One of the true joys of cooking comes from experimentation. Discovering changes to recipes that suit you better, new flavors to incorporate, ingredient substitutions, and the like can fun and rewarding, with something delicious as the end result.
Some experimentation, though, starts to border on silly. This has become especially true with the spike in air fryer ownership. Let’s examine one air fryer recipe that really does not need to exist.
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Over the past little while, air fryer recipes have exploded in populairty.
The internet is now full of people willing to throw anything into an air fryer to see what happens, with many of the results (that are shared online, anyway) end up pretty good.
But just because we can put something in an air fryer, doesn’t mean we should.
Welcome air fryer chef of the day, TikTok user @jimmythehib.
Jimmy is a lover of his air fryer, with many of his videos featuring a variety of air fryer recipes that range from chicken wings to brussel sprouts to short ribs.
Today, though, we will be focusing on one recipe in particular, the air fried ice cream sandwich.
You know, ice cream, the thing that melts after being in room temperature for 10 seconds?
That’s right, this man threw it in the air frier to see what would happen. Let’s go through his steps to get the full context here.
It’s important to note that this recipe of his has been viewed over 4.5 million times, boasting over 500k likes. He certainly sold it well.
He does start the video by saying he doesn’t know if it’ll work, but marches on anyway.
He shows his two ingredients, standard ice cream sandwiches and a tube of crescent roll dough.
He rolls the dough out, separates it, and cuts his ice cream sandwich into ‘oreo-sized pieces’. He then wraps those pieces, emphasizing the importance of there being no holes so the ice cream won’t leak out.
He then puts them in the air fryer, marveling at his creation thus far.
He decides to have them cook at 325°F for six minutes.
While they’re cooking, he tells his audience how excited he is to see if it works, noting that he’s never seen anyone else attempt to air fry an ice cream sandwich in his time on ‘air frying TikTok’. He’s hoping the end result will resemble ‘cream-filled pastries’.
When the time is up, he returns to his beloved fryer.
He opens the drawer to reveal…well, just some balls of dough to start.
One did appear to leak, but the rest seem cooked on the outside, boasting a toasted golden exterior.
But in the case of these sandwiches, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.
He removes them from the frying tray and even sprinkles some powdered sugar on top.
He says they look great and smell amazing, “[…] like you’re walking into an ice cream shop.”
He then shows one that he’s cut down the center, and it’s…well, at least he’s excited about them.
The interior of the dough looks sort of undercooked in my opinion, and the volume of ice cream seems to have reduced drastically, either leaking our or turning the dessert into a sticky mess.
Then comes the taste test.
Jimmy tries one of the halves, clearly loves it, then proudly proclaims this is one of the best things he’s ever made in the air fryer.
The onlookers who flooded the comments seemed to be fans, with many stating their intention to try it as well.
But there were some who actually did try it, and recorded the process, to much worse results.
Namely Tim Marcin, an author for Mashable , who called the recipe ‘pointless and kinda trash’. When he tried it, he ended up with runny, room-temperature ice cream and dough that was still raw at the center.
I’m not saying the recipe is good or bad, but I am saying we should start to impose some limits on air fry usage instead of cutting it fast and loose as we have been. Some rules are good, actually.
