Skillet Cookie with Ice Cream
A single enormous warm cookie in a skillet with ice cream melting into a crater in the middle and two spoons is the dessert that ends every good dinner at every place with a wait. The dough comes from a tube in the refrigerated case. You press it into a pan with your fingers and put it in the oven after the plates are cleared. That is the whole thing.
- Cost for two
- $16
- Active time
- 6 min
- Done ahead
- 21%
- 35 min before 7:30
- Hands off at
- 6:05
- T-85
Allergens: Wheat · Milk · Soy (cookie dough and ice cream) · Eggs in most doughs · Read the dough label — many say "may contain tree nuts or peanuts."·Serves: 2 (it is a lot of cookie; that is the point)·Oven: 350°F
Gear: One oven-safe skillet, 8 to 10 inches (cast iron is best and looks best on the table; any all-metal skillet works). Fallback: an 8-inch round cake pan or a pie plate. A little oil or butter for the pan, plastic wrap, a phone timer, two spoons, a folded towel or a board to set the hot skillet on.
Start at 5:30. Hands off from 6:05. Stove mode follows the clock while you cook.
The 7:30 Timeline
Read it bottom-up if you like; cook it top-down.
Done before she arrives
Aisle order
Shopping list
Dairy & Cheese
Vanilla ice cream
a good one — this is the only place on the plate where the brand shows
1 pint
Pantry & Canned
Flaky sea salt
Maldon, baking aisle or near the spices — about $6, lasts a year; if you refuse, pinch kosher salt from high up instead
1 box
Frozen (actually the refrigerated dairy case, near the biscuits)
Refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough
16 oz — the tube or the "break-apart" tray; either works
1 package
At the stove
Method
- 1
Put the ice cream in the freezer the moment you get home. Soft ice cream refrozen is icy.
- 2
Pour a teaspoon of oil into the skillet and rub it over the bottom and sides with a paper towel.
- 3
Open the cookie dough. If it is a tube, slice it into rounds; if it is a break-apart tray, break it apart. Drop all of it into the skillet.
- 4
Press the dough flat with your fingers, working from the middle outward, until it reaches the edges in an even layer about half an inch thick. It should look like a giant raw cookie, because it is.
- 5
Take a pinch of flaky salt between your fingers and scatter it over the top from a foot above the pan, so it spreads instead of landing in one spot.
- 6
Cover the skillet with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. It waits there for the next two and a half hours without changing.
- 7
At 8:10, when the main comes out of the oven, turn the oven to 350°F before you do anything else. It needs fifteen minutes to come down from the main's temperature.
- 8
At 8:25, after the plates are cleared, take the skillet out of the fridge, peel off the plastic, and put it on the middle rack. Set a 20-minute timer.
- 9
At 8:35, take the ice cream out of the freezer and leave it on the counter with the lid off.
- 10
At the timer, check doneness (below). Pull the skillet with an oven mitt — the handle is as hot as the oven — and set it on a folded towel on the counter. Leave the mitt over the handle so nobody grabs it.
- 11
Let it rest 3 minutes. The center firms slightly; the edges stay crisp.
- 12
Put two big scoops of ice cream in the center of the cookie. Bring the skillet, on its towel, to the table with two spoons. Eat it from the pan.
Is it done?
The check that needs no experience
No thermometer needed. The edges should be golden brown and pulled slightly away from the side of the pan. The center should be puffed and look dry on top, soft when pressed, but not glossy or wet. Push a toothpick or the tip of a knife into the very middle: it should come out with a few moist crumbs stuck to it, not wet batter. Wet batter means 5 more minutes with foil on top. A warm, slightly soft center is right; a raw one is not.
The #1 way to screw it up
The edges are dark and the center is still shiny, wet dough at 8:45 — the oven was still at 400°F from the main when the cookie went in, or the pan was small and the dough too thick.
Recovery
Lay a sheet of foil loosely over the skillet and give it 8 more minutes at 350°F. The foil stops the edges from going further while the middle catches up. Serve at 8:55; you have been talking, and dessert being late is not a thing anyone notices. Raw dough in the center is not safe to serve (raw flour and egg), so this is the one time to wait, not shrug.
- You forgot the oven button at 8:10 and it is still at 425°F at 8:25
- turn it to 350°F, put the cookie in anyway, and set the timer for 16 minutes instead of 20. Check early; foil if the edges brown fast.
- Overbaked to a crunchy disc
- scoop the ice cream on anyway. It melts into a crisp cookie and eats like a sundae. Nobody has ever complained.
The reveal
Plating
Serve it in the skillet, set on a folded kitchen towel or a wooden board in the middle of the table between you. Put two scoops of ice cream in the center of the cookie, touching each other, so they start to melt into a single pool while it is still hot. Hand her a spoon, take the other one, and do not plate it — the whole point is eating from the pan.
Vegetarian swap
Vegetarian as written. Vegan version: Pillsbury's classic refrigerated chocolate chip dough contains no egg or dairy at the time of writing (read the label — this changes), and any oat-milk vanilla ice cream from the same freezer case finishes it. Same pan, same 20 minutes, same spoons.
What to pour
- Wine
- a soft, jammy red in a small glass — Apothic Red, about $10 — or nothing; dessert wine is a lot to ask of a Friday.
- Beer
- Guinness. A stout with a warm cookie is better than it sounds.
- No alcohol
- a small glass of very cold milk. Honestly. Or decaf coffee if you have a way to make it that is not a production.
Take this to the supermarket.
The First Bulletproof Dinner as a PDF, with the timelines. Free.