanilla extract. Beat this until stiff peaks and then we'll add our strawberry puree, in an effort not to deflate all the nice air we've whipped into our ice cream base. Once you've folded everything, you can optionally add a little pink food coloring, which I definitely should have done. Otherwise, you can just pour it in with the vanilla in the tray and smooth it out with an offset spatula.

That's a pretty satisfying look. And just to make sure it's extra flat, cover it with some parchment paper and press it lightly with another quarter sheet from the edge. And we're going to wrap this guy up in plastic. You don't want to get freezer burn and put them in the freezer for at least four hours. Lots of time to make the

cookie

s for our Cookie Cat. Now Kendall and I ended up making seven different batches of cookies here because we really wanted to nail the look and texture. It had to be soft, it had to have clean edges, it didn't have to fall apart when you try to pick it up, and we wanted it to have a slight cookie crunch to it and I think we finally achieved that.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, place 75 grams of softened butter, 100 grams of granulated sugar, 50 grams of light brown sugar and half a teaspoon each, baking soda and salt. And we're going to beat everything together on high speed until it's light and fluffy. While whisking, we sift 80 grams of high-quality cocoa powder with 160 grams of all-purpose flour. Adding a third of that mixture to the mixer on low speed, combining a teaspoon of vanilla with 110 milliliters of whole milk, of which we are also going to add a third to the mixer, letting it be completely incorporated before adding a third of the dry, a third of the wet, repeating until everything is added and incorporated and we have a thick dough similar to plasticine.

Which we are going to place between two sheets of parchment paper and spread until we achieve a uniform thickness, about four millimeters thick. We remove the top layer of parchment paper so we can cut out our shapes. It took us several batches to realize that we needed to cut the cookies first to prevent the edges from cracking or getting messy. So we're going to cut out our Cookie Cats, cut out the eyes - that sounds bad - and bake them at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for seven to 10 minutes until they look dry on top. Let them cool completely and then it will be pretty much the same assembly as last time.

We're going to remove the parchment paper from our homemade no-churn ice cream, scoop it out of the pan, and then use our mold and a heavy-bottomed saucepan to cut out two pieces of ice cream filling that we'll place between our cookies. . I made mine a little gigantic, so this recipe will only make two Cookie Cats, but in the same way, once we have them assembled, we will place them in the freezer for at least two hours before eating them immediately or wrapping them in plastic wrap to longer term storage. And there you have it, Cookie Cat, just like I always imagined.

The pet for your tummy, who is super delicious, who left her family behind. The ice cream is super soft and bite-able. And despite being frozen, the cookie also gives, despite having a cookie-like crunch. And Stephen is right to start with the ears. I don't think there's any other way to eat this other than, I don't know, maybe cut it in half and share it because it's the size of a softball. Thanks again to Four Sigmatic for sponsoring this episode. I love their plant-based protein. It is made from functional mushrooms and real vanilla without any fillers. This means it is also 100% grain free.

You can even bake with it. I added a couple scoops to my favorite chocolate waffle recipe that I sandwiched with some whipped cream to make protein ice cream sandwiches. Four Sigmatic is having its winter sales right now, up to 50% off products like plant-based protein, plus you can get an exclusive extra 10% off all products on sale. Head to foursigmatic.com/

babish

to check it out. The link is in the video description. (upbeat music)