Mashup.

Ice cream sandwiches are one of summers great pleasures, and I wasn't about to let the fact that summer is pretty much over keep me from enjoying mine.

On Monday afternoon, a bit bored and a tad restless, I decided to make some chocolate chip cookies to take into work on Tuesday. As I took the first batch out of the oven, I remembered one of my grand plans from earlier in the summer: homemade ice cream sandwiches filled with salted caramel ice cream.

I didn't have the ingredients for homemade ice cream on hand, but I did have some delicious Ronnybrook vanilla in the freezer. Cue light bulb and deliciousness.

I took two same-size, completely cool cookies and spooned some slightly softened ice cream onto one of them, pressing the other down to complete the sandwich. I cut off a piece of parchment paper, wrapped the newborn sandwich, and put the packet in the freezer to firm up for a couple of hours.

Later that night, after dinner, I took the sandwich out of the freezer and took a bite. Keller's cookies are distinguished by their large quantity of dark brown sugar, and I think this helped keep the cookies nice and chewy, even after a few hours on ice. The ice cream had firmed up nicely, too, so the sandwich held together nicely.

The salty, sweet, rich cookie worked really well with the Ronnybrook. They make a very traditional vanilla: sweet, creamy and fairly neutral in flavor. As it turns out, that's what you want when the cookie in question is super-flavorful.

Now, for that salted caramel version...