The Best Ice Cream Sandwiches Are Made On Bread

At Penny, a new raw bar and seafood counter in New York City’s East Village, diners can eat oysters, cooked-to-order Maine lobster, and the best ice cream sandwich I’ve ever had. What makes it so special? Chef Joshua Pinsky, Penny’s chef and co-owner, replaces the traditional partially frozen cookie with a soft sliced brioche — and stuffs it with vanilla ice cream — making it a literal ice cream sandwich.

“I loved the idea of having simple desserts and an ice cream sandwich felt like the right mix of playful and casual,” says Pinsky. For the sandwich base, Pinsky and his team were experimenting with different types of cookies but nothing achieved the squishy texture he was looking for. “One day, we were testing batches of ice cream but didn’t have any cookies ready,” he says. “We sliced up our sesame brioche, which we bake daily in-house, and the rest is history.” 

This isn’t just any brioche — the soft, ultra-squishy mini milk bread brioche loaf is already a showstopper when served as an appetizer with anchovy-draped butter. But when it’s sliced and used as a vessel to hold vanilla ice cream, passionfruit citron jam, and salted strawberries, the brioche takes on a whole new personality. 

Rather than hardening and freezing like a cookie, the bread soaks up the ice cream while the brown seeded crust acts as a border, protecting any stray drips from sliding down your wrist. Plus, the sandwich isn’t too sugary — allowing for the bright, salty strawberries and subtly sour passion citron marmalade to cut through the sweetness of the vanilla ice cream.

While this dessert is reminiscent of an Italian brioche con gelato, which places a scoop of gelato inside a split brioche bun, there is something extra satisfying about eating an ice cream sandwich that actually looks like a sandwich. You can even slice it diagonally (the only way to cut a sandwich) without smushing the ice cream too much.

Pinsky is planning on serving different versions of the ice cream sandwich depending on the season. “I’ve been thinking about blueberries once they come around to the farmers market, with caramelized white chocolate, or something that feels akin to apple pie in the winter,” he says. “And I’m definitely hoping for a peaches and cream moment.”

The Penny ice cream sandwich formula allows for infinite possibilities, and even better, you can easily replicate it at home. Pinsky suggests using Japanese milk bread as the base, but Wonder bread, challah, or any squishy white bread will do the trick. “Play around with different jams and jellies,” he adds. And fill the sandwich with your ice cream of choice. “An ice cream sandwich is meant to be customized.”