Ice Cream Cake

We decided, with it being a hot weekend forecast, that we'd make an ice cream cake... having flirted, (momentarily) with thoughts of making a gluten free 'arctic roll' type ice-cream-filled-roulade, common sense (and laziness) returned.  A silicone cake mould had been bought a few weeks before and we had some Swedish Glace vanilla in the freezer... that, with some added extras, would be our simple cake! 

The 'main' ingredients used were a whole pot of vanilla Swedish glace and mixed nuts.  We used pecans, pistachios and macadamias in the cake.  Flaked almonds were used on the top together with a few of the pistachios.

If we'd had them, we would have put in some gluten free mini macaroons/amaretti biscuits or honeycomb to add a bit of crunch to the mix.

Using a whole pot of Swedish Glace, we put it in a bowl and softened it up by stirring.



 Taking our assortment of nuts, they were lightly toasted in a hot frying pan (don't leave them for long, they catch and burn quickly) then allowed to cool.



The cooled, toasted nuts were then roughly chopped...





... before being added to the softened vanilla ice cream.  Sous Chef J had a bit of a struggle to get the mixture combined but managed it in the end.


Next, the nut and ice cream mix was added to the silicone mould, which was then put in a large plastic bag and put in the freezer overnight (or you could leave it

longer) to re-freeze.

Once it was nearly time to serve the ice cream cake, we had to 'ice' it... to do this we made a ganache using equal volumes of dark chocolate and double cream.   The cream was heated to just below boiling point, allowed to cool slightly and then the chocolate was added and stirred well until it was smooth and glossy.

Whilst we were letting the ganache cool, we turned out the cake from the silicone mould. This was surprisingly easy.



The 'cake' looked pretty impressive and was ready to be 'iced'.

Taking the cooled chocolate ganache, it was gently spread over the ice cream cake and allowed to 'find its level' - aka leak all over!

When the chocolate ganache had been added, we sprinkled over the remaining pistachios and flaked almonds together with some chocolate stars I'd found in the cupboard.

The cake was then returned to the freezer, briefly.  Finally, we sprinkled over some dried raspberries to go with the fresh raspberries we added to the final dish for serving.