Vanilla Strawberry Ice Cream Cake

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I recently bought a townhouse. To celebrate, I threw a housewarming party and decided to make an ice cream cake for dessert.

Dairy Queen ice cream cakes – yay or nay? I pretty much only like the cookie fudge middle. My plate is always left with sad looking vanilla and chocolate soft serve because I just eat the middle. But I think my problem with that cake is that it’s soft serve. If it was real ice cream, I think I’d love it.

So, my ice cream cake was going to be made with real ice cream. And not that stuff from the store that has a bunch of ingredients that I can’t pronounce, meaning they really shouldn’t be in my ice cream. I’m talking about the home make stuff – with egg yolks, and real vanilla, and only ingredients you’re familiar with! And you know what? It’s going to have cake too – because ice cream cake without the cake part, is just ice cream shaped like a cake if you ask me.

The great thing about this type of cake is that the options are endless! I went simple, but you can mix and match ice cream and cake flavours and add extras like cookies, crumbles, nuts, fruit, and sundae syrup between the layers. And multiple ice cream flavours!

Vanilla Strawberry Ice Cream Cake

Parts:

Vanilla cake

Vanilla ice cream

Strawberry jam

Whipped cream frosting

*Note, this cake takes 3 days to make

Vanilla Cake (Make on day 1)

Use your favorite vanilla cake recipe. I halved this one and baked it in a 6-inch pan. Feel free to use whatever size you like!

After baking and cooling the cake, cut into two layers. Wrap in plastic wrap and freeze overnight.

Alternatively, you can buy a pre-made pound cake.

Vanilla Ice Cream (Make on day 1 or 2)

You can use your favorite store bought ice cream. Or make it from scratch! I used this recipe by David Lebovitz. 

If making from scratch and refrigerating the base overnight, make on day 1. If not refrigerating base overnight, make on day 2 (same day as assembly).

Whipped Cream Frosting (Make on day 3)

Ingredients

2 cups whipping cream

1/3 cup icing sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla

Gel food colouring

Directions

1.  Chill metal bowl before whipping. Beat whipping cream until soft peaks.

2.  Sift icing sugar and add vanilla. Beat to stiff peaks.

3.  Add food colouring to your desired shade and beat to blend.

*I added a stabilizer (like Whip It http://www.amazon.com/Dr-Oetker-Stabilizer-Whipping-Packets/dp/B000NY8OLU), but since it’s going to be frozen, I don’t think it’s necessary in retrospect.

Assembly

Day 2:

1.  If using store bought ice cream, take out and soften for about 10-15 minutes before proceeding. If using scratch ice cream, it should be in soft-serve consistency (feel free to stick in the freezer until ready).

2.  Smear a little jam on the cake plate. Place frozen cake layer on top. Spread jam on top.

3.  Wrap stiff acetate tightly around the cake and tape to secure.

4.  Spread ice cream over the cake – up to you on how much and how tall you want the cake!

5.  Spread jam on the other cake layer. Carefully place it on top of the ice cream, jam side down.

6.  Freeze overnight.

Day 3:

7.  Make whipped cream frosting.

8.  Take acetate off cake. Frost cake with whipped cream and decorate to your preference. Freeze until ready to serve.

 

Acetate around the cake.

 

Verdict: This ice cream recipe was A-MAAAzing! So creamy, rich, and flavourful! I only used ¾ of it in the cake, so I had a bit left over. And good thing too because my friends requested it and devoured it! I’m dreaming up new flavour combos!

Pavlova + Cake = at least it sounds good!

It was the fiance's mom's birthday and I wanted to make a not-your-average cake for the dinner we were having at a restaurant. At first, I wanted to make a pavlova, but as I started making it, things were not working out and I had to figure out a way to salvage it. I didn't have time or ingredients to start over! I decided to make a single layer cake on the bottom, top it with the pavlova (or whatever came out of the oven) and add whipped cream to hold it together. I'll tell you right now that it didn't turn out as I'd hoped, but at least I learned a few things along the way:

Lessons learned while making this cake:

Do not wrap cake with a slice of bread. I read that to keep a cake moist overnight, a trick is to leave it out with a slice of bread on top. Well, I thought, Wouldn't it be better to wrap the cake in plastic wrap with a slice of bread on top? The answer is NO. The cake layer was waay too moist - like a pudding cake as someone described it. Ick. I should've just wrapped it in plastic wrap with out the bread as usual.

Making meringue in humidity is dangerous. OK, maybe not dangerous but inconsistent. The pavlova was supposed to be big and fluffy. It didn't get big, and it didn't get fluffy. The egg white and sugar mixture never formed stiff peaks on this humid Vancouver day.

Two tablespoons of egg whites out of the carton does not equal a large egg white from a shell. This is an eyeball comparison, but although the carton said they are equivalent, next time I'd use 3 tablespoons of egg whites to replace one large egg white.

If you want to have a go at this cake, take your favourite pavlova recipe (here's the one I used), half of a vanilla cake recipe (I used this one), and make some stabilized whipped cream, like this. 

Second time around, I would use a sponge cake for the bottom, like from here. 

Good luck! 

Here's a peek at the inside.

Whipped Frosting with Raspberry

Remember all those fails I was encountering? Getting closer, but still not there. This cake was better than this one, but still a bit dense and chewy. But I found a new great frosting!

I’ve been hesitant about using whipped cream in cakes because it droops with time. But I got my hands on some whipped cream stabilizer to keep it nice and stiff! There are a bunch of tricks floating around out there for stabilizing whipped cream – cornstarch, gelatin, marshmallow, mascarpone, draining, just to name a few. I’m not sure what’s in this stabilizer, but I suspect it’s cornstarch…

Anyways, this is my new favorite frosting because it’s so easy to make and use. No butter bring to room temperature and cream, no egg whites to heat. Just whip up with some icing sugar and you’re done.  PLUS, it’s not too sweet or heavy or rich!

Whipped Frosting with Raspberry

Ingredients

1 ½ cups whip/heavy cream

1 ½ Tablespoon stabilizer

¼ cup icing sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Pinch of salt

Jar of raspberry jam

*tip: place metal bowl in freezer before making frosting

Directions

1.    In a chilled metal bowl, whip the cream with a whisk attachment to soft peaks.

2.    Add stabilizer and whisk to blend.  Add sprinkle icing sugar, vanilla, and salt and beat to stiff peaks. Do not over beat.

3.    Line a piping bag with jam and add whipped cream. Don’t fill all the way – you’ll need to refill in batches because the jam runs out pretty quickly.

4.    Cover entire cake with a thin layer of whipped cream. I skipped this step because I was lazy, but you’ll definitely want to do this.

5.    Pipe roses (I used a 1M tip) ideally equally spaced apart and not overlapping. Fill in gaps with a smaller star tip.

Rose piping is the easiest decorating technique ever and even when your roses aren’t identical, the overall effect of the cake is pretty. I think has the highest prettiness to difficulty ratio, or to put it another way, the most bang for the (little) effort.

Anyways, back to recipe testing!