Berger Cookies 2013

My great loves that cannot be purchased locally often spawn creative culinary missions to remedy their absence in my life.  For example, many of you know I developed and honed skills to make home made pizza, with a variety of yeast-leaven crusts and even my own sauce and cheese mixtures.  That was due to my relocation to a woefully undeveloped St. Mary's County for several years in the late '90's.  I digress...a news release in late 2012 threatening the very existence of one of those loves ignited yet another mission...

The infamous Baltimore delicacy known as the Berger Cookie has been a staple for generations of Baltimore residents.  There are few things I miss more since I moved away.  I have heard recently that they are re-branded and sold under a different name in other regions, but that's unconfirmed by me.  So, whenever I or a friend from CT visits Baltimore, it's imperative that some Berger cookies be purchased and brought home. 

With a nifty ice cream maker attachment to my KitchenAid mixer, I set out to make a specialty ice cream that I had heard existed but never could find: Berger Cookie Ice Cream.  The ice cream part is relatively simple, but I felt (and still do) that the ultimate Berger Cookie Ice Cream must be more than vanilla with chunks of chopped up cookies.  I wanted to be able to duplicate the cookie itself so I could experiment with rippling the Berger fudge throughout the mixture.

I scoured the internet (think about how futile and time-consuming a search like this would be with only a library as a resource) looking for copycat recipes.  Not surprisingly, because the Berger Cookie is regional, there are not many.  Nevertheless, I took one that purported to match the real deal.  The results of my initial attempt were not favorable overall.  The good news is I can reasonably reproduce the cookie portion...yay, fantastic, wonderful.  So now that I can duplicate the flavorless part, the work began on the essential part...the fudge.

My first attempt did not work out so well.  It was my first time making fudge, and there is apparently more art involved than I knew.  The fudge basically didn't set, so it ended up sugary and it didn't solidify.  I took some notes on how I would alter the recipe for flavor, plus studied more general fudge-making tips.  Now that Berger Cookies are back in "circulation," the motivation is down to continue this endeavor, but it will continue someday.

On the ice cream front, chopped Berger Cookies can make a decent mixture, and that will suffice for now.  My ice cream efforts are broadening to explore additional flavors.  More to come on that.