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Insomnia Cookies – Center City Philadelphia

April 4, 2012 by 4 Comments

A while ago Mr. Curly Fry’s brother told us that we have to try Insomnia Cookies. That they’re really good and that we would love them. So I looked them up and at the time they only had locations in West Philly and one out near Temple. I’m willing to travel distances for cupcakes, but not cookies. So I kind of forgot about them and went on about my business.

Fast forward to yesterday. I saw something on Philly.com about this new Insomnia Cookies store that opened up in Center City. I was intrigued. So I looked up the location and what do you know?! They are located not even a full block from my office. Uh oh. This could get dangerous! So I knew that I’d have to make a pit stop on my way home from work to pick up some cookies. How could I not? As I was walking down the street I could literally start to smell the cookies. So I followed the scent of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and I ended up in their store!

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Cookie Confidential

March 5, 2012 by 1 Comment

It was a beautiful day here in Philadelphia this past Saturday so I decided to take a walk. It seems that I’m always in search of some kind of cupcake or dessert, so I decided to finally check out “Cookie Confidential.“  I’ve been meaning to go there for quite a while now, but never took the opportunity to go. But I have to say – what a cute name for a Cookie Shop! It’s located about a half of a block from the hustle and bustle of South Street. I was surprised what a quiet, quaint place that it was. It was a bit on the dark side, and there wasn’t anyone in there when I arrived. I had the opportunity to just browse their cupcake and cookie selection.

Now, I totally understand that it’s a Cookie shop, so there’s going to be more cookies to choose from than cupcakes.  But I just have to admit that I was a bit bummed by the selection of everything.I thought they were going to have a larger selection of cookies though. I was very interested in trying their Peanut Butter Cookie, but they didn’t have that. I also wanted to try the Strawberry Shortcake, Chocolate Oatmeal, and Ginger Snap; they had none of those. They do have a Cheesesteak Cookie, but I can’t bring myself to try that.

I decided to get one Push-Up Cupcake Pop, and 4 cookies.

I got a Vanilla Buttermilk Push-Up Cake Pop:

I have to say that for $3, I was kind of disappointed. It was quite small and the flavor just wasn’t there. The cake was a bit on the dry side, and it really didn’t pack that vanilla-punch like I was expecting. The frosting wasn’t anything to write home about either. It really wasn’t all that flavorful – I just felt like I was eating plain ol’ frosting. So I would have to say I probably wouldn’t spend $3 on one of these again.

Now onto the cookies…

Oatmeal Raisin (left) and Sugar (right)

The Oatmeal Raisin Cookie was delicious! It was nice and chewy, just how I like my cookies. They weren’t bombarded with Raisins which is good in my opinion since I’m not a huge raisin fan. I would have picked the Plain Oatmeal Cookie if they had it, but they didn’t. It had a nice hint of cinnamon but it wasn’t too overpowering.

The Sugar Cookie was good as well. It was chewy and had a nice buttery, vanilla flavor. I was very happy with this cookie and would definitely get it again!

Chocolate Chip (left) and Chocolate Chocolate Chip (right)

The Chocolate Chip Cookie was chewy in the middle, and a little crisp on the edges. It was packed with a good amount of chocolate chips in it and was nice and buttery. My favorite part is the chewy center!

The Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie was very chocolatey. It was packed with chocolate chips as well, and was very delicious. I was just very disappointed in how small it was!  It was almost half the size of the Chocolate Chip Cookie.

The Cookies were definitely better than the Cupcake Push Up Pop; after all, it’s called Cookie Confidential! I thought the Cookies were priced a bit high for what you get though; they are 95 cents each. If you ask me, they should be about 50 cents tops for the size you get. If they were larger I could get down with the 95 cent price tag, but they are tiny!

They did have a variety of ice cream flavors from Franklin Fountain, and they serve One Village Coffee.

