Ice Cream Cake

There is a book which has been on my Amazon wish list for a while called 'Rose's Heavenly Cakes' by Rose Levy Beranbaum so imagine my surprise when I came across a blog called 'Heavenly Cake Baker' - where a bunch of very talented bakers are 'Julie and Julia-ing' their way through this book. That's something I'd quite like to do at some point but I need to find a baking book that I love so much that I literally want to try every single recipe. Perhaps Rose's book will be it.

Anyway, I digress - one of the cakes they made was a chocolate ice cream cake. As soon as I saw pictures, I was determined to make an ice cream cake and when a friend's birthday came up, my mind immediately went to the ice cream cake. Now try as I might, I couldn't find a recipe for Rose's version - I guess I just have to buy the book - so I decided to improvise and I used Nigella Lawson's Victoria Sponge recipe from 'How to be a Domestic Goddess' because it's just an incredibly simple yet flavourful recipe. I used Carte D'or's 'Vanilla' and 'Chocolate Inspiration' ice creams as they were buy one get one free but if you're feeling flush, I'd recommend buying a luxury brand of ice cream like Green & Blacks or Waitrose's Seriously Creamy Range. The great thing with this is you can mix it up as you feel like. I'll probably always have a layer of vanilla in mine but perhaps make the second layer coconut and lime ice cream in summer or use just different chocolate ice creams when I am having an intense chocolate craving. The spring form pan is your oyster! Go crazy!

Serves 10 – 12

Prepare about 24 hours before you intend to serve it.

Ingredients

Cake

338g unsalted butter, very soft

338g caster sugar

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

6 large eggs

300g self raising flour

38g corn flour

1 and a half teaspoons baking powder

6 tablespoons of milk

12 inch spring form pan

Filling

2 litres of ice cream - I used 1 litre each of two flavours

Fudge sauce

200g milk chocolate

100g white chocolate

300ml single cream

Whole milk

Cake

1 - Grease and flour your baking tin

2 - Preheat the oven to 180ºC/gas mark 4

3 - Cream the butter and sugar together till the butter has turned white. 

4 - Add the vanilla and then the eggs, one at a time, adding a spoonful of flour between each.

5 - Fold in the rest of the flour and the corn flour, adding no baking powder, and when all is incorporated, add the milk as you need.

6 - Pour and scrape the batter into the tin and bake for about 40 minutes until the cake is beginning to come away at the edges, is springy to the touch on top and a cake-tester comes out clean. 

7 - Take out cake and leave to cool for an hour.

Assembly

1 - When you take out the cake from the oven, take out your ice cream from the freezer.

2 - When cake is completely cool (about an hour), remove it from the spring form pan, and slice in half horizontally (Tip: Sticking toothpicks into the side of the cake at the halfway mark at regular intervals all the way around will help you guide your knife and cut it evenly)

3 - Put the bottom half back into the spring form pan (exposed side facing up). Handle the cake carefully as it will be delicate but don't worry too much about mistakes as you can cover a multitude of sins with the ice cream and fudge sauce.

4 - Evenly spread the first layer (1 litre) of ice cream on top of the half cake in the baking tin, making sure to spread it all the way to the edges. Follow with the second flavour, again spreading evenly and round the edges.

5 - Cover with the top half of the cake. Wrap the tin in cling film and place back into the freezer.

Fudge sauce

Make the fudge sauce about 10 minutes before you intend to serve the cake.

1 - Break the chocolate up and melt it (I melt chocolate in a Pyrex bowl placed in a wok partially filled with water)

2 - When melted, take the chocolate off the heat and stir in the cream, stirring continuously.

3 - You want it quite liquid as it will harden once it is poured onto the frozen cake so add milk to get it to a liquid consistency (think the consistency of gravy).

4 - When you are ready to serve the cake, place spring form tin on a large plate, open up the clasp and lift the side of the tin off the cake. 

5 - Pour the hot fudge sauce over the top, drizzling some down the sides. I kept half of the fudge sauce and poured a bit over each individual slice.

Tip: To cut the ice cream cake, have a pitcher of hot water nearby and dip the knife into it in between cutting each slice