TWD - Chocolate-Banded Ice Cream Torte

This week's recipe was chosen by Amy of Food, Family, and Fun. It is on pages 288-289 of Dorie's book, Baking From My Home to Yours.

I just made an ice cream cake for my husband's birthday of chocolate cake and mint chocolate chip ice cream. That one fed 20 people, so I did NOT want more ice cream cake hanging around. Mini cakes, it had to be. (and they are so cute, too)

In my opinion, almost any vessel can be used for this dessert. The recipe specifies a springform pan. In the past, I have made ice cream cakes with a springform pan as well, but this past time I took a tip and poured ice cream into the same plastic-lined cake pan I would use to bake my cakes so that I'd have a perfectly frozen same-size round of cake to place on top of my baked cakes. It worked perfectly.

So this time around, I made layers of ice cream and ganache in tiny cake pans and in a mini loaf pan: 2 4-inch cake layers and one mini loaf. I think you will agree they came out too cute!



This was the first torte, right after unmolding. I like to think it was my practice one. I wised up after this, and returned the torte to the freezer after unmolding to re-harden. I also didn't run as much water over the bottom of the pan to unmold. The ganache doesn't hard-set thanks to eggs and it really didn't need much coaxing to get soft enough to unmold.



This is the second cake-shaped mini torte. I really loved how it came out, and the inside looks GREAT.

I used homemade vanilla with Godiva liqueur and lots of mix-ins here. You can see a cross-section of the chips and nuts.

For the mini-loaf, I used Blue Bell Moolennium Crunch ice cream, which is another vanilla base with lots of nuts and chips.



Do you remember those desserts in the nineties called Viennetta? I remember the commercials - slicing into a loaf-shaped dessert that seemed to have layers of something crunchy. Well, they apparently don't sell them in the US anymore. If we go back to the UK I'll have to get one. This very much reminded me of the Viennetta!



My husband just absolutely loved these tortes. He was so excited to know that after dinner every day for about 6 days he got torte for dessert. Besides, who doesn't like saying the word "torte"! I feel fancy just saying I made one. That thickest layer of ganache up there on the loaf suuuuure is good. ;)

TWD - Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream

This week's Dorie Greenspan recipe was chosen by Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity. I was pretty excited about this recipe because I haven't used my Cuisinart ice cream maker in a while.

I'm usually not a big blueberry fan, but they went really well with the sour cream. I tasted the base before it went into the fridge and I knew I was going to like the ice cream - I also knew I wanted to try other fruits!

It's a very rich ice cream, and has that characteristic twang from the sour cream. I don't think everyone would like it, but my husband and I enjoyed both flavors we made.



(The deep rich color of the blueberry - which turned out to be more of a raspberry color - in the background, and the delicate strawberry flavor in the foreground.)

For the strawberry version, I used a cup of cut up strawberries and followed the recipe for the ice cream, but used only 1/4 cup sugar. I also had to partially sub half and half for the heavy cream. It turned out great, if a bit tart. The sour cream flavor worked completely differently for the strawberries.

You don't need much of this ice cream, it's rich and flavorful and satisfies easily.