Pod Insights The Sporkful We Invent An Ice Cream Sandwich About this episode For years, Dan has kept a Google Doc of ideas for ice cream flavors and ice cream sandwiches. But nobody asked him for it. Then, the folks at Heap’s Ice Cream in Brooklyn asked Dan to collaborate on the ice cream sandwich of his dreams.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Dan Pashman? My whole extended family and I went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina this past spring. And I gotta say, I came away feeling like, number one, this is a great family destination. Number two, this is a great place to come all year round. The mini golf alone is probably worth, it's like the mini golf capital of the country. They have the most incredible elaborate mini golf courses. They also have more than 80 championship, full-size golf courses, plus 60 miles of beautiful coastline, all-season sunshine. Of course, you can relax by the beach or the pool. There's also jet skiing, fishing charters, paddle boarding, and of course, food. Oh, man, did we eat well in Myrtle Beach. From fresh local seafood to craft burgers and craft beers to kebabs on the boardwalk. With more than 2,000 restaurants to choose from, from legendary no-frill seafood shacks
0:43 Dan Pashman? to chef-driven dining, Myrtle Beach has it all. Plus, live entertainment at the beach, there's always something epic going on. So, summer may be winding down, but in Myrtle Beach, you're gonna find the coastal vacation of your dreams all year long. Start planning your ultimate beach vacation at visitmyrtlebeach.com. I grew up on Lando Lakes cheese. I still remember going to the supermarket deli counter with my mom and her ordering Lando Lakes American cheese. And now, Lando Lakes cheese and butter are a huge part of my home. There are so many easy weeknight recipes using Lando Lakes cheese and butter that bring delicious restaurant taste right to your table. From chicken parm to weeknight shrimp pad Thai, Lando Lakes has plenty of quick dishes that'll have the whole dinner table talking.
1:23 Dan Pashman? Visit landolakes.com/reцепes/collection for easy weeknight dinners.
1:33 Speaker 01 Sirius XM Podcasts.
1:43 Dan Pashman? I love crunch.
1:44 Speaker 01 Me too.
1:45 Dan Pashman? When I go to Dairy Queen to get a Blizzard.
1:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:48 Dan Pashman? I...
1:49 Speaker 01 What's your order?
1:49 Dan Pashman? I mean, it's varied over the years.
1:51 Speaker 01 Sure.
1:52 Dan Pashman? But, right now, it's vanilla chocolate swirl ice cream.
1:55 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:56 Dan Pashman? With extra, extra, extra, extra Heath bar.
1:59 Speaker 01 Whoa.
2:00 Dan Pashman? I basically want like 50...
2:01 Speaker 01 Okay, I would get that without the chocolate ice cream. I would just want like the vanilla and the key.
2:06 Dan Pashman? Sometimes, yes. But like when I was growing up, I mean, I remember the Dairy Queen Blizzard when it was invented. It was a seminal moment in my development as an eater.
2:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:14 Dan Pashman? And I would go like vanilla ice cream, extra, extra M&M's. That was just my go-to.
2:18 Speaker 01 That's a lot of crunch, because when they freeze, they really...
2:20 Dan Pashman? Yeah, yeah.
2:21 Speaker 01 ...get hard.
2:21 Dan Pashman? And back then, they were the full-size M&M's. None of these mini bullshit.
2:25 Speaker 01 We could handle it.
2:30 Dan Pashman? This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. Now, you know that I got a lot of ideas and opinions about food, right? And one of my favorite foods in the world, about which I have many ideas and opinions, is ice cream and ice cream sandwiches. For years, I've looked on with jealousy as other people have been asked by ice cream companies and stores to collaborate on unique flavors. I even kept a Google Doc of ice cream and ice cream sandwich concepts just waiting for my phone to ring. And for years, all I heard was crickets. And not the kind of crickets you put on ice cream, which I did try, but did not put into my Google Doc.
3:16 Dan Pashman? Then, a couple of months ago, I heard from the folks at Heaps Ice Cream in Park Slope, Brooklyn. They had done a couple of collabs with local restaurants on really out-of-the-box ice cream sandwiches. Like, they worked with the Taiwanese-American restaurant Winsun on one that paired Heaps Mango Sticky Rice Ice Cream with a toasted soy sesame cookie.
3:35 Dan Pashman? Now, they were reaching out to me to partner on a new ice cream sandwich. It was time to call my Google Doc into action. Now, one quick note, you're gonna have to listen to the end to find out what my sandwich is, but I want you to know that it's going on sale this Thursday, August 14th, at 7:00 PM at Heaps in Park Slope, and I'm gonna be there for the launch. So if you're nearby, I hope to see you there. Anyway, my co-conspirator on this project would be Sarah Sane. Sarah's the co-founder of Heaps, but long before that, she worked in fine dining.
4:07 Speaker 01 Everywhere I've worked, I've made ice cream. I worked at this place, The Biltmore Room, that sadly was not long-lived, in Chelsea, and we made the most incredible ice cream. It was this, like, macadamia brittle ice cream. And I was like, oh, everyone is going to respond to this the same way I did. And no one wanted macadamia brittle ice cream. I was totally wrong.
4:24 Dan Pashman? What?
4:24 Speaker 01 But, I know, it was demented. Like, it was so good. It would, like, stay crunchy, but then all that, like, fat from the macadamia nuts and the... Oh, my gosh, it was so good.
4:36 Dan Pashman? After the Biltmore Room, Sarah landed at a seminal restaurant called Diner in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which served chef-y takes on diner classics. The place was at the cutting edge of this trend of upscale comfort food that started in the 90s. Sarah continued in that direction with her own place in the same neighborhood called Pies and Thies, which specializes in fried chicken, biscuits, and all kinds of incredible desserts. She still runs Pies and Thies today. It's become a Brooklyn institution. Then, about six months ago, Sarah became a co-founder of a new ice cream shop called Heaps.
