Chocolate Ice Cream Cake (and a Genoise)

I’ve been rather sporadic with my baking and posting and updating of my list of heavenly cakes lately, but I like to think I have a good excuse. I don’t, really, yet, other than “I’ve been busy”, but I’m sure everyone has the same problem. I did manage to bake the Génoise Rose last week, again a little too late to get it posted in time to be in sync with the rest of the heavenly cake bakers group.

My husband and I both agreed about this one — not a favourite. I don’t know whether it was because of the extremely uneven shape of my cake, or just the fact that it wasn’t torted and frosted, but we both found it to be rather dry and bland, even after 24-48 hours after syruping it. It was much improved by the addition of some leftover syrup from strawberry preserves I made last weekend, though! Thanks for the pointer to the method for the preserves, Desserts Divine! I also used the ice cream recipe from there…

…which brings us to this week’s topic: Ice cream cake! I told my husband this week’s theme, and mentioned that I’d never made an ice cream cake before. He said “Didn’t you try one a couple years ago?” “Nope, not to my knowledge.” “I guess I’ve never had a real home made one, then.”

I had a rather distressing baking night while making this, but looking back on it, it doesn’t seem like anything really went all that badly. At the time, though, I was too harried to really take many pictures.

I immediately ran into the same concern as one of my other baking friends over at My Sweet Life. I was convinced that I must have goofed up the math on the cocoa and boiling water combination, because it was way thicker than anything I was used to from a recipe of Rose’s. I redid the math, made sure it was right, and forged ahead, though. So, you add that to egg yolks and oil, and beat it up to a nice glossy smooth buttercream-like consistency. Sift over the dry ingredients, mix them in gradually, and you end up with something kind of the texture of a brownie batter. Add the vanilla, and the egg whites, and it’s more or less the thickness of a good creamy soup. It also smelled EXACTLY like the batter from my mom’s chocolate cake recipe. Hers is a one-bowl recipe of her own design, and you add boiling water (or coffee) at the end of the rest of the mixing. I’ll have to post it sometime, if I get her permission.

The batter is then supposed to go in a 10×2″ pan. All I have in 10″ round is a 3″, so I had to make do. Actually, now that I think about it, I may have misread, and used the pan instructions for the sandwich, but the batter amount for the cake. Oops.

The top of my cake had some really weird bubbling, but after taking it out of the oven, it subsided too quickly for there to be anything really worth taking a picture of. I attributed it to the too-deep pan. I’ve also noticed lately than when I bake anything with a thin batter, I get an off-centre slightly undercooked part, at the side of the pan closest to the front of the oven. This side of the cake is also almost always thicker than the back side. Do ya think maybe my oven and/or floor is unlevel?

Ah well. Torting the cake, and stuffing it into my 9″ springform pan went smoothly. My homemade strawberry ice cream from homemade preserves thawed and spread nicely over the cake, too. On went the top layer, then it was into the freezer, and time to make the chocolate snowball hot fudge sauce. I ran into trouble here, too.

What do you do when you need heavy cream, and all you have is milk? Well, you look for a substitution. Joy of Cooking told me that I could substitute 1/3 cup butter + 3/4 cup milk for 1 cup of cream. I figured since all you’re looking for is some liquid and some fat in a sauce it wouldn’t turn out too badly, and I was right. Except it was awfully runny… and there was a whole lot more than the 1 cup the recipe said it would make. Have you guessed where I goofed, yet? A substitution for 1 cup of cream is not the same as a substitution for 1/2 cup of cream. *facepalm* So, I melted and combined some more butter, chocolate, cocoa and vanilla, and whisked it all together. I was feeling rather sorry for myself over a heap of dishes when my husband came into the kitchen and wondered why I didn’t seem happy. “Nothing’s going right tonight. I shouldn’t bake in the evening after a day out in the sun weeding.” “What’s gone wrong? What can I do?” “I accidentally substituted for 1 cup instead of 1/2 cup of cream, so I had to get out more stuff and make a double batch of hot fudge sauce.” “Um, sweetie? That’s not really a problem.” I had to laugh. I think he’s probably right. 🙂

We both really like this cake. I found it neat how it’s almost like you get two different types of cake in it, in addition to the ice cream, because some of the ice cream layer melted into the cake below, and gives it a different texture. With the hot fudge on top, it’s a definite hit. Fortunately, it will keep well in the freezer, and it won’t make the trip well to work, so we don’t need to feel too badly about not sharing. 😉