- Chocolate Chip and vanilla ice cream are meant to be together.
When I grabbed a Shatto Ice Cream Sammich out of the freezer at the Prairie Village Hy-Vee, I almost put it back. A single sammich costs $3.99. At that price, unless it's filled with meat and cheese, it's hard to justify the cost. So while I like you readers, I wasn't ready to drop a $20 bill to try all four flavors (vanilla and chocolate chip, caramel sea salt and oatmeal-raisin, vanilla and chocolate brownie, and strawberry and sugar cookie). But then I opened the package, and my sticker shock turned to shock over the incredible cookies made by Erin Reynolds Brown, the owner of the Dolce Baking Co. and Shatto's partner in its latest product.
- It's simple packaging with clever copy.
I opted for the most traditional combination, believing that an ice-cream sammich has to be good at its most elemental level. A swatch of vanilla ice cream sits well inside the edges of two chocolate-chip cookies (about the circumference of the top of a pint glass), and so the first bite is mostly cookie. That's a good thing. The action of pushing the cookies together then spreads the ice cream out, and after that, it eats like a regular ice-cream cookie sandwich.
The cookies are reminiscent of ice-box cookies. Thin and crunchy on the exterior, they still have the brilliant chewiness that is unexpected from a frozen cookie. Brown's decision to use semisweet chocolate chips is decadent and makes you want to keep eating. This is a departure from the overly sweet frozen treats that dominate the grocery store's frozen-foods aisle (the sammiches are available at area Hy-Vee, Hen House and Whole Foods stores).
Shatto's ice cream is almost forgotten. The best choice that the Osborn dairy made was in picking Brown. The cookies are worth the price of admission on their own.