5:08 Speaker 01 Who doesn't want to own an ice cream shop? And also, it's such a fun medium to like, keep making things and have like, new challenges. And ice cream is so difficult in some ways to work with because I'm literally making all of the ice cream sandwiches, ice cream cakes, and it's not temperamental, but it is like a child because you have to understand it and then you can move it forward. But if you like, rush it, if you think it's being irrational, if you're in the wrong, to me, if I'm in the wrong mindset, if I'm not like, making an ice cream sandwich is going to take something close to two days, it doesn't work.
5:46 Dan Pashman? I've never made ice cream from scratch. Like, what in particular makes it so challenging?
5:50 Speaker 01 There's a lot to the texture. Like, if the sugar content gets too high, it gets like, very soft, sometimes too soft for a cone, and so then you've, you've lost. It doesn't work. It needs to be on a cone.
6:00 Dan Pashman? For now, there are other folks who develop the ice creams for Heaps. Sarah handles everything non-ice cream, including the sandwiches. And these ice cream sandwiches have become a mainstay at the place. They use existing Heaps ice cream flavors, and Sarah comes up with the cookies. Now, as we said, ice cream on its own can be temperamental. When you add a cookie to make a sandwich, it introduces a whole new layer of complexity, especially when it comes to one of my favorite subjects, structural integrity. If the ice cream is too soft, it'll get forced out the back when you bite into the sandwich, right? And if the cookie's too hard, you'll have the same problem. The cookie has to be soft even when frozen, and that is a challenge.
6:38 Speaker 01 The softness of the cookie is not like, a function of bake time. The recipe itself has to yield a cookie that has like, lower gluten, and when you bake it and it's done... Is still soft.
6:51 Dan Pashman? To achieve that softness, Sarah uses invert sugar. It's essentially sugar in liquid form. So think like molasses, honey, or corn syrup instead of plain old granulated sugar. She also reduces the gluten content of the cookie by swapping in lower gluten pastry flour for some of the all-purpose flour. Once Sarah and I have covered the theoretical underpinnings of ice cream sandwiches, it's time to get down to brass tacks. To make our ice cream sandwich, we need to figure out two things. The ice cream and the cookie. Sarah's given me just one constraint. We have to use an existing Heaps ice cream flavor as our base. Now it's time for a moment that's been years in the making. I am going to bring up now, let me find it.
7:35 Dan Pashman? I have a Google Doc entitled "Ice Cream Flavor and Sandwich Ideas."
7:39 Speaker 01 Oof, great.
7:40 Dan Pashman? I'm not saying all these are great ideas. And they're not all for use in our collab, but I'm just gonna throw some out here, okay?
7:46 Speaker 01 Can't wait.
7:47 Dan Pashman? One ingredient that I've always thought should be in an ice cream and I've never seen it is fried plantains.
7:52 Speaker 01 What? Hang on, I have to think.
7:55 Dan Pashman? Because I love cold fried plantains out of the fridge.
7:59 Speaker 01 That, this is a wild place to start. That's incredible.
8:06 Dan Pashman? Next idea. Are you familiar with the Reese's Big Cups that are like gigantic peanut butter cups?
8:11 Speaker 01 Absolutely.
8:12 Dan Pashman? They originally launched with a few different varieties. They had a Reese's Big Cup with potato chips in it.
8:18 Speaker 01 Yes, I remember. I bought it. I got it at the gas station.
8:20 Dan Pashman? That one was bananas.
8:24 Speaker 01 Okay, for the potato chips to stay crunchy frozen, we'll need to enrobe them. So they have to have some kind of, whether it's like a white chocolate or like a butter or milk powder mix, something like that. They'll have to have a coating on them so that they don't go when they get wet and freeze, you know?
8:43 Dan Pashman? Right. What if we were to put the potato chips outside around the perimeter of the sandwich?
8:48 Speaker 01 They're still going to hydrate.
8:50 Dan Pashman? Right, right.
8:51 Speaker 01 And so you have to prevent them from turning into mush.
8:54 Dan Pashman? Right, like this is the same reason why I think Oreos are better when they're in ice cream than by themselves, because I don't like how brittle they are as a cookie. But when you mix them with ice cream, they soften a little bit and to me they get better.
9:05 Speaker 01 Oh, oh no, what about Soft Batch?
9:07 Dan Pashman? They have an Oreo Soft Batch?
9:09 Speaker 01 There's Cakesters, there's so, there's, they, they, they have anticipated your needs.
9:15 Dan Pashman? I'm starting to get the feeling that Sarah and I could go on like this for hours. But back to the matter at hand. Sarah's concerned fried plantains won't be so great when frozen. They're out. Potato chips, also out. Unless we put them through an elaborate process, they're gonna turn soggy. I pitched Sarah on a third concept. Here's an idea I'm really excited about, Sarah.
9:36 Dan Pashman? You already have rum raisin ice cream.
9:38 Speaker 01 Yes, yes, yes, Dan.
9:40 Dan Pashman? I, I love.
9:41 Speaker 01 Rum raisin is my favorite.
9:42 Dan Pashman? I love rum raisin.
9:43 Speaker 01 Yes, me too.
9:44 Dan Pashman? I also, my mom and her whole family, they're from New England.
9:47 Speaker 01 Okay.
9:47 Dan Pashman? Where Grape Nut Ice Cream is a big thing.
9:50 Speaker 01 Sure, absolutely. I lived on Martha's Vineyard for two summers, lots of Grape Nut Ice Cream.
9:54 Dan Pashman? Grape Nuts are a cereal and they have neither grapes nor nuts. They were invented in 1897 by C.W. Post, the namesake of the Post Cereal Company. And let's just say they're not quite as popular as they used to be. They're these tiny cluster-like things about the size of Nerds candy, made of wheat and barley flour. And without milk, they're hard as rocks. But in New England, they put them in ice cream, which softens them a bit, and it's really good. I think I had this once at some ice cream shop, I can't remember where. Grape Nut Rum Raisin.
10:26 Speaker 01 Mmm, could the Grape Nuts be in the cookie?
10:29 Dan Pashman? They could be, but I'm a little, I'm worried. First of all, like as much as I love rum raisin, I love ice cream with a little crunch. I want something crunchy in the ice cream.
10:39 Speaker 01 Okay.
10:39 Dan Pashman? But plain Grape Nuts are very brittle.
