Recipe: Pidapipo’s Peanut Butter and Chocolate Fudge Gelato Sandwiches

Pidapipo has created an ice-cream sandwich you need ASAP – a scoop of peanut butter and chocolate fudge gelato smooshed between two chocolate-chip cookies.

It was available for the first time at the Royal Croquet Club in 2015, where Broadsheet curated the food vendors.

“We wanted to do something we haven't done before,” says owner Lisa Valmorbida. “Gelato sandwiches are really popular in Italy, and I thought it was a good opportunity to introduce them.”

Homemade gelato sandwiches are a little more involved than scooping ice-cream from the freezer onto a couple of biscuits, but if you can pull it off – they’re so much more satisfying.

Pidapipo’s Peanut Butter and Chocolate Fudge Gelato Sandwiches
Makes 15

Ingredients:

Peanut-butter gelato
652g full-cream milk
133g caster sugar

44g dextrose or fructose

31g skim-milk powder

102g single pouring cream

35g egg yolk

3g carob-bean powder

120g smooth peanut butter

Chocolate fudge

75g chocolate (70% cocoa)
45g cocoa
A small pinch of salt
250g glucose syrup
62g sugar
137g cream

Chocolate chip cookie

150g salted butter (room temperature)
80g light-brown muscovado sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
225g plain flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
¼ tsp salt
200g chocolate chips

Method:

Peanut-butter gelato
In a double boiler, heat the milk and egg yolks to 60 degrees whisking continuously. While whisking, add the sugar, dextrose or fructose, carob-bean powder and skim-milk powder. Use a stick blender to guarantee a smooth mixture.

Heat mixture further to 80 degrees and take off heat.

Add the cream while off the heat while whisking.

Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a container and cool in the fridge for a few hours.

Once the mixture is cool, add peanut butter and blend with a stick blender until smooth.

Put the mixture in the freezer for half an hour and then put it inside a domestic ice-cream machine to churn.

Put the gelato in the freezer for an hour to harden it up.

Chocolate fudge

In a saucepan add glucose syrup, cream and sugar and put it on a low heat, whisking until it starts to bubble. This should take a few minutes.

In a separate container measure the salt, cocoa and chocolate and add this to the glucose syrup, cream and sugar mixture once it’s hot.

Whisk until smooth.

Put the fudge into the fridge until it is cool and then add it in in spoonfuls to the gelato and mix it through until you see a ripple affect.

Chocolate-chip cookies
Preheat oven to 190 degrees with the fan on and line a baking tray with non-stick paper.

In a bowl add the sugar and butter and whisk until light and fluffy and then whisk in the vanilla extract.

Using a fine sieve put the flour, bicarb soda and salt into the bowl with the butter mixture and stir in with a wooden spoon.

Once the mixture is smooth add the chocolate chips and mix again.

Measure 45g balls and place them far apart on the baking tray and cook for 8–10 minutes until they are golden in colour.

Leave them to cool a bit on the tray and then transfer them to a cooling rack so they can cool down completely.

Assembly:
Once the cookies are completely cool, use an ice-cream scooper to put one scoop in the centre of the cookie on the flat side.

Place another cookie on top of the scoop. Make sure the flat side is touching the gelato.

Squeeze the cookies a little to flatten out the gelato.