strawberry, coconut + oats nice-cream sandwich

Our friends at Lunch Lady have put together a selection of delicious nice-cream sandwiches for your little ones to enjoy this summer. Filled with all the delicious things, and not too much sugar, making for the perfect cool treat. You can find the rest of these delicious nice-cream recipes alongside many more in the latest issue of Lunch Lady here.

(dairy + egg free)

For the oat cookies:
(Makes 14)
1/3 cup (75g / 2.6oz) coconut oil, melted
1/2 cup (125ml / 4.2 fl oz) maple syrup
1 tsp (5ml / 0.17 fl oz) vanilla paste
1 cup (125g / 4.4oz) spelt flour
1 cup (110g / 3.9oz) rolled oats
1/3 cup (25g / 0.9oz) shredded coconut
1/2 tsp (2.5ml / 0.08 fl oz) baking powder
1 tsp (5ml / 0.17 fl oz) ground cinnamon
pinch of fine salt

Preheat the oven to 190°C / 375°F / Gas Mark 5. Line two baking trays with baking paper. In a medium-sized bowl, stir together the melted coconut oil, maple syrup and vanilla paste. Add in the flour, oats, coconut, baking powder, cinnamon and salt, and stir until well combined. Place the bowl in the fridge for 10 minutes to let the mixture firm up a little. Using a tablespoon, scoop heaped tablespoons of mixture onto the prepared trays, leaving a little room between each cookie. Bake for around 10–14 minutes, or until the cookies are golden. Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool on the trays.

For the strawberry nice-cream:
(Makes 3/4 litre)
4 frozen, ripe bananas
1 tsp (5ml / 0.17 fl oz) vanilla paste
1 cup (150g / 5.3oz) frozen strawberries
1/4 cup – 1/2 cup (60–125ml / 2–4 fl oz) coconut milk, or milk of your choice

Place the banana, vanilla paste, strawberries and 1/4 cup of the milk into a blender or food processor and blend until you have a smooth, whipped nice-cream. If the nice-cream isn’t coming together or is still looking a little lumpy, add a little more milk, a tablespoon at a time, and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula before blending again. Keep blending and adding more milk, a little at a time, until the nice-cream becomes silky smooth.

To assemble nice-cream sandwiches, scoop the softly whipped nice-cream straight from the blender and sandwich it between two cookies. For a firmer scoop, pour the nice-cream into a container after blending and freeze it for half an hour.

Thanks so much for sharing this delicious recipe with us Lunch Lady! We can't wait to try it and all the others in issue 13 xx Nb