These homemade ice cream bars make me feel real feelings

A weekly dispatch from Bon Appétit food director Carla Lalli Music. [View this email in your browser]( [Bon Appétit Newsletter Banner Pink]( Do as ice scream Mercy me, I can’t even look at this picture without feeling weak in the knees and tasting salt and sweet ice cream on my lips. This is one of those Do As I Say, Not As I Do recipes, because if I’m going to live up to my self-congratulatory claims of personal authenticity, I am obligated to tell you that I’ve never made [Cinnamon Swirl Ice Cream Bars](. That’s right, I never “made these,” but they made me feel real feelings, and that’s what put that Proust fellow on the map, so it ought to count for something. I’ve eaten these adorable, joy-inducing, pretzel-topped, magic-shell-dipped, brown-sugar cinnamon ripple ice cream nuggets many times while Claire Saffitz was working on them in the Test Kitchen. Many, many times. Sometimes it takes a few passes to get a recipe dialed in, and I’m not not going to help us get there just because having ice cream every day for a week when you’re not pregnant might seem extreme to some people. It’s my job, and I’m a professional. When I think about what went into making these bars so special—so worth it—everything fades out to a fuzzy Vaseline-coated flashback movie vibe, and a subtitle appears on the bottom of my memory screen: Summer 2016, New York City. The Great Claire Saffitz was toiling away at this recipe, which was one of several show-stopping ice cream-based desserts for the August issue. I remember how our intrepid story editor, Amiel Stanek, had to take three or four Lactaid tablets every time it was ice cream tasting time (he’s lactose intolerant but soldiered on—that’s dedication). I remember Claire explaining how she figured out the best way to soften a pint of ice cream so it was the right texture for folding in thick ribbons of a cinnamon-brown-sugar-almond-butter mixture (okay, fine, two pints). I remember thinking “she’s insane” when Claire told us about freezing the marbled ice cream, then cutting it into rectangular pieces, and then re-freezing the pieces so that they came out very perfect and very frozen, which was key for what came next. I remember thinking “she’s a goddamn genius” when Claire explained how she made her own magic shell out of almond butter and coconut oil, and thinking “no one will ever do that” when she claimed it was pretty easy to enrobe each block of ice cream in a nut butter shell. Then there was something about crushed pretzels and flaky salt that got lost because honestly the next thing I remember is feeling my teeth clink through the hardened outside layer and into rippled ice cream and knowing immediately that it would be a “bad idea” to eat the whole thing because there were three other desserts that also had to be tasted but… But then it was too late. I remember hearing Amiel say “ohhhmmmhggghgggddd I’m going to be in so much pain later” and I think I squeezed his arm in solidarity, but we knew there would be no regrets. After this recipe was finalized, it was made again as part of our recipe testing process, and though I never stopped loving the ice cream nuggets, I tried to give them a wide berth as they went forward on their journey. Other people should taste them, I said to myself and generously to the other people. “Those are dangerous and they almost killed me,” Amiel said to anyone who cared to hear about his [enzymatic deficiencies](. I can’t promise that you will feel these same feelings when you get a chance to make and taste these. I think I might have new feelings, including “Why does everything look so nice when Claire does it but when I do it all the rectangles are different sizes and none of the edges are straight?” Perfect or not, I’d like to see what emotions my first batch of Cinnamon Swirl Ice Cream Bars could make happen to my chosen beneficiaries, and to hear the noises that might come out of them. I’ll be careful to choose those lucky someones carefully, though. If my own experience is any indication, it will be a moment they’ll never forget. Get the recipe: [Cinnamon Swirl Vanilla Ice Cream Bars]( What do you think of the BA newsletter? Send us your thoughts at staff.bonappetit@gmail.com. [Advertisement]( [Powered by LiveIntent]( [Ad Choices]( Get The Magazine [Bon Appétit] [SUBSCRIBE]( This e-mail was sent to you by Bon Appetit. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, [bonappetit@newsletters.bonappetit.com]( to your address book. View our [Privacy Policy]( [Unsubscribe]( Copyright © Condé Nast 2018. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.