If I could only eat one kind of sandwich, the ice cream sandwich would be a strong contender. But instead of getting lost in a game of Food Deals With the Devil, I’ll just say I really, really like an ice cream sandwich. But making ice cream sandwiches from scratch? That always seemed a bit too labor intensive—especially at a time of year when I’d rather be at the beach than in the kitchen. My allergy to making my own ice cream sandwiches was cured when our test kitchen colleague Julia Levy created this easy, customizable recipe for homemade vanilla cookie–and–jam ice cream sandwiches.

These easy ice cream sandwiches use a quick homemade sugar cookie and call for store-bought ice cream and jam and require a mere 15 minutes of active prep time. Yes, yes, they have to sit in the freezer for a few hours before you can slice and serve them, but you can do whatever you want during that time—head to the beach, catch up on The Bear, take a bear-length nap in your air-conditioned apartment…

Read on for the key steps Julia took to make these ice cream sandwiches as easy as they are delicious.

4 Tips for Easy and Delicious Ice Cream Sandwiches.

Store-bought is fine for the ice cream and jam. Unlike some food sites, we don’t quote Ina Garten on a daily basis around here, but in the case of the ice cream and jam for these cookies, store-bought really is fine. By all means, if you want to make homemade ice cream and jam, absolutely do, but unless you’re really passionate about making those from scratch, we vote for store-bought for these two elements.

The truth is that both ice cream and jam are store-bought products that—as long as you buy good quality—are as good as, if not sometimes better, than what you can make at home. Also note that if using store-bought ice cream, be sure to buy 1.5-quart or smaller containers. In our tests, we found that the ice cream in a 2-quart container took so long to soften at the center that the ice cream at the sides of the container was too soft to work with when building the sandwiches. 

Do make the cookie from scratch. For this recipe, as with Stella Parks’ excellent chocolate and vanilla ice cream sandwiches, we opted for a from-scratch cookie. That allows us to formulate a cookie dough that bakes up soft enough that it doesn’t break your teeth when you bite into it when frozen. The key to this is using oil instead of butter, since butter-based cookies turn very hard when frozen, while oil-based ones stay chewy despite the cold.

The homemade cookie is cooked in one big slab so it can be assembled as one giant sandwich and then sliced into smaller sandwiches. We’ve given guidelines for slicing, but feel free to go smaller or larger with your sammies. You’ll know what’s right when you get home from the beach.

Clean your knife between slices. For clean edges on your ice cream sandwiches, wipe the knife with a hot, wet kitchen towel between each cut.

Customize your little heart out. While we stuck to a simple vanilla and summer fruit jam flavor profile in the base recipe, you can really use any flavor of ice cream or fruit jam you want. Try pairing ginger ice cream with marmalade, chocolate with cherry preserves, or doubling down on the strawberry by using strawberry ice cream with strawberry jam.