How to Make Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream Bars | Bigger Bolder Baking

Hi Bold Bakers! While the sun is still shining here in Southern California, I'm gonna keep on making ice cream. Next up is one of my favorites, I'm gonna make a brunch, which is also known in the United States as a strawberry shortcake ice cream bar. Really delicious. As always the recipe can be found on BiggerBolderBaking.com and check out my website because I've got tons of frozen dessert recipes over there. Ok, let's get started. So because it's summer we're gonna use what's in season and that is strawberries. These are really fantastic. I buy them in the farmer's market in Santa Monica. So you're gonna add those into your food processor. So we're gonna follow the strawberries with a little sprinkle of sugar. Now you want to do this because it keeps them nice and soft while they're freezing so they don't freeze rock hard. And then in my food processor all you want to do is just blend this up until it's kind of chunky. Now if you do not have a food processor, do not worry, you can do this step by hand. If you have like a potato masher or something like that, just mash up your strawberries nice and small. So this will just take a few pulses to get what you want. And this is what we're going for. You see how that's nice and chunky? So you still have some texture in there but then some pureed strawberries. This is perfect. Now I'm just gonna set this over to the side and we're gonna make the rest of our ice cream. So a lot of you already know this, this is old hat to you, but we're gonna make my two ingredient ice cream. First ingredient is heavy whipping cream. Now you want a whipping cream that has a high fat content, somewhere around like 30-38% because that will whip up really well. So keep an eye out for that. And also make sure it's nice and cold. Now for this ice cream we don't need an ice cream machine but we do need a mixer. You can do this by hand but you need a lot of elbow grease. I'm gonna use my electric hand mixer. And all we want to do is just whip it up until soft peaks form. So it's only gonna take around 2-3 minutes on high speed and this is soft peaks. So now this is a great time to add in some vanilla extract and our cold condensed milk. Now a lot of you already know this is my secret ingredient to my ice cream. If you can't buy condensed milk in your country, do not worry, you can make it really easily at home and I have a recipe on my website. Ok everything is in there now, super easy ice cream. Now all you want to do is just whip it up on high until stiff peaks form. So the reason you don't need an ice cream machine for this ice cream is because we're whipping all the ingredients together and getting all of that air in there. So it's just a really fast and easy way to make homemade ice cream. So there you go, that's it, nice and thick. Now the last thing we're going to add in is our pureed strawberry that we had set over to the side. All you want to do is just give that a mix until it's fully combined. So I get asked a lot, do you have to add vanilla into your recipes? And honestly you don't if you don't have it. I do like to do it however because it just adds another level of flavor. But if you don't have it for your ice cream, feel free to leave it out. Ok lovely, all you're doing is mixing in your strawberry, now it's time to get this into our popsicle mold. I have this one here, it's one of my favorites, I'm gonna put a link on my website of where you can buy this on Amazon. If you don't have a mold, you don't want to buy one, that's grand. You can use little dixie cups and stick a lollipop stick in those and that'll work really well too. So as you can see I transferred my ice cream mix into a pitcher just so it'll make it so much easier and less messy to get it into our molds. So go ahead and fill up your wells. This is a thick ice cream so I'm gonna get a little helping hand from a spoon. Fill them up almost to the top but not fully to the top and I'll tell you why. Once it freezes it expands, so you just want to give it a little bit of room. Ok lovely we're all full up, and then what we're gonna do is just pop on our lid. Now here's a sneaky little trick. Just give it a tap on the counter and this just settles your popsicles and any air bubbles that might be in there it'll get rid of them so it'll just give you a lovely looking popsicle at the end. Now all that's left to do is to pop in our sticks. Now you want to be careful when you're putting in sticks, don't push them all the way down to the very bottom or they'll actually peek out your popsicle. Just push them down until they're around 3 quarters of the way down there. So these guys are now ready to go into the freezer. Now I would say a minimum of maybe 6 hours but preferably you'd leave them in overnight so they get really nice and firm. So while our popsicles are in the freezer let's make our cookie crumb and get that ready. So here's the deal, all you need to use is a vanilla or any kind of a plain cookie, even shortbread will work really well because that will give you that lovely shortcake-y kind of flavor. So I'm gonna add these into my food processor, and then pop on the lid, and then just blitz them up until they're nice and fine. Now all we want to do here is just blend up our cookies, you don't want to get them too fine so it only takes a few seconds. And there you go. Now I have a bowl here and I'm gonna add half of the cookies into this bowl. As you can see there's already some chunky bits, they're kind of different size of lumpy bits, that's exactly what we want because there's different texture in this coating. Now I'm gonna leave half of the crumbs in the bowl because here's what we're gonna do next. Use dehydrated strawberries. Now dehydrated strawberries are absolutely lovely and they're actually really easy to come by in case you're thinking, where am I gonna get them, I'm gonna put a link on my website of where you can buy them. I buy these in Trader Joe's, you can get them in Whole Foods, Bristol Farms, lots and lots of places so keep an eye out for them, they're really great. So add these into the rest of your cookies, and then on with our lid, and same deal here you just want to blend it up until it's almost fine but not too fine. Ok this is looking good, the color is absolutely gorgeous. And now all I'm going to do is just add that straight into my bowl. Ok so what we're gonna do here is simply add a little bit of melted butter, and then stir it together. This will just help it clump and kind of give you that better kind of a coating. This is perfect, not too lumpy, lots of fine bits, this is great. So I'm gonna leave my cookie crumbs here because I actually made popsicles yesterday to get them ready in time for this video so we can dip them right now, coat them, and eat them. Ok so I've got my two trays set up here to assemble our ice cream bars. They're both lined with parchment, in one of them I have the strawberry mix that we just made for the coating, and here I have my popsicles. Now if you have any trouble getting these out of the mold, my trick is to run it under hot water, give them a little bit of a pull, and they will come right out. I think that just works really well. Or you can leave them at room temperature for like 10 minutes. The one thing you want to make sure is that they are a little bit soft, because you need that softness so the coating will stick to it. So it's ok if they get a little bit soft, that will work in our favor. So go straight in with your popsicle into your tray, and then using your hands because it's so much easier, your clean hands, toss the crumb all over your popsicle. And give it a little bit of a pat down so it sticks to it. Ok lovely, all our popsicles are done, now all you have to do is pop them back into the freezer for around 15-20 minutes, let them freeze up, get nice and firm, and then we're ready to eat them. As you can see I snuck one from the freezer because I couldn't wait to eat it. I can't believe how much it looks like the store bought one. Oh, the amazing crumb on the outside. I'm a little bit gobsmacked right now about how amazing this tastes. You know it might seem like a few steps to get there, but it is well worth it. Just check that out. Your friends, family, people are going to be so impressed this summer with this dessert. No machine ice cream, a better than store bought strawberry shortcake ice cream bar made at home. And trust me, it's absolutely delicious. So here's what you want to do, head over to my website, check out this recipe and all my other frozen desserts, get into the kitchen and get baking this summer time. I'll see you back here really soon for more Bigger Bolder Baking. I mean seriously, heaven, heaven on a stick.