Using extra rich homemade brownies and your favorite flavor ice cream, you can make brownie ice cream sandwiches at home. My #1 tip: Give the assembled brownies plenty of time to freeze so they slice into neat squares or rectangles.
Complete with 8 ingredient homemade brownies, these brownie ice cream sandwiches are inspired by the store-bought version we all know and love. In addition to letting the assembled brownies freeze overnight, I recommend slightly under-baking the thin sheets of brownies so they aren’t rock solid after freezing. What a difference it makes!
I have a full list of success tips, as well as a video tutorial and step-by-step photos, so make sure you browse this post before getting started. I can’t wait for you to try these at home!
These Brownie Ice Cream Sandwiches Are:
- Fun to make
- Inspired by the store-bought version
- Made with extra rich homemade brownies
- Awesome with vanilla ice cream, but you must try coffee or strawberry!
- Like chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches, they’re a wonderful make-ahead treat
- Great in the freezer for up to 1 month
Video Tutorial
**Though the full detailed instructions are written below, let me walk you through the process so you understand what you’re doing.
Overview: How to Make Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwiches
I found this recipe idea on Tasty and was thrilled to try it with homemade brownies. The most difficult part of recipe testing was finding the perfect brownie recipe that would (1) be thin enough (2) be soft enough and (3) taste good enough. A hard code to crack, but I started with my seriously fudgy homemade brownies and built on that foundation.
- Make homemade brownie batter. Using my homemade brownies as the base, I increased the butter, left out the melted chocolate, and added a bit of baking powder. I left out the chocolate so these brownies could be softer and, well, more convenient. (They’re made with only cocoa powder, so if you ever need a 9×13-inch pan of brownies that uses just cocoa powder, here’s your recipe—and you can use the same baking/cooling instructions as my homemade brownies. I don’t recommend a 9×13-inch baking pan for making these ice cream sandwiches, though. See next step.) I also added butter to make up for the loss of liquid chocolate and added baking powder to give the brownies a little lift and extra softness.
- Bake in two 9-inch baking pans. Use 2 9-inch square baking pans for the correct thickness. I only have one 9-inch square baking pan, so I bake the batter in batches. I do not recommend one 9×13-inch pan for this recipe. Though the brownie batter will fit and you could cut the cooled sheet of brownies in half, the “sandwich” will still be too thick. An 8-inch pan is too small. You could try two 9-inch round pans of brownies, but you won’t have even ice cream sandwich squares. Before baking, place a piece of parchment directly on top of the batter—this helps the brownies stay flat and prevents the brownies from puffing up too much.
- Under-bake. A quick 15-16 minutes per thin square sheet of brownies. As the brownies cool for a few minutes, remove your ice cream from the freezer so it slightly softens.
- Scoop ice cream on top of one layer of brownies. Carefully spread into an even layer.
- Place 2nd square sheet of brownies on top.
- Freeze. Place the whole pan in the freezer for at least 12 hours. I find 12-18 hours is the perfect amount of time. Any less and the ice cream will still be pretty soft and squish out when you try to cut them. The longer after 18 hours, the harder the sandwiches are to cut.
- Cut. Use a very sharp knife and some arm muscle!
Step-by-Step Photos:
The brownie batter is thick, so do your best to spread it into your lined pan(s). Lining with parchment paper is imperative so you can easily lift the brownie square out of the pan as a whole. Bake with parchment paper directly on top, too. This prevents the brownies from puffing up too much.
You’ll have two square sheets of super thin and soft brownies.
Soften ice cream, then spread it on top.
Cover with 2nd square sheet of brownies.
Freeze, then cut into squares or rectangles.
Success Tips (Follow These Closely)
- Use parchment paper: You need parchment paper to line the square baking pan(s) with enough overhang on the sides so you can lift the warm brownies out as a whole for assembly. You also need parchment paper placed directly on top of the brownie batter to keep them flat. I swear by these pre-cut sheets of parchment.
- Use 9-inch square pans: Best thickness for these ice cream sandwiches. See recipe notes below!
- Under-bake the square sheets of brownies: To prevent the brownies from turning break-your-teeth hard in the freezer, slightly under-bake them. Pay very close attention to this bake time. They will be very soft coming out of the oven.
