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Quite often our fridge will be full of leftover cake innards - dribs and drabs of lemon curd, spoonfuls of berry coulis and the most sought after "scrap", the cake offcuts. The latter being the chosen snack to satiate those afternoon cravings. Ben can quite often be found digging around in the fridge after work on a day where I have been creating a cake for one of life's celebrations - be that a birthday or in this case, a wedding. And now Beau and Viviana have cottoned on to the fact that when Mummy has a cake to create they will inevitably end up with crumb coated fingers and the question, "just one more piece?" will follow.
I always try my best to think of ways in which to use up these leftovers. So when Viviana had said with such certainty that she wanted an ice cream cake for her 2nd birthday party I was given the opportunity to use these "scraps" to make a multi-coloured 3 layered frozen treat. A 1-litre container of Vanilla ice cream was purchased, split into three and beaten together with a few large spoonfuls of lemon curd for the top layer, a river of deep purple swirled through the middle layer and a thick dark chocolate ganache followed by chunks of dark chocolate cake made up the bottom layer. It sat in the freezer for two days before being turned out onto a chilled plate, decorated simply with paper pinwheels and 2 tall white candles.
In the days following on from the party, our fridge was once again full of short, long, round containers stacked haphazardly upon one another. It was like a game of fridge Tetris and my mind was absorbed with the ideas of what our lunches and dinners would look like for the next few days. Of course, Ben made the most out of this opportunity to dive headfirst into the fridge upon returning from work in the late afternoon, raiding the contents. I haven't mentioned where I've hidden the last 2 slices of ice cream cake though....
Celebration ice cream cake
*This is not a recipe as such, more of a guide, but I hope it inspires you to try any number of flavour combinations. This recipe is all about ease, so just go with whatever you have on hand or purchase some ingredients.
1-litre vanilla ice cream (I like to use Bulla)
about 1/2 cup of lemon curd (store-bought or homemade)
a punnet of raspberries
1/4 cup berry coulis (you could also use jam for this)
1/2 cup chocolate ganache
1 cup of dark chocolate cake, broken up into chunks (you could also purchase a chocolate muffin, or make a batch if you don't happen to have cake offcuts)
Grease a 1-litre capacity domed cake tin and line with baking paper. I find if you scrunch the baking paper up and then smooth it out before pushing it down into the tin makes it easier to mould it around the sides.
Take out the ice cream from the freezer at least half an hour before you want to make this, this will allow it to soften and make it easier to beat in the flavours.
Place a third of the ice cream into the bowl of a stand mixer along with the lemon curd and beat until smooth. Spoon into the bottom of the cake tin. Take another third of ice cream and place into the bowl with the berry coulis and beat once again until smooth. Place the raspberries around the edge on top of the lemon curd layer and then cover with the berry layer. Place the remaining ice cream into the bowl with the ganache and beat until smooth, fold through the chocolate cake chunks and then spoon onto the berry layer, smoothing out the top.
Cover with a piece of foil and clamp tightly around the edge, place into the freezer for at least 24 hours, two days is even better. Pop a large plate into the freezer too, one that is big enough to turn the cake out onto.
When you are ready to unmould. Take the chilled plate out and invert the cake onto the plate. run a cloth under hot water and place it on top of the upturned tin. This will make it easier for the cake to slip out. Peel away the baking paper and serve.
Store any leftovers in the freezer. I'll leave it up to you whether or not you want to let the rest of the household know where you've hidden it.
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