My husband makes wonderful macarons. He sometimes makes them just for fun. One time, he had made too much batter and decided to add little cat ears to the macarons. I wanted to fill them with some lemon cream custard but, I was very careless and put the egg yolks in while the sugar mixture was way too hot and added the lemon juice way too early so everything became separated. I whisked and whisked and whisked and all I ended up was thick lemon syrup.

I really didn’t want to just throw it way. But what can I use it for? It’s got eggs in it! And then a thought hit me, custard ice cream! What if I made it into ice cream? I quickly pulled out the ice cream maker and substituted sugar and flavoring with the accidental lemon syrup. With fingers crossed, I watch the ice cream maker slowly churn the pale yellow mixture. At first nothing happened, but then I could see ice cream forming along the sides of the maker. After a little while, lovely buttery yellow ice cream began to peak out over the top of the maker.

Much to our delight the ice cream came out perfectly smooth and with just right balance of of sweetness and tanginess. It tasted somewhere half way between a limoncello and lemon custard! At this point the macarons have all cooled down and are waiting to be filled. Well, what better filling than some lemon custard ice cream? But, there was one problem, how do we keep the ice cream neatly sandwiched between the macarons as they sit in the freezer to set?

Well, we need something that can hold its shape but also can be easily peeled off once the ice cream sets. I know many of the store bough ice cream sandwiches often come wrapped up in wax paper, so why not try it? I ended up cutting 1/2 inch wide long strips and after spreading the ice cream between two macaron cookies, I wrapped the thin wax paper strips around the ice cream so that it can hold it in place.

After an overnight freeze, all of the macaron ice cream sandwiches held their shape nicely! The wax paper was super easy to remove, and even left an uniform edge. As a final touch, we used pre-made black icing to add some cute faces. They were literally the happiest accidental desserts we’ve ever created.