- Freeze for 12-18 hours: As mentioned above, any shorter than this and your ice cream will squeeze out of the sandwich as you cut. Any longer and they’ll be delicious, just very hard to cut.
- Use your sharpest knife to cut: A super sharp knife and arm muscle works. At 8 months pregnant, this was a workout!
These are always so much fun to serve when the weather begins to warm up, especially for pool parties, Father’s Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, and every gathering in between! For more summer dessert inspiration, see my roundups of favorite Memorial Day recipes and BBQ cookout dessert recipes.
See Your Brownie Ice Cream Sandwiches!
Many readers tried this recipe as part of a baking challenge! Feel free to email or share your recipe photos with us on social media. 🙂
PrintBrownie Ice Cream Sandwiches
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 13 hours, 30 minutes
- Yield: 8-12 sandwiches
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Using extra rich homemade brownies and your favorite flavor ice cream, you can make brownie ice cream sandwiches at home. My #1 tip: Give the assembled brownies plenty of time to freeze so they slice into neat squares or rectangles.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (226g) unsalted butter
- 2 cups (400g) granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 Tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup (82g) unsweetened natural or dutch-process cocoa powder*
- 1 cup (125g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 quart container (1/2 gallon) vanilla ice cream (slightly softened—you can use any flavor and you’ll have a little leftover)
Instructions
- Preliminary note: For best success, I recommend reviewing the recipe notes and video tutorial above before beginning.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C) and line a 9-inch square baking pan with parchment paper, leaving enough overhang on the sides to lift the warm brownies out. Set aside. (If you have 2 identical 9-inch square baking pans, you can line both and bake the batches of brownie batter at the same time.) I don’t recommend other size baking pans. See my recipe note.
- In a microwave-safe bowl or a saucepan on the stove, melt the butter. After melting, whisk in the sugar until completely combined, then whisk in the eggs and vanilla. The batter will be a little dull looking.
- Add the cocoa powder, flour, salt, and baking powder. Fold it all together with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon. It will come together, I promise! Batter will be very thick. You will have about 4 cups of batter.
- Spoon and spread half of the batter (about 2 cups) into prepared pan. (Lightly cover remaining batter and keep at room temperature.) The batter is thick and heavy, so do your best to spread it evenly in the lined baking pan. I find the back of a spoon is most helpful. Place a small sheet of parchment paper directly on top of the brownie batter, smoothing it down as pictured in the photos and video tutorial above. The top parchment paper helps the brownies stay flat and prevents the brownies from puffing up too much.
- Bake for 15-16 minutes. I find any longer over-cooks the brownies, making the ice cream sandwiches difficult to cut and eat. Remove brownies from the oven and cool for 5 minutes in the pan. Carefully, using the overhanging parchment paper on the sides, lift the warm and soft square sheet of brownies out of the pan as a whole. Remove top piece of parchment. (You can reuse it for the top of the 2nd sheet of brownies in the next step, if desired.) Set aside.
- Line the warm pan with another sheet of parchment paper, leaving enough overhang on the sides to lift the warm brownies out. Give the remaining brownie batter a stir. It will be very thick at this point. Add a teaspoon of water to thin out if necessary. (No more.) Spoon and spread the remaining brownie batter in the pan. Place a small sheet of parchment paper directly on top of the brownie batter, just as you did before.
- Bake for 15-16 minutes. Remove brownies from the oven and cool for 15 minutes in the pan. During this cooling time, I remove the ice cream from the freezer so it has a chance to soften.
- Scoop the softened ice cream onto the warm brownie layer in the pan. You’ll use almost all of the 1/2 gallon of ice cream. Using the back of a spoon or your ice cream scoop, gently spread it into an even and thick layer.
- Carefully pick up the 1st square sheet of brownies and place on top of the ice cream layer. Gently press it down into the ice cream to help it stick. Cover the entire pan with aluminum foil or plastic wrap and freeze for at least 12 hours and up to 1 week. I find 12-18 hours is the perfect amount of time. Any less and the ice cream will still be pretty soft. The longer after 18 hours, the harder the sandwiches are to cut.
- Remove the pan of ice cream brownies from the freezer. Carefully lift them out as a whole using the parchment paper overhang on the sides. Using a very sharp knife and some arm muscle, cut into 8-12 squares or rectangles. Enjoy immediately.
