Trader Joe’s is known for providing shoppers with delicious ingredients they can turn into quick, flavorful meals. If you’re looking for inspiration, the grocery store chain just announced the winning dish of its annual recipe contest—and you’re going to want to try it for yourself.
For the second year in a row, crew members at Trader Joe’s stores across the country were asked to create a single recipe using no more than five ingredients available in stores year-round. Judges did not count “freebie” ingredients like cooking oils, butter, sugar, salt, black pepper, and water as ingredients.
After judging almost 400 entries, store #426 in Houston, Texas, was named the winner of the competition with its recipe for Honey Gochujang Corn Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches. The dessert includes a box of Trader Joe’s cornbread mix, flour, honey, butter, French vanilla ice cream, and gochujang, a fermented chili paste that’s savory, sweet, spicy, and slightly funky.
Tara Miller and Matt Sloan discussed the dish on the most recent episode of the Inside Trader Joe’s podcast. In the episode, they interviewed Summer, the creator of the winning recipe, who told the hosts the dessert was inspired by her Louisiana background and a Cajun dish called Couche Couche, which is made from cornbread batter and served with milk or cream.
Summer said it took some trial and error to develop the dessert. “In my baking, I like to do weird stuff,” she told the hosts. “I love recipe development. That’s what I want to be when I grow up.” After noticing that the dough was too dry, she had the idea to mix in a little melted ice cream because the “extra fat” helps the ingredients bind together better.
Miller told Summer that the judges went silent when they tried her dessert. “That just doesn’t happen,” she added. “We can’t shut up, even with food in our mouths. The entire room went silent, and people just kept eating.”
The dessert consists of a scoop of vanilla ice cream sandwiched between two honey gochujang corn cookies. The cookies are made by combining the cornbread mix with flour, melted ice cream, honey, and butter. The dough is rolled into balls, then each ball is rolled in gochujang and baked for 15 minutes. You can find the step-by-step recipe for the ice cream sandwiches here.