10:41 Speaker 01 Very brittle. I have bridges that would fall out.
10:47 Dan Pashman? But put the Grape-Nuts in the ice cream, they're better than Grape-Nuts Solo. They soften a little bit, but they're brittle and hard enough to retain some crunch.
10:54 Speaker 01 We'll see, we'll see. One tiny thing about frozen foods, they have to be slightly sweeter in order for your mouth to like respond to it as sweet. So if you just take something and freeze it, it tastes like it's not sweet.
11:08 Dan Pashman? Right.
11:08 Speaker 01 And so I wonder if there's some way to like make the Grape-Nuts shine outside of just texture.
11:15 Dan Pashman? Let me throw one more idea at you.
11:16 Speaker 01 Okay.
11:17 Dan Pashman? I have always felt that more should be done in the dessert realm with cracklin' oat bran cereal.
11:22 Speaker 01 No, Dan, that's not fair. That's not fair. I did it.
11:26 Dan Pashman? You did?
11:27 Speaker 01 I did it, Dan, and the people spoke and they liked it okay.
11:30 Dan Pashman? What?
11:31 Speaker 01 They liked it okay.
11:32 Dan Pashman? The people are wrong. We need to find new people then.
11:36 Dan Pashman? Sarah's experiment with a cracklin' oat bran cookie was for pies and thighs.
11:40 Speaker 01 So we made oatmeal raisin cookies and I used cracklin' oat bran. It's coconut, it's oat, it's honey, it's toasty, it's crunchy. It has so much fat in it, it's absurd. Like it has everything to make it delicious.
11:52 Dan Pashman? Yes.
11:53 Speaker 01 So we would grind it up into a flour and chop it up as like a mix-in in the cookie dough with raisins in an otherwise traditional oatmeal raisin cookie. I'm gonna make you a batch.
12:02 Dan Pashman? Oh my God, I'm so excited.
12:04 Speaker 01 It's the best. The coconut is the thing, like it's a little unexpected. Like it has so much going on.
12:10 Dan Pashman? It's got so much flavor and it always cracks me up. People think that because it has the word oat bran in the title, that it's healthy. Like there's more sugar in cracklin' oat bran than in like Lucky Charms.
12:21 Speaker 01 It's horrific for you. Horrific. I know.
12:25 Dan Pashman? I am extremely excited to hear that Sarah and I have this cracklin' oat bond. But Sarah's cookie didn't work out at pies and thighs. They took it off the menu. She's convinced it was not the fault of the concept, but that the cookie just got lost among their other offerings.
12:40 Speaker 01 I thought that like the cracklin' oat bran mafia would would like find it and be like, finally, someone has taken this perfect ingredient and made a cookie out of it. I really thought that there was like a subculture of cracklin' oat stands, like you and me. They didn't find us, but maybe this is the opportunity. I believe they're out there.
13:02 Dan Pashman? I have to believe it. All right, so look, I love the idea of some kind of like chewy, cracklin' oat bran cookie.
13:08 Speaker 01 Yes.
13:09 Dan Pashman? Do you think that could pair with a grape nut rum raisin ice cream?
13:13 Speaker 01 The thing is, like, we might be sitting in the corner of a huge auditorium at a table by ourselves, eating these, and the rest of the world is like, what is wrong with you? No one wants that. I want that.
13:28 Dan Pashman? Yes.
13:29 Speaker 01 So I think let's make it and see. Will the, you know, kindergartner from across the street be like, finally, someone has paired rum raisin with sweet, got some crackin' oat bran? Like, maybe not. But that's, but that's the fun thing about like such a limited run and having this like, you know, creative prompt. It's like, let's do it, let's see.
13:48 Dan Pashman? As we sit here today, it's July 3rd.
13:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
13:51 Dan Pashman? And in order to have the recipe finalized and have it photographed and ready to put it on social and all that stuff, it needs to be totally done by August 1st.
13:58 Speaker 01 That's right.
13:59 Dan Pashman? Which is 29 days from today.
14:02 Speaker 01 Okay.
14:03 Dan Pashman? Can we do it?
14:04 Speaker 01 Absolutely. Cancel your vacation.
14:11 Dan Pashman? Coming up, the testing process begins and cracks form in our cracklin' oat bran concept.
14:16 Speaker 01 I do like that we start with something that we know is unmarketable. Like, no one wants what we're making. And then we finally get it to a place where we're like, well, this is delicious.
14:26 Dan Pashman? Right, and like, how can we ruin it?
14:27 Speaker 01 How can we ruin it?
14:30 Dan Pashman? That's coming up. Stick around.
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18:24 Dan Pashman? Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman. Last week on the show, we played our annual game show, Two Chefs and a Lie. This year, I'm emceeing, and our contestant is Rachel Hampton, host of the podcast Normal Gossip. We introduced Rachel to three guests. Two are real chefs, one is just pretending to be a chef. She can ask each of them five questions, then has to try to pick the liar. In this edition, one of the so-called chefs shares a crazy story from her private chef work with a client.
18:52 Speaker 03 She doesn't do any of the nightshades with the exception of peppers. So no potatoes, no tomatoes, no eggplant, no rice for boiling vegetables, making stocks, only mountain valley spring water.
19:06 Dan Pashman? Wait, wait. You're...
19:08 Speaker 03 Yeah, you heard me right.
19:10 Dan Pashman? You're making chicken stock with bottled water?
19:12 Speaker 03 Yeah. Well, I mean, in her, her meat and defense, I will say, she has it delivered in their, in big glass bottles, so they are reusable. But yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty something.
