Rosemary Buttermilk Ice Cream Sandwich with Candied Pinenuts, Buttermilk Fromage Blanc and Apricot-Honey Sauce

This week was supposed to be a test run for getting the rosemary ice cream candy bar from a few weeks ago onto the actual menu, but unfortunately my boss got sick and we didn’t really get to talk about the changes that she wanted to test out in the dish. Therefore, I played with a different iconic American summer food, switching from an ice cream candy bar to an ice cream sandwich and changing some of the garnishes. The cookie in this dish is an amazing lemon, rosemary shortbread cookie which has  flavors that are more in the forefront  than the cookie that was at the bottom of the candy bar. I was not satisfied with the whiskey caramel sauce that I paired with the last dish, so I traded it for a much sweeter and fruitier apricot puree. The ice cream and candied pinenuts were my favorite parts of the last dish and so they stayed, although the role of the pinenuts got diminished. I also added the buttermilk fromage blanc to replace some tanginess that was lost by dropping the truffle that had been on the first plate. I had planned to add chocolate to this dish; however, as I was plating it, I realized the dish really didn’t need this additional element and the overall effect was much fresher without it. I felt that this dish was both satisfying and a little summery.