- Wrap each leftover sandwich individually and store in the freezer for up to 1 month. They get a little harder the longer they sit in the freezer—if they’re super solid, let them sit out for a few minutes before enjoying.
Notes
- Special Tools (affiliate links): 9-inch Square Baking Pan | Parchment Paper | Glass Mixing Bowl | Whisk | Rubber Spatula or Wooden Spoon | Ice Cream Scoop
- Two 9-inch square pans of extra thin brownies is best. I only have one 9-inch square baking pan, so I bake the batter in batches. I do not recommend one 9×13-inch pan for this recipe. Though the brownie batter will fit and you could cut the cooled sheet of brownies in half, the “sandwich” will still be too thick. An 8-inch pan is too small. You could try two 9-inch round pans of brownies, but, obviously, you won’t have even ice cream sandwich squares. For success, I recommend following the recipe.
- Cocoa Powder: You can use either natural or dutch-process cocoa powder.
- Best Ice Cream to Use: Homemade ice cream works wonderfully, but avoid homemade no churn ice cream (made with heavy cream and sweetened condensed milk) because it’s too soft. I usually use store-bought such as Breyers vanilla (or any flavor) or Dreyers/Edys classic or slow churned varieties.
Inspired by Tasty
Great recipe. I made peppermint ice cream for the middle. Yummy, can’t wait for the next challenge!
These brownie ice cream sandwiches are AMAZING! The brownie is soft, chocolatey and SO delicious. I’m already planning on making them again!
These are absolutely delicious. I broke one of the brownie layers in the middle when transferring..but put it back together and it all came out nice after the freezing.
I had friends coming over on Sunday and made it advance. The perfect dessert if you want less stress when hosting and spending more time with family/friends.
Will absolutely make another batch and try 2 flavours at the same time- the advantage of homemade Thank you
I’m a beginner baker and i tried making these sandwiches for the first time! The recipe was easy to follow. While the appearance of mine didn’t turn out the way i wanted it to, they still taste delicious! I can’t wait to try it again with different ice cream flavors!
I baked the brownies at 350 degrees for 16 minutes and then started to cook them. After 5 minutes it so, I started to take the top parchment paper off and found that the brownies were still very gooey. Is that how they are supposed to be?
Hi Sheila, they shouldn’t be gooey– but they should be very soft. If they still appear gooey, try adding a couple extra minutes of bake time.
Another great recipe, and so happy I participated in this month challenge: super easy to make, and yet delicious! And I love that they stay soft in the freezer.
Also, these brownies are so good, I plan to try them as ‘regular’ brownies too… besides preparing other brownie ice cream sandwiches with different ice cream flavours! So far I used cookie dough and mint chocolate.
These will be a summer tradition in my family! The brownies are delicious just on their own, and they are the perfect texture to pair with the ice cream. Substantial enough to hold up but soft enough to bite when frozen. Love them!
The brownies were so perfect. I paired them with mint chocolate chip ice cream. I had to cut my parchment paper to size and I cut it too smallso it only came up two opposing sides. Make sure it is coming up all sides of your dish pretty far. Also my ice cream leaked under the parchment. We easily solved that by putting it on a steaming hot washcloth, so it melted that ice cream enough but it didn’t crack the pan.
I did not have a 9X9 pan, so I put most of the batter into a 9X13 and the rest into an 8×8. I cut them both in half after they cooled a bit. The main problem with the bigger pan that I ran into was after you layer on the ice cream and put it in the freezer, it continues to melt out the sides. A couple of hours in, I ended up scraping up ice cream that had leaked out of the brownie with a spoon and putting it back into the sandwhich. It was a messy ordeal, but in the end they turned out great! Would definitely reccomend the correct pan size though, or at least letting it solidify in the 8×8 so it doesn’t have room to leak out! : D
There’s always something to learn from each post and each work of precision Sally puts up. I learn by using her recipes to get finest results. This ice cream sandwich recipe makes for an amazing brownie by omitting the ice cream. As an ice cream sandwich it’s super tasty.
Yum!! We’re big ice cream lovers and this was a fun and delicious recipe for the June challenge.
Loved these so much! The brownie is so chocolatey and rich. Can’t believe how easy they were to make. Already thinking of what ice cream flavor to try next. Used peanut butter ice cream for my first batch – delicious!