19:24 Dan Pashman? Is that real? Or is that guest our liar? Listen and play along. See if you can spot the liar. That episode is up now. One more quick note. Make sure you stick around to the end of this episode for a special segment brought to you by Samsung, in which I nerd out on one of the most important topics in the culinary world: ice cubes. That's at the end of this episode. Now, back to my attempt to create a new ice cream sandwich with Sarah Sannay of Heaps Ice Cream in Park Slope, Brooklyn. And a quick reminder, the sandwich goes on sale this Thursday, August 14th, at 7:00 PM at Heaps. Anyway, in early July, Sarah and I came up with our concept of Grape Nut Rum Raisin Ice Cream on a Crackle and Oat Bran Cookie. Now, in order to give her time to make enough for the launch and get it photographed for
20:08 Dan Pashman? social media and all that, the sandwich has to be finished by August 1st. That does not give us a lot of time. Sarah hunkers down in her Ice Cream Sandwich Lab, AKA the cramped basement prep area of her restaurant. After a couple of weeks, she invites me to join her there for a taste test.
20:25 Speaker 01 Okay, so...
20:26 Dan Pashman? The basement has stainless steel countertops everywhere, ingredients stacked on shelves, and the dishwasher. Sarah tells me it took her a while to source the Crackle and Oat Bran and Grape Nuts. They might be even less popular than we thought. Once she did find the Grape Nuts...
20:40 Speaker 01 It's like, dang, it's been like many tens of years since I have eaten Grape Nuts. I'm gonna try them. And so I put some in a container, I put the milk in, I let it sit for a minute, and then I ate so fearfully because now, at 44, I have toothwork. Like, there are things that can get dislodged, and it honestly, like, seemed to impose a threat.
21:02 Dan Pashman? Yeah.
21:03 Speaker 01 So, I don't know if I'm gonna be, like, buying boxes and boxes of Grape Nuts.
21:07 Dan Pashman? Right. But as we discussed, they will soften in the ice cream.
21:10 Speaker 01 Yes. There's also, like, I like that when you're eating them out of the box, like, with milk, there's a window. You have, like, you know, 15 minutes of, like, a liquidy milk and a soft Grape Nut.
21:20 Dan Pashman? Sarah...
21:21 Speaker 01 You gotta dive in.
21:22 Dan Pashman? I could derail this entire conversation. I could spend the next hour talking to you about the optimal window of consumption of various cereals. How long should it sit in the milk before you enter the optimal window? And then, how long does the optimal window last?
21:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
21:35 Dan Pashman? Before you get to the other side? Once again, Sarah and I are veering off track. We'll save our discussion of the window of optimal consumption of various cereals for another show. Let it sit for at least a minute, maybe two. So remember, we gotta pick an ice cream and a cookie. Sarah and I'll test the ice cream first. She's been experimenting with the best way... way to mix Grape Nuts in. She pulls out six small test batches. She's using vanilla, so we can isolate the various Grape Nut options and focus on that. Once we decide which one we like, we can add that Grape Nut treatment to Rum raisins.
22:06 Speaker 01 There's a control, so that's just Grape Nuts in vanilla ice cream. There's saute, that is, I literally sauteed Grape Nuts in butter and, let's see what else. Salt, and then I put just a little bit of white chocolate at the end. And then the other four are all toasted, sort of like varying degrees of toasted. And then there are a few different variables, which are like salt, white chocolate, toast level. And one of them I put milk powder in, sort of like see if that had a sealing effect also, or what it did, if it made it taste like Grape Nuts and milk. I don't know.
22:43 Dan Pashman? You're the pro here. What order should we be testing these in?
22:46 Speaker 01 I think we should start with control.
22:48 Dan Pashman? Okay, just get ourselves a baseline, classic Grape Nut.
22:51 Speaker 01 I think so.
22:52 Dan Pashman? Okay.
22:53 Speaker 01 There's a spoon for you.
22:56 Dan Pashman? I'm going in.
22:57 Speaker 01 Go in. Crunchy, not soft. That's delicious.
23:02 Dan Pashman? Yeah.
23:04 Speaker 01 Dirty spoons in here.
23:05 Dan Pashman? Okay. We try the Grape Nuts sauteed in butter.
23:10 Speaker 01 Subtle.
23:11 Dan Pashman? Then we try a version with the Grape Nuts in clusters, which Sarah made by sauteing them in butter and adding white chocolate to hold them together.
23:19 Speaker 01 Like, as a nation, we've decided clusters are the thing. So I'm like, maybe that is like an exciting new way to think about Grape Nut ice cream.
23:26 Dan Pashman? I'm intrigued by the clusters.
23:29 Speaker 01 Okay.
23:31 Dan Pashman? Whoa.
23:32 Speaker 01 Mmm, wow, that's really good.
23:34 Dan Pashman? Wow.
23:36 Speaker 01 Oh.
23:36 Dan Pashman? Oh, man. Oh, man.
23:42 Speaker 01 I think that that's delicious.
23:45 Dan Pashman? It's really good. Good.
23:46 Speaker 01 The test is that like I, after dinner, would pull a pint of this out and just like start eating off the top.
23:53 Dan Pashman? The clusters are the clear winner, but I do think we can up their flavor just a little bit. Sometimes when I make an ice cream sundae, even just a scoop of ice cream, I sprinkle a little flaky salt on it.
24:02 Speaker 01 Sure, yeah.
24:03 Dan Pashman? Can we try the clusters again with a little bit more salt?
24:07 Speaker 01 Hang on.
24:07 Dan Pashman? Okay.
24:08 Speaker 01 Hold that thought.
24:08 Dan Pashman? All right. Sarah just ran away.
24:12 Dan Pashman? She comes back with the clusters on their own in a container, not an ice cream. We start playing with those, adding some more salt.
24:18 Speaker 01 Toss that around. Yeah, definitely better and heightened.
24:23 Dan Pashman? Yes.
24:25 Speaker 01 Let's put a note in the dock, shall we? So I'm gonna put these back in the freezer for a second so we don't lose them and we're gonna move on to cookie.
24:31 Dan Pashman? Okay, let's do it.
24:36 Dan Pashman? Now, the cookie. As we discussed in our first conversation, Sarah's whipped up the cookies she used to make for pies and thighs as the baseline. It's got cracklin' oat bran ground up and mixed into the flour. Then she's made versions with grape nuts in the dough, grape nuts sprinkled on top, one with chunks of cracklin' oat bran, one that also has coconut. They all look like sugar cookies with different things mixed in. Before we even get to tasting, most interesting and surprising to me as I look at these different test samples is when I've dreamt about it, it never looked anything like this.
