Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream Bars

This is a sponsored post by Challenge Butter, but the text and opinions are all mine. Thank you for supporting brands that make Kylee's Kitchen possible!

When I was little, I loved the ice cream man. The neighbor boys and I would chase after it whenever we heard his siren coming down our street. And my favorite item to purchase was the Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream Bar. I remember it being the most delicious thing I had ever tasted in my life on a hot summer day.

I hadn’t had one of those delicious treats in years until recently when I saw it at the grocery store. I don’t normally peruse the ice cream aisle, so I was shocked to discover that you can just buy them at the store and you don’t need to chase down an ice cream truck to get one (pretty silly of me to think otherwise – I realize that now). So of course I bought a box. And it was just as delicious as I remember.

I wanted to recreate my own version of the strawberry shortcake bar because sometimes I feel adventurous. But I still wanted to make it as easy as possible.

After some experimentation, I decided to use strawberry cheesecake ice cream as the base because it has elements of both strawberry and vanilla ice cream. I wanted to try to make my bars by layering vanilla ice cream with strawberry sorbet to be more authentic, but the strawberry sorbet was nowhere to be found. And strawberry cheesecake ice cream is delicious. If you can't find strawberry cheesecake ice cream, you can just use strawberry ice cream, but as with any recipe, when you make a substitution it won't taste the exact same.

For the coating I combined vanilla sandwich cookies with freeze-dried strawberries and a little bit of butter to help it all stick together. The crumble coating is my favorite part so this had to be perfect!

At first I tried making these in my new popsicle maker, but the ice cream didn’t seem to work well in the molds. Maybe I’m not doing something right. I don’t know. But anyway, I just decided to layer it in a pan instead. It worked out really well! And since not everyone owns popsicle molds, this was probably the best option anyway.

After you cut the ice cream bars, I recommend rolling them in the crumble mixture again because extra coating is always better!

The best part about these bars is that you don’t even need to chase after an ice cream truck to get one!

Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream Bars

Ingredients

• 20 vanilla crème sandwich cookies
• 1/4 cup freeze-dried strawberries
• 3 tablespoons Challenge butter, melted
• 1/2 gallon strawberry cheesecake ice cream (take out of freezer 20 minutes before making recipe so it softens)

Directions

1. Line an 8 x 8 pan with aluminum foil or wax paper; set aside
2. Pulverize sandwich cookies in food processor; add freeze-dried strawberries and butter and pulverize again.
3. Add half of your crumble mixture to the bottom of the pan. Spread the ice cream on top of the crumble mixture. Add the remaining crumble mixture to the top.
4. Freeze for 4 hours or overnight.
5. Use the overhang from the aluminum foil to lift the ice cream out of the pan.
6. Cut into bars and serve right away before if melts! You can serve them on popsicle sticks so it’s more authentic if you like.