Butterbeer Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches
Back to Hogwarts day comes in the heat of late summer, and the best way to celebrate is with a cool, refreshing sweet treat! These vegan Butterbeer ice cream sandwich cookies are filled with healthy, sweet Butterbeer nice cream and a simple, two ingredient caramel sauce.
Flavor Notes
Caramel | Cashew | Butterscotch
Pairing Suggestions
Sunny afternoons | HP and the First Time Readers | AVPM
Jump to RecipeThis website uses affiliate links and I earn a small commission off of purchases made using these links at no additional cost to you.
Why you’ll love this Butterbeer recipe
- Made by a Harry Potter fan for Harry Potter fans 🙂 This recipe is fully inspired by the Wizarding World that we all know and love. Potter fans have a lot to celebrate lately – a new addition to the theme park in Orlando, Tom Felton’s role in the Cursed Child on broadway, new immersive audiobooks, and finally – the new TV adaptation is set to release in 2027!
- Finally, a Butterbeer recipe that’s not overly sweet! Sometimes that butterscotch flavor is excessively sugary. The sweetness level of this recipe is just enough so that it doesn’t overpower the buttery notes from toasted cashews.
- A broad micronutrient profile: these ice cream sandwiches deliver a broad array of different micronutrients from zinc and magnesium to vitamins B1 and B3.
- Naturally sweetened. There are no refined sugars in these Butterbeer nice cream sandwich cookies! The cookies are sweetened with coconut sugar, and the caramel sauce and nice cream layers get their sticky toffee flavor from medjool dates.
Ingredients for Butterbeer ice cream cookie sandwiches
Butterbeer nice cream
Bananas: ripe, frozen bananas make up one part of a thick plant based ice cream base.
Cashew butter: contribute a thick, creamy texture and buttery flavor to the butterbeer ice cream base.
Medjool dates: sticky, sweet, caramel-like and perfect for a butterbeer ice cream flavor.
Rum Extract: not your typical pantry staple, many grocery stores carry rum extract from McCormick brand. You can also find rum extracts on Amazon. Watkins brand sells a very clean version of this product (free of artificial flavors, added sugars, and dyes) – purchase here on amazon.
Butterbeer cookies
Cashew butter: roasted, blended cashews contribute a deep, toasty nutty flavor and give these butterbeer cookies a melt-in-your-mouth texture.
Coconut sugar: to gently sweeten these cookies and give a golden brown hue after baking.
Oat flour: a dash of finely ground oats gives these cookies some structure.
Tapioca starch: a thickening agent used to keep the cookies from turning out too soft and mushy.
Flax seeds: these act as the emulsifying agent. Soaked ground flax seeds help thicken and bind the other ingredients together.
Water: just a couple tablespoons are needed to make a flax “egg yolk.”
Salt: adds a touch of flavor and removes any bitterness from the nuts and oat flour.
Baking soda: a rising agent to lift the butterbeer cookies while they bake.
Vanilla: to add a touch of flavor and an echo of sweetness.
Rum Extract: adds a complex, oaky depth to emulate a frothy mug of cold butterbeer. Purchase here on amazon.
Easy Caramel Sauce
Medjool dates: soft, pitted medjool dates are the perfect base for a thick caramel sauce.
Water: blend with the dates to create the perfect gooey caramel texture.
How to make Harry Potter inspired Butterbeer ice cream cookie sandwiches
Note that this recipe requires some planning! Here are the three things you should do the before serving the cookies:
- Freeze your bananas
- Prep the cookie dough
- Make the easy date caramel
- Make the ice cream
How to make the Butterbeer cookies
Start by blending the roasted cashews into a smooth cashew butter. To do this, use a clean, dry high speed food processor. Add the roasted nuts and blend on high. Keep going until the nuts break down into a fine flour, then continue as they turn into a smooth butter. This may take several minutes. Pause occasionally to scrape down the sides of the blender bowl.
To make the base of the dough, add the cashew butter and coconut sugar to a medium bowl and beat them together with a hand mixer.
Beat in the wet ingredients (vanilla, flax egg).
In a small bowl, combine the flour, tapioca starch, salt, and baking soda.
Add the dry mixture to the wet and beat until incorporated.
Cover the dough and chill for 24 hours (up to 3 days) before baking!
How to make easy date caramel sauce
In a blender, combine the water and dates. I personally love using Joolies Dates because they are glyphosate free!
Puree the dates and water until smooth. That’s it! Feel free to add in some vanilla extract (1/2 tsp) at this point if you’d like.
Store the caramel sauce in an airtight container for up to 6 days in the fridge.
How to make Butterbeer nice cream
This Butterbeer ice cream has a base of cashew butter and frozen bananas. The creamy combination of these two ingredients sets a perfect base for a no-churn nice cream, which then gets sweetened with the date caramel sauce. Add a touch of vanilla and/or rum extracts for extra depth of flavor.