25:08 Speaker 01 Oh, what did it look like?
25:10 Dan Pashman? It was more like, imagine if you made like a graham cracker pie crust.
25:14 Speaker 01 Okay.
25:14 Dan Pashman? But with cracklin' oat bran.
25:16 Speaker 01 Oh, interesting, like a, um...
25:18 Dan Pashman? As you may know, with a graham cracker pie crust, you crush up graham crackers, mix them with some butter and sugar, and press them into a pan. I'm imagining something similar, but with crushed cracklin' oat bran. So it's not a cookie with cracklin' oat bran in it. The whole thing looks like cracklin' oat bran. Sarah likes this idea. She thinks it simplifies the vision of the overall sandwich. So now we have a new direction. But we might as well try the cookies she's already made, and they all have one thing in common. None of these are punching me in the face with cracklin' oat bran.
25:46 Speaker 01 Uh-uh. No.
25:48 Dan Pashman? I wanna be punched in the face with cracklin' oat bran.
25:50 Speaker 01 We can punch you in the face.
25:53 Dan Pashman? We've made some progress here.
25:54 Speaker 01 So much progress.
25:55 Dan Pashman? We're excited about the clusters.
25:57 Speaker 01 We love clusters.
25:57 Dan Pashman? With a little more salt and maybe a few other tweaks.
25:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:00 Dan Pashman? The cookie, we have a shared, we have a mind melded image in our heads. The question is, how do we make that a reality?
26:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:07 Dan Pashman? All right, well, I can't wait to come back for the next test.
26:10 Speaker 01 I'm glad it didn't come on the first pass. Isn't it more fun?
26:13 Dan Pashman? Yeah, for sure. If it comes too easy, then it feels like you didn't even earn it.
26:17 Speaker 01 I know.
26:18 Dan Pashman? Yeah. All right, Sarah, I'll see you in a week.
26:21 Speaker 01 I'll see you in a week.
26:26 Dan Pashman? A week later, Sarah and I reconvene at Pies and Thies. It's just three days until our deadline. We have got to lock in and make some decisions. We have two big goals for the day. Confirm that we're good to go with the Grape-Nut Clusters in Rum Raisin Ice Cream, then decide which Crackle and Oat Bran Cookie we'll use. We start with the ice cream, Rum Raisin with Grape-Nut Clusters.
26:47 Speaker 01 Numb. It almost tastes like eggnog-y to me.
26:52 Dan Pashman? Is there cinnamon in here? Something that tastes cinnamony to me.
26:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, there's cinnamon, there's nutmeg, there's like the sort of flavors of rum in the ice cream. And then, you know what it is? It's nutmeg that you're tasting.
27:02 Dan Pashman? Mmm.
27:06 Dan Pashman? Going for another taste.
27:09 Speaker 01 The raisins are huge California raisins, very beautiful and juicy, but you've got to get a raisin to get the full rum raisin.
27:15 Dan Pashman? Yeah.
27:16 Speaker 01 Experience.
27:17 Dan Pashman? I mean, this is really good. I agree that it tastes a lot like eggnog.
27:20 Speaker 01 It's eggnog-y, yeah.
27:21 Dan Pashman? And I, I love eggnog.
27:23 Speaker 01 I do too.
27:24 Dan Pashman? Not positive that that's right for a summertime ice cream sandwich.
27:29 Speaker 01 But that ship may have sailed.
27:33 Dan Pashman? But, but, but let's go on because I...
27:35 Speaker 01 Well, the other option is a straight vanilla.
27:40 Speaker 01 Does it need a fruit? Does it need a swirl? Does it need a jam?
27:45 Dan Pashman? I didn't know that was even an option.
27:47 Speaker 01 Sure, we can do whatever. Sour cherry, always my favorite.
27:51 Dan Pashman? Would that work with rum raisin, you think?
27:53 Speaker 01 Let's try, let's try. We have it.
27:54 Dan Pashman? Oh, you have cheese. It's great to develop recipes in a restaurant.
27:59 Speaker 01 Right. Okay.
28:01 Dan Pashman? We're going to the, we're in the walk-in now. We're in the walk-in fridge. Is it the fridge or the freezer?
28:06 Speaker 01 This is the fridge.
28:07 Dan Pashman? We're in the fridge.
28:07 Speaker 01 Here we are, okay.
28:08 Dan Pashman? Oh, sour cherry jelly. I see it right there.
28:10 Speaker 01 We have sour cherry jelly. Let's try, let's see what's good.
28:15 Dan Pashman? Coming out of the walk-in.
28:17 Speaker 01 At this point, do you feel how I feel, which is like, we were unchaperoned.
28:23 Speaker 01 We were left and made poor decisions, and now we have to live with them.
28:27 Dan Pashman? Sarah composes a bite for each of us with the Grape-Nut Rum Raisin Ice Cream and Sour Cherry Jelly on top.
28:34 Speaker 01 Wow. I think it's amazing, but it's a diff- definitely a different direction.
28:38 Dan Pashman? Mmm.
28:40 Speaker 01 Do you know what I mean, like, of fireworks? Range.
28:44 Dan Pashman? That's got a lot going on.
28:45 Speaker 01 It's got a lot going on.
28:46 Dan Pashman? The Sour Cherry Jelly does make the ice cream taste less like eggnog, but now I'm concerned that we're losing the rum flavor.
28:52 Speaker 01 We're gonna do Sour Cherry.
28:53 Dan Pashman? We decide to try the Grape-Nut Clusters with Sour Cherry Swirl in Vanilla Ice Cream. I mean.
28:59 Speaker 01 I love it.
29:01 Dan Pashman? That is so good.
29:04 Speaker 01 It's very dynamic and delicious.
29:07 Dan Pashman? It's almost like because we took away, it was a little too busy.
29:10 Speaker 01 You have to edit.
29:11 Dan Pashman? We, yeah, you gotta kill your darlings. It helps that heaps vanilla is really good. This might be our ice cream flavor.