I love how these turned out! I went with a vanilla bean ice cream for the filling, which was a simple, yet perfect pairing with the fudgy brownie. I forgot to put a layer of parchment on top of the brownie batter before I baked it, but it still came out at a nice thickness and wasn’t too puffy. Yum!!
Excellent flavor and easy to make!
Well, the June Challenge was fun & yummy. Next time I think I’ll use less ice cream. I used about 1.5 quarts and cut into 12 pieces. My husband even thought they were a bit too large. HOWEVER, they were delicious!!! Sally’s instructions were thorough and easy to follow. Can’t wait for next month’s challenge.
Tried this recipe for this month’s baking challenge and loved it! I had to bake mine in two 9-in. round pans as that’s all I had and they turned out a bit thick but they still tasted great! Loved how the brownies tasted and will definitely make this again!
Thank you so much for the crowd-pleasing recipe Sally. Really delicious and well worth the wait. Always a pleasure to try out your recipes. God bless. I’m so glad I tried making these Brownie Ice-cream Sandwiches. A real treat indeed.
These are so delicious! I broke the top layer when I tried to transfer it over, but it solidified enough during the freezing process. Will definitely make these again!
Fun recipe! I used black cherry ice cream and it was delicious!
Absolutely satisfying, and I HIGHLY recommend it. I used my homemade vanilla ice cream recipe, and it tasted great! Can’t wait to make again! ❤️❤️
What a fun recipe! I didn’t think I’d care too much about them, but they are fantastic and such a fun summer treat! I did 1/3 the recipe in a loaf pan and used 4 different ice cream flavors to all our family’s tastes. Will keep this for summer and entertaining some day. Thanks for another fun recipe the whole family enjoyed!
My family loved it! Great stuff!
So good!! I used a different brownie recipe but it was still really good. Five stars!!
This is the perfect summer time treat! Rich brownie with perfectly cold ice cream. It reminds me of the ice cream sandwich you would get from the ice cream truck. I made this with peanut butter ice cream. So it tasted like a chocolate peanut butter cup. Very delicious and so good. The recipe was very easy to follow and make. The hardest part was waiting for it to refreeze. My daughter loved it and my husband enjoyed it so much. I will definitely be making these again. I want to try another flavor ice cream.
These brownies were the perfect texture and paired well with salted caramel & coffee ice cream. I baked mine in 9-inch round pans and baked for a little longer than the listed time (~18 mins). They are the perfect summer treat!
Delicious! Fun and easy to make. I used vanilla bean ice cream.
I made them with both cookies & cream ice cream, as well as cookie dough ice cream. They are so good and my family absolutely loved them. They went quick lol. I will definitely make them again.
So much fun to make!! Classic chocolate and vanilla!! Can’t wait to experiment with other ice cream flavors!!
Great brownie texture and flavor and the recipe was not difficult. I didn’t have the correct sized baking pan to use (mine was a slightly smaller 8×6 glass Pyrex) so my brownies were a little thicker and had to be baked a little longer than recommended in recipe. Definitely did not turn out too hard though once frozen. And I used 1.5 quart of cookie dough ice cream since that’s what I already had at home, no regrets and the ice cream layer is nice and thick! Great summer treat.
My best friend lives across the country and we made these together over Zoom. The recipe was SO easy to follow and the results were delicious! We followed everything to the letter in the instructions except the baking times (mine baked 17 minutes each) but I think you just need to know your oven with that.
The hardest part is waiting the 12-18 hours to cut them up. I was able to cut mine around 9 in the morning; my husband and I couldn’t resist sampling them . . . that quickly turned into each of us devouring our own!
Seriously, so good, soft, and fudgey. I will 100% be making these again and I can’t wait to play around with different ice cream flavors. We went with French vanilla this time and it was the perfect combo. Do yourself a favor and try these out!
These were pretty easy to make. The only problem I had was the top layer fell apart after I pulled off the parchment. I probably should have placed the top layer of brownie on top of the ice cream, then pulled off the parchment, live and learn. Enjoyed by everyone!
The brownies are a perfect texture for ice cream sandwiches and the instructions are so detailed! My ice cream sandwich loving husband approves!!