Stop by and pick up some cookies. They are located at:
517 S. 5th St. Philadelphia , PA 19147
(215) 922-4040

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Homemade Ice Cream Cake

January 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

It’s not often that I have spare room in my freezer. So when I noticed that there was a little bit of room, the first thing that came to my mind was that I had to start trying to make Ice Cream Cake! Isn’t that the first thing that would come to your mind too? I didn’t follow any recipes or anything like that. There’s not a whole lot that goes into it. But the most important part of it is the center; the crunchy part! Wouldn’t you agree?

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

  • loaf pan
  • parchment paper
  • off-set spatula
  • half gallon of ice cream (if you are using two flavors, use half of each container)
  • hot fudge sauce
  • oreo cookies

ASSEMBLY

I decided that I was going to make mine in a loaf pan. It doesn’t take up a ton of room in the freezer and I figured it’d be easy to slice. So I started out by lining my loaf pan with some parchment paper. I cut a strip for it to go long ways, and then I cut another piece that would fit the other way. This way it would be easy to take it out of the loaf pan to cut.

I let the base flavor (chocolate) of my ice cream soften a bit before starting on the assembly of my ice cream cake. I wanted it to be easy to work with. I used a medium sized cookie scoop (you could use a regular ice cream scoop if you prefer) and scooped the ice cream out of the ice cream container and placed it in the bottom of the loaf pan. I placed one scoop right next to the other scoop so that they were closely touching. Once I was done that I took an off-set spatula and smoothed it all out so that it was a nice flat surface. You want the ice cream to come almost halfway up the loaf pan, but not quite all the way.

I don’t know about you, but my favorite part of the ice cream cake is the middle! I put some oreo cookies (maybe like 10 cookies?) into my Vitamix and broke up the pieces. I didn’t make it a fine crumb or anything. They were little round pieces of cookie. I tried getting it as close to those Dairy Queen “crunchies” as I could. It’s hard, though. I took half of the cookies and put them on top of your base layer. I pushed them in a bit so that they would stay kind of glue themselves to the bottom ice cream layer.

Next it was time for some hot fudge sauce! I recommend using some amazing homemade hot fudge sauce, and you can find the recipe here. Take some of your hot fudge sauce and drizzle it over the cookie pieces. It would be easiest to use a squeeze bottle, but make sure it can be heated up a bit so that it’s squeezable (recommendation: pancake syrup bottle that can be heated up!). If you can’t use a squeeze bottle then just take a spoon and lightly drizzle it over the cookie pieces. Once you have an even layer of hot fudge on top of the cookies, take the rest of your cookie pieces and place them on top of the fudge sauce. Push down a bit to make sure it sticks to the fudge sauce.

Take your top flavor of ice cream (in my case it was cookies n cream) and scoop the ice cream and place it on top of the cookie mixture (just like how you did it for the base). You want to make sure you cover the entire cake. Once that’s done take your off-set spatula (rinsed off, of course!) and smooth out the top. Do not cover it yet; place in the freeze for about 30 minutes and let it firm up a bit before covering.

After it’s firmed up a bit, cut a piece of parchment paper that fits right on top (so the length of the loaf pan) of the cake. Then take some saran wrap and wrap up the loaf pan and place in the freezer.

I know that Dairy Queen does that whippy icing on top, but I’m not a fan of that so I left it off. But if I were making a round ice cream cake for someone’s birthday I would probably pipe some real buttercream icing around the edges.

TRIAL & ERROR

Now on my first trial run of this ice cream cake when I was making the middle layer, I combined my hot fudge sauce and the oreo crunchies. That didn’t really turn out all that well. When we went to eat the ice cream cake the center was quite hard. So this is when I knew I had to go back to the drawing board to find “the perfect recipe.”  Don’t get me wrong, we ate that ice cream cake! But I knew it needed work.  So then I tried doing the cookie/fudge/cookie layer in between the two flavors of ice cream and that worked out so well. It was not hard and it had the right amount of hot fudge to go with the cookie pieces. I was so pleased with how it came out!

This is probably as close to Dairy Queen’s ice cream cake that I’ll get without buying a cake from them. I’m pretty happy with how it came out. There are so many different flavors you can use! I really want to try cake batter flavored ice cream with the chocolate ice cream.  I also plan on experimenting with middle layers – like perhaps a brownie batter middle layer. How amazing would that be?!

 

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