29:21 Dan Pashman? We move on to the other component of the ice cream sandwich, the Cracklin' Oat Bran Cookie. Sarah has made two versions. Both are ground up Cracklin' Oat Bran, sugar, salt, coconut, and butter, pressed into a sheet pan. The difference is that one is baked and the other is not. We try both versions of the cookie with the Grape-Nut Ice Cream. I'm going in.
29:40 Speaker 01 So this is, you're trying the baked?
29:44 Speaker 01 I think.
29:47 Dan Pashman? You're making kind of a yucky face.
29:50 Speaker 01 I am making yucky face. The Cracklin' is not coming through for me.
29:53 Dan Pashman? I think that if we can make the Cracklin' Oat Bran work.
29:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:58 Dan Pashman? It's really fun. I just feel like.
30:00 Speaker 01 I just don't like it.
30:04 Dan Pashman? I don't want us to lose the Cracklin' Oat Bran, because I feel like you and I were so excited about that at the outset. We both have this, this deep belief that Cracklin' Oat Bran should be in desserts. Let's try the other one.
30:15 Speaker 01 Okay. Okay, so this one unbaked.
30:20 Speaker 01 I can't taste it. I can't taste the cracklin' oat bran.
30:24 Dan Pashman? I'm gonna try to just bite off the cracklin' oat bran bottom.
30:29 Speaker 01 What do you think?
30:29 Dan Pashman? Yeah. I mean, I agree with you that I don't taste a whole lot of cracklin' oat bran.
30:33 Speaker 01 No.
30:34 Dan Pashman? What's happening, Sarah? Why?
30:36 Speaker 01 I don't know.
30:37 Dan Pashman? Why would an uncooked cracklin' oat bran, a crust made almost entirely of cracklin' oat bran, not taste like cracklin' oat bran?
30:44 Speaker 01 Well, we talked about this at the beginning, that like flavors are really dulled by freezing. And so like if you're making a, you know, a mix-in or a crust or something like you really have to pump up the sweet, the salt, like it has to be pretty supercharged.
31:00 Dan Pashman? This is something I've known for a long time about temperature and foods in general. I mean, this is why you should take cheese out of the fridge one to two hours before serving. So it comes to room temp and has more flavor. Ice cream has more flavor and aroma when it's a bit melted versus frozen solid. It seems the magical taste of cracklin' oat bran is especially susceptible to the effects of freezing.
31:21 Speaker 01 I don't think we're gonna get closer to what we want. I think we'll make a delicious cookie. But I don't think we'll end up taking a bite and feeling more essence of cracklin' oat bran.
31:31 Dan Pashman? I'm reluctantly, a little bit sadly, coming around to the same point of view, which is like, sometimes things sound good in theory and then you make them and they're not as good as you hoped they would be.
31:42 Speaker 01 But I think we're on the path to something good.
31:44 Dan Pashman? Yeah, the grape nut clusters is what we stumbled into.
31:47 Speaker 01 Yes, and, and a fruit swirl.
31:50 Dan Pashman? The things that were most delicious to us are the grape nut clusters.
31:54 Speaker 01 Yes, on their own and then the...
31:55 Dan Pashman? In, in some kind of ice cream with the fruit swirl.
31:58 Speaker 01 Yes. I like vanilla fruit swirl grape nut clusters. That sounds like a delicious ice cream to me.
32:03 Dan Pashman? Okay.
32:03 Speaker 01 That was, that felt like fireworks.
32:05 Dan Pashman? Yes, that is, so of all the different bites last week and this week that we've taken, that was the...
32:09 Speaker 01 That's the most exciting. Yes, agree.
32:10 Dan Pashman? So let's focus on that.
32:12 Speaker 01 Okay.
32:12 Dan Pashman? Let's focus on that. Yeah, I'm coming around to your point of view because like of all the things we've eaten, that was the best.
32:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
32:18 Dan Pashman? So rum raisin is definitely out. The eggnog vibes were nice, but it didn't feel like summertime. And the rum flavor was kinda getting in the way of everything else. The ice cream will be vanilla with grape nut clusters and a sour cherry swirl. But for the cookie, we've hit a dead end. For a minute, Sarah and I feel a bit stumped.
32:37 Dan Pashman? What else goes with that? We start spitballing. Could it be something peanut buttery?
32:42 Speaker 01 Could it be pie dough?
32:44 Dan Pashman? Nuts?
32:45 Speaker 01 Rosemary shortbread.
32:46 Dan Pashman? Is there any space in these cookies for chocolate chips?
32:48 Speaker 01 What if it was like an oatmeal crust?
32:49 Dan Pashman? But what about like a coconut macadamia cookie?
32:52 Speaker 01 God, no, it's too much. It's too much. There's not enough room on the sign. Like, there's no way. It's like, okay. I don't know. I feel like I need more time. I need to think about the cookie.
33:03 Dan Pashman? Sarah says she'll try out some oatmeal cookie options for one more test in a couple of days.
33:07 Speaker 01 I think after this, we should close the Innovation Kitchen and start figuring out like the manufacturing and the packaging, like all the other things that happen before we sell them.
33:17 Dan Pashman? No more new ideas allowed after this.
33:19 Speaker 01 No, we're done with new ideas.
33:22 Dan Pashman? We're only eliminating ideas now.
33:23 Speaker 01 We're editing.
33:24 Dan Pashman? Yeah, we're editing.
33:27 Dan Pashman? Over the next 48 hours, Sarah spent some time brainstorming on her own, putting her pastry chef skills to use. When I left our last testing session, we agreed we would not allow any more new ideas. When I come back in the day before our deadline...
33:41 Speaker 01 So we have seven cookie options here. We have two fully assembled cookies. And then we have four ice cream options. Someone out there can do the math for like if you multiply all those different options together.
33:56 Dan Pashman? I have some friends who went to MIT.
33:57 Speaker 01 Oh, yes.
33:58 Dan Pashman? There are so many options here that our final sandwich has to be among them. Sarah's made a few oat cookie options, but she's also made a whole other category of cookies which aren't even really cookies. This is a complete surprise to me. It's pie crust. Sarah had mentioned pie crust offhand during our previous tests, but I didn't know she was gonna take that and run with it. Then again, I guess for someone who owns a place called Pies and Thies, it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I'm excited. I love an oat cookie, but I'm also intrigued because I've never had an ice cream, I've never seen an ice cream sandwich on any kind of like a pie dough cookie.