Use a food processor to blend the frozen bananas, cashew butter, and date caramel together.
Divide the nice cream batter into silicone muffin molds or a traditional muffin tin. This will allow us to get nice round disks to go between the cookies.
Chill the nice cream in the freezer for at least 3 hours before removing from the molds and slicing into discs.
Substitutions
Cashews – you can always buy cashew butter instead of making it from scratch with cashews. Many stores sell raw cashew butter, however, for this recipe I would look for roasted cashew butter. I think the best brand for flavor, texture, and roasting level is the whole foods 365 creamy cashew butter.
Oat flour – use all purpose flour or bob’s red mill gluten free baking blend, just be sure to measure by weight (grams).
Coconut sugar – use a mixture of half white, half brown sugar for the coconut sugar, measuring by weight (grams). Date sugar will also work as a 1:1 replacement by volume (cups).
Rum Extract – swap it for vanilla extract or simply leave it out. Either way, the nice cream cookie sandwiches will still be delicious!
Flax egg – replace the flax egg with two tablespoons of unsweetened applesauce or with two tablespoons of canned pumpkin. The cookies will be a bit more on the cake-y side, but these swaps still work in a pinch.
Recipe Tips
Making cashew butter – homemade nut butter is much easier to achieve than you might think. My top tips for success are
- Be patient – anticipate that it will take at least 5 minutes of blending (and up to 15) to get the cashews to turn into a smooth butter.
- Use a high quality food processor. You can do it with a blender, but the process will take longer.
- Be sure to start with a dry blender. Any sitting water in the blender will interfere with the blending process and you’ll be left with a seized mixture.
Work quickly when assembling – the nice cream will melt if it’s left sitting out for too long. Gather everything you need before starting to assemble to save yourself time, mess, and hassle.
Plan ahead – this recipe requires a bit of advance prep!
- One day before serving:
- Make the cashew butter
- Blend the date caramel
- Make the cookie dough
- Make the nice cream
- Day of serving (at least 30 minutes in advance)
- Bake and cool the cookies
- Transfer date caramel to a piping bag
- Day of serving (10 minutes in advance)
- Slice the molded nice cream
- Assemble the butterbeer ice cream cookie sandwiches
Recipe Card
Butterbeer Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- *skip if using storebought cashew butter. Dry roast 16oz (1lb) of cashews at 350℉ for 8 minutes or until fragrant. Add the warm cashews to a clean, dry food processor and blend on high until a smooth butter forms. You may need to pause to scrape down the sides.
- Remove ¾ cup of the cashew butter for the cookies and transfer it to a medium bowl. You can leave the remaining ½ cup cashew butter in the blender (we’ll blend it more to make the nice cream).
- Make the flax egg – stir 1 tbsp ground flax seeds with 2 tbsp water and let sit for 5-10 minutes to thicken up.
- In a medium bowl, beat the cashew butter and coconut sugar together.
- Beat in the vanilla and flax egg.
- In a small bowl, whisk the oat flour, baking soda, and salt.
- Stir the dry ingredients into the wet mixture.
- Gather the dough together in one ball at the bottom of the mixing bowl. Cover with saran wrap and chill for 12-24 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Bring the dough out to room temperature so it's easier to scoop. Using a #40 cookie scoop (2 tbsp), scoop and drop the dough in balls on the baking sheet. Space the cookies about 3" apart.
- Bake for 10 minutes until the edges turn light golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool to room temperature. The cookies will be very soft at first but will firm up as they cool.
- In a blender, combine the dates and water – if the dates are hard, be sure to soak in warm water for about 10 minutes before blending.
- Blend the dates and water until a smooth, creamy caramel sauce forms.
- Store the caramel in a sealed glass container in the fridge until ready to use (or up to 6 days).
- Add 1/2 cup of cashew butter to your food processor.
- Add the frozen bananas and ¼ cup of date caramel.
- Blend until smooth.
- Transfer the nice cream into a muffin tin (I recommend using a silicone muffin mold for easier removal).
- Freeze the nice cream in the muffin molds for at least 3 hours before assembling the sandwich cookies.
- Add the date caramel to a piping bag (or use a ziplock bag and cut a small hole in one of the bottom corners).
- Remove the nice cream from the molds (use a knife to loosen around the edges if using traditional muffin pans).
- Working quickly, slice each molded nice cream muffin into 1" thick discs. You should get 2-3 discs per muffin mold.
- Place the nice cream disk onto the flat side of a cookie, then pipe a layer of date caramel overtop. Finish the sandwich with another cookie.
Recommended Products
Did you try this recipe? Let us know in the comments below!
