Use Pillsbury's Iconic Halloween Cookies For A Festive Batch Of Ice Cream Sandwiches

Halloween is a time that's usually associated with cooler temperatures, falling leaves, and frightful sights. However, not all of us get to celebrate Halloween in chilly weather — like those of us in Los Angeles where the scorching summer heat can stretch long into October or even November. Whether you're sweating in your Halloween costume or just want a cold, sweet and spooky Halloween treat, you can easily make festively frightful ice cream sandwiches using Pillsbury's ready-to-bake sugar cookies as a shortcut.

The easiest way to make them is to use Pillsbury Ready to Bake! Pumpkin Shape Sugar Cookie Dough, which is also available in Ghost and Spooky Cat versions. All of the cookies come pre-cut, so you can break them apart into individual cookies and arrange them in whatever pattern you like, if you're baking up more than one design. To make the spooky treats, you'll need to thaw two pints of ice cream before spreading them out with an offset spatula in a parchment-lined, 8-by-8-inch square baking pan, and then freezing it. Next, you'll bake off the individual cookies to form two large 8-by-8-inch squares, but make sure to leave them just a touch underbaked so that they don't become too hard later on. You'll use those two squares and the ice cream square to assemble one large sandwich, lightly pressing down so that the cookies and ice cream adhere to one another.

After the giant ice cream sandwich has been assembled, it's chef's choice as to how you'd like to cut it, and if you'd like to decorate the treats further. You can slice the sandwiches into squares of four cookies each, but that will leave you with only four ice cream sandwiches and some excess trim that goes to waste. Instead, we recommend making smaller sandwiches, which you can do by cutting them in bars of two cookies each, or even make mini ice cream sandwiches by slicing along the individual cookie squares. These smaller sandwiches are the perfect size for kids (and adults) to enjoy at a Halloween party where there are sure to be a multitude of other treats. 

To decorate the sandwiches, you could dip the exposed sides of the softened ice cream into Halloween-themed sprinkles, if you like. There are also many other easy ways to dress up ice cream sandwiches. You could dunk part of each sandwich in orange candy melts, or white chocolate that's been dyed, before adding a few sprinkles to the dipped area for a bit more flair. After decorating, return the cut ice cream sandwiches to the freezer until you're ready to serve them. If you're worried about the ice cream melting before party guests eat all the sandwiches, you could make a cream cheese-based faux pastry cream to fill the sandwiches with instead.