34:32 Speaker 01 Well, we'll see. Maybe there's a reason.
34:35 Dan Pashman? Sarah has our ice cream filling for us to put on each option. The first version of the pie crust cookie was weighted down when it was baked, so it's flat with flaky layers pressed together to make it a bit dense. Mmm.
34:51 Dan Pashman? Pretty fun.
34:53 Dan Pashman? I am so impressed with, because we talked at the beginning about structural integrity.
34:59 Speaker 01 So good.
35:00 Dan Pashman? I was worried that this pie crust ones would be like too hard.
35:02 Speaker 01 No, it really works.
35:03 Dan Pashman? But they're, they're like an amazing middle ground of being a little bit crispy and crusty, but it still gives to the bite in a way that does not push ice cream out the back.
35:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, and it's like recognizably pie dough, you know? Uh, I love that. We're trying so many things. I had no intention of eating full samples of each and I just ate that. That's a good sign.
35:24 Dan Pashman? Yeah. Next, we try one of the ones that was not weighted, so it's a bit taller, a bit puffier looking. It, it doesn't look exactly like a biscuit, but it looks a little bit biscuit-esque.
35:33 Speaker 01 Yes, it has, maybe I love flaky layers. It really has flaky layers. Okay, sandwich for you. It has a lot more, um, lift.
35:43 Dan Pashman? Right, it's probably, it's probably twice, twice as high.
35:46 Speaker 01 Slightly less caramelized, but it has the flaky layers have flaked. They weren't like forced together.
35:52 Dan Pashman? Right.
35:53 Speaker 01 Mmm.
35:56 Speaker 01 That's very fun.
35:57 Dan Pashman? Yeah.
35:59 Speaker 01 It, um, it's sort of like gives to the tooth a tiny bit easier.
36:03 Dan Pashman? Yes.
36:04 Speaker 01 Is that what the pros say?
36:06 Dan Pashman? Yeah, sure. The one that has more lift on it has more dynamic contrast.
36:10 Speaker 01 I agree, I love it.
36:10 Dan Pashman? It's crispy on the outside, but it's a bit chewy in the center.
36:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:13 Dan Pashman? Uh, as opposed to the flattened one was kind of like just crispy.
36:16 Speaker 01 Yes, I agree. I really enjoyed that. And I think it's a fun thing that we invented, this like pie dough pocket filled with ice cream.
36:23 Dan Pashman? You, you invented it, Sarah. I'm giving you the credit for this.
36:25 Speaker 01 We're on the road together here. I'm very happy with that.
36:28 Dan Pashman? We try the various oatmeal cookies just to cover all our bases. They're good, but they're not as special as the pie crust. Sarah and I agree, we've never had an ice cream sandwich on pie crust. So, decision made. We're sandwiching the ice cream between two layers of flaky pie crust, the unweighted ones, which are a bit lighter and chewier.
36:48 Dan Pashman? But wait, there's one more thing for us to decide. Should we dust the pie dough with cinnamon sugar or plain sugar? Sarah's made both. After we take one more bite of each version, she's sure.
36:59 Speaker 01 Okay, so just sugar on the pie. That's it. Hundred percent. Agreement from all nations.
37:08 Dan Pashman? In the background shouting "weh" is Sarah's niece Lily. She's from France. And "weh" is the slang for "we" or "yes". I have to agree. This is so good. Yeah.
37:21 Speaker 01 That might get my highest rating, which is demented. Like, that is very good.
37:27 Dan Pashman? Lily goes in for another bite, too.
37:29 Speaker 01 Mmm. Very weh. Very weh. That's what I'm... That is Lily's highest rating is very... The most weh.
37:37 Dan Pashman? Yeah.
37:37 Speaker 01 Very most weh. This is very, like, top three best things you've ever made. Wow.
37:42 Dan Pashman? Whoa.
37:43 Speaker 01 Whoa. Like, the coolest... Sorry.
37:44 Dan Pashman? High five. Uh, excuse me, I was here too, Lily.
37:47 Speaker 01 Yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Perfection. Truly, actually.
37:51 Dan Pashman? And with that, an ice cream sandwich is born. We decide to name it the Cherry Crisp à la mode sandwich. Vanilla ice cream with grape nut clusters and a sour cherry swirl between layers of pie crust.
38:09 Dan Pashman? It's such a great commentary on the creative process because where we ended up is so different from where we started.
38:16 Speaker 01 So different. It's so dynamic. There's a lot happening in here.
38:19 Dan Pashman? Yes, the only thing that's in here that we originally set out with is grape nuts.
38:23 Speaker 01 That's true. And this is so yummy. It's also sort of a marriage of pies and thighs and heaps and the sporkful. We've got everybody in there.
38:31 Dan Pashman? It's all coming together.
38:32 Speaker 01 Totally. I think it's great. I'm kidding.
38:34 Dan Pashman? This sandwich has a lot of dynamic contrast.
38:36 Speaker 01 Yes, it does.
38:37 Dan Pashman? Because you've got the crunchiness of grape nut clusters, you have the syrupiness of the jelly, and then you have this...
38:40 Speaker 01 And the sour, that the jam with the ice cream is phenomenal. I also am like, who knew that this jam would freeze into something that's fantastic? It even knew, like, horizons for the sour cherry jam here.
38:55 Dan Pashman? That's right. And, and as you were saying, that like, some things lose a lot of flavor when you chill them.
38:59 Speaker 01 Not that. It really stands up.
39:01 Dan Pashman? What are the chances that this becomes a permanent menu item in heaps?
39:04 Speaker 01 Zero. Not possible. Not possible. Did I say it fast enough? None. None. Zero. Is it a pain in the ass? Is that the question? Yeah, sorry. Is it a huge hassle to make all the different components? One hundred percent. That part we have failed at. If someone was like, okay, how do I turn this into like, something that could, you know, actually come to market and have a reasonable return? No. This is not it. This has failed.
