Last summer I posted a comprehensive roundup of the best made-to-order ice cream sandwich in NYC, and there were plenty of formidable contenders. This season brings a few new examples that up the ice cream sandwich ante.

1. I mentioned a version of the brioche-gelato sandwich before, but the Italian-by-way of Brazil gelato shop A.B. Biagi does it one better by offering their take. The Pain Gelato features a choice of three brioche flavors–chocolate-chocolate nibs, orange blossom and regular–sourced from stellar Brooklyn bakery Bien Cuit. Each pairs well with a different gelato flavor. My stracciatella (similar to chocolate chip) went well with the chocolate brioche, which I wasn’t at all angry about. They place the brioche and gelato in a special, waffle-press-like contraption until the sides of the brioche are sealed. The result is a warm, crisp pocket filled with cold, silky gelato. There’s something especially indulgent about eating dessert in the form of a sandwich. There are two caveats–one, at $8, it is pricey and two, because they don’t want the gelato to leak out of the sides, the scoop is pretty small.

2. Dominique Ansel Bakery is best known for the perpetually imitated Cronut, but the shop’s signature item is a smaller version of the classic Breton pastry kougin-amann. The pastry is flaky, layer-y and sugary, similar to a croissant, but with a more pronounced caramelized, rather than butter, flavor. For their version of an ice cream sandwich (which technically isn’t new, but it’s new to me!), they take a DKA (Dominique’s Kouign Amann), cut it in half and fill it with two scoops of ice cream. The prailene ice cream creation below, for $6.75, was, for lack of a better word, awesome. The pastry is solid enough to hold the ice cream in place, and it’s sweet, but not overwhelmingly so, providing a perfect complement to the richness of the ice cream.

3. So this creation from recently featured ice creamery Hay Rosie Craft Ice Cream Co. is utterly insane–in the best possible way. Referred to as “the barnburner,” and costing a reasonable-for-its-size $8, this take on the ice cream sandwich incorporates ice cream nestled between a rotating roster of bookends. The day I went there was a choice between slabs of raw chocolate chip cookie dough or actual PB&J sandwiches. After assembly, both the filling and the shell are placed into the very same machine used to create the Pain Gelato, above. The chocolate chip cookie dough barnburner, which I paired with Grape Nuts ice cream, was rich. Like, this-is-really-good-but-I-can-only-eat-a-tenth-of-it rich. The dough had been warmed just enough to create some crispiness, but its DNA was still very much dough. I indulge in a bit of raw dough eating every now and then, but it’s not my absolute fave, the way it is for some. If that means you, you have found your kryptonite.

4. Newish Park Slope bakery Buterrmilk Bakeshop specializes in homestyle desserts, and their take on the ice cream sandwich reminds me of the sort of satisfying concoction you’d create in your own kitchen. Pick any two of their cookies–I went with one peanut butter and one chocolate chunk–and add a scoop of their homemade ice cream–I opted for coffee almond. The cookies are soft, buttery and crumbly, which makes the sandwich easy (no rock-hard cookie to fight your way through), albeit very messy to eat. At $5.50, it’s also a pretty good deal in the NYC ice cream sandwich market.