39:31 Dan Pashman? All right, I'm gonna take one more bite for the road.
39:33 Speaker 01 Please. No, what do we do with the cracklin' oak bran boxes? You wanna take some of my food? I'm serious, we have a lot of boxes.
39:40 Dan Pashman? Sure, I'll take one for the road.
39:44 Dan Pashman? All right, as I said, our cherry crisp a la mode sandwich goes on sale this Thursday, August 14th at 7 PM at Heaps in Park Slope. And Sarah and I will be there. She's making 250 sandwiches, and since my family's gonna be eating eight of them, that leaves 242 for the rest of you. Now, they sell out quickly, Sarah will make more, but this is a limited time only situation. Unless they sell out so fast that Sarah has to add them to the menu full-time. All right, that probably still won't happen, but a guy with a Google Doc can dream. Anyway, I hope to see you there.
40:18 Dan Pashman? My thanks to Sarah Sane at Heaps Ice Cream and Pies and Thies for making my ice cream sandwich creation dreams come true. Next week on the show, I head into the woods in search of pawpaws, one of the only tropical fruits native to North America. While you wait for that one, check out our annual edition of Two Chefs and a Lie. Play along at home, see if you can guess the liar. That one's up now, check it out. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one.
41:01 Dan Pashman? And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful.
41:10 Dan Pashman? This episode was produced by me along with managing producer- Emma Morgenstern. And senior producer-
41:14 Speaker 04 Andres O'Hara.
41:15 Dan Pashman? Our engineer is- Jared O'Connell. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher Studios. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
41:24 Speaker 05 And this is Andrew Loveman in New York, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.
41:38 Dan Pashman? This segment is brought to you by Samsung Bespoke Appliances. Recently, I met up with chef and cookbook author Casey Elsass in the Samsung Test Kitchen. Now, the folks at Samsung might be the only people who care as much as Casey and I do about a crucial factor in any cold beverage. So Casey, you have a phenomenal cookbook called What Can I Bring?
41:57 Speaker 06 Mm-hmm.
41:58 Dan Pashman? Sometimes you bring drinks.
41:59 Speaker 06 Yes.
42:00 Dan Pashman? How much thought have you put into ice cubes?
42:03 Speaker 06 When you're working a bar, an ice cube is very important. The purpose of an ice cube, two things. Chilling the drink and diluting the drink. There's always a balance. You want to play with those things.
42:14 Dan Pashman? But not all ice is created equal, okay? And Samsung has freezers that offer multiple kinds of ice to suit whatever you're mixing. Big cubes or spheres, crushed ice, even smaller trapezoidal cubes.
42:25 Speaker 06 If it's a mixed cocktail, something you would put in a shaker, you want a lot of dilution and you want to cool down really quickly. So those would be the smaller, standard-sized ice cubes. Anything that's more of like a sphere ice, a square ice, that's where very slow dilution, high chill. So that would be anything that's alcohol, alcohol, alcohol. Like Manhattan, old-fashioned, anything like that. If you're stirring, that's the kind of ice you want in the glass.
42:54 Dan Pashman? What about a cocktail that's served with crushed ice?
42:57 Speaker 06 Tiki drinks, frozen drinks, those are high summer. That is a party drink.
43:01 Dan Pashman? Right. Mint juleps?
43:03 Speaker 06 Yes, mint juleps.
43:04 Dan Pashman? Ah, I love ice. Samsung even has its own shape of ice called Ice Bites. Bigger and more solid than crushed ice, but still a lot smaller than cubes. A perfect, happy medium and delicious on their own.
43:18 Speaker 06 Mmm.
43:20 Dan Pashman? I took AP Bio. I didn't do especially well.
43:22 Speaker 06 Okay.
43:23 Dan Pashman? There's only one thing I remember from that class. Surface area to volume ratio. It is actually very relevant in food.
43:29 Speaker 06 Yeah.
43:29 Dan Pashman? It's like, how much surface area does the thing have in relation to how much volume it has? For example, a steak fry versus waffle fries.
43:37 Speaker 06 Right.
43:38 Dan Pashman? They might have the exact same total amount of potato, but a waffle fry has a lot more surface to touch the frying oil and turn crispy. And it's the same thing with ice. The more surface area in relation to volume, the faster it will melt.
43:52 Speaker 06 Right. A bunch of smaller ice cubes are going to hit more parts of the drink faster.
43:57 Dan Pashman? That's right.
43:57 Speaker 06 So if you're thinking about a sphere or a square, it's really only cooling down the parts of the drink that are touching the ice, which is a very small amount.
44:06 Dan Pashman? Pop quiz. What shape has the lowest surface area to volume ratio and thus the slowest melting rate?
44:15 Speaker 06 I think a sphere because the bottom of the drink doesn't even get cold. It's really only the top where it's hitting the fat part of the circle.
44:21 Dan Pashman? See, you didn't fail, Casey. Yes, you were right. A sphere is the lowest surface area to volume ratio. It's the slowest melting ice cube. All right, well, thank you for nerding out on ice with me, Casey. I really feel seen.
44:34 Dan Pashman? And great news for all you sphere lovers out there. Sphere is the newest ice shape offered from Samsung bespoke fridges. Look, if you care about drinks, you should care about ice. And Samsung cares about ice. And if they put that much thought and effort into something that seems so trivial, imagine how much care and consideration they put into the big stuff. Thanks again to our sponsor, Samsung, for inviting us to test out their new product features. Let me tell you, these same fridges that make all these kinds of ice, they also have a beverage center that provides quick and easy access to refreshingly cold filtered water in two different ways. An internal dispenser or a built in auto fill water pitcher. Samsung's new line of bespoke AI appliances simplifies your time in the kitchen.
45:16 Dan Pashman? So it's no wonder that Samsung has the highest ice maker satisfaction rate. Visit samsung.com/bespoke to learn more. Based on a leading customer review aggregator's analytics of positive sentiment in consumer review among leading refrigerator manufacturers as of April 1st, 2025. The Smart Things app is available on Android and iOS devices. A Wi-Fi connection and a Samsung account are required.
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