The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.

I’m sitting back breathing sighs of relief, relax, and rest. Lots of R’s. My massive push at work has slowed. Looney Tunes is out the door and lemme tell you, Roadrunner and Wile E Coyote look pretty damn spiffy if I do say so myself. So if you have nothing to do this weekend, get yerself to the theatre to see…sigh…Cats and Dogs 2: The Revenge of Kitty Galore to see the Coyote Falls short air before it!! I know I know…

With all that said and done, I actually had time for Daring Bakers this month! I wanted to get to do pavlovas last month but was up to my eyeballs in coyotes and roadrunners! I really enjoyed this challenge but probably not for the right reasons. This was an epic fail for me in terms of presentation. Taste was quite yummy though my husband is now begging for a healthy Daring Bakers challenge soon or he’s going to pop!

I knew right away I wanted to do my flavors of ice cream to match that of a spumoni. Growing up in New Orleans, I took for granted the a-maz-ing Italian ice cream/ cookie shop there, Angelo Brocato’s and their delicious spumoni I grew up eating. It was just SO good and always came in thick slices with equally mushed together layers of pistachio, tutti frutti and lemon ice creams with a big chunk of frozen whipped cream in there for good measure. Seriously good. The frozen whipped cream with its little hidden mix-ins (If I remember correctly they had chopped almonds and chopped cherries) was my clear favorite. So for my ice creams, I did all of the above. I made one batch of vanilla and divvied it up. Some got green food coloring, chopped pistachios and a touch of pistachio candy flavoring. Some got strawberry extract, pink food coloring, maraschino cherry juice, chopped strawberries and cherries in it, some got a touch of yellow food coloring, a bit of lemon zest and lemon juice/ extract. They were all good. I’m still fairly new to ice cream making and on the fence if I prefer it with or without eggs, but the vanilla recipe provided was actually pretty tasty on its own. I’m sure I’ll be making it again soon. I made extra whipped cream filling for the swiss roll and added chopped almonds and cherries to it for the filling as well.

Problems came with my swiss roll. I’ve made swiss rolls before. Not my favorite, but not bad. Smart person me is making a banana rum cake the other night for a friend’s birthday at work. But low and behold…there’s just way more batter leftover than anticipated from this recipe. Lets make the swiss roll with it, I think. It puffed and smelled boozy and yummy when I took it out the oven. Flipped it to the tea towel and rolled it up.  Perfect. Well, not so perfect. The rum cake is a stickier, moister cake so by the time it cooled in the tea towel it had glued itself to the sugared towel and upon unrolling was cracked all over. It was a hot mess. Not wanting to waste perfectly yummy rum cake (and not wanting to re-dirty the nice clean bowls and things I just cleaned while it was baking!) I figured what the hell. Made up my whipped cream, slathered it on and attempted to re-roll. Here’s where it got ugly. The roll started to implode on itself from all the cracks and softness and not wanting to roll. By the time it was “rolled” I quickly took a knife to it and scattered the mess all over my bowl. Yuck. I seriously couldn’t stop laughing at it. It was the sketchiest swiss roll ever to live. It should have been on the island of misfit toys…but for swiss rolls. Poor thing. It tasted awesome, but looked just wrong. I layered my ice creams one by one with the whipped cream in there too and decided the thing needed to be tapped out of the ring. In my delirious swiss roll molestation, I had made the fudge sauce, which was quite tasty, and completely forgot about it as I dumped in the ice creams. It didn’t make it in the cake, but was happily eaten on top. The end result after a day in the freezer hardening?

This:

Such a sad looking cake.

So what do you do when life gives you jacked up but perfectly good ice cream cake? You cover it in meringue and pretend it was supposed to be a Baked Alaska all along, naturally!

Everything is better with a coating of yummy meringue. My hubby and I have a sweet spot for Baked Alaska as it was served at our wedding (with cake, of course) It’s the signature dessert at the restaurant we had our reception and they made us a giant one.

See? THAT is how you do a Baked Alaska.

Well the end result of my botched cake was actually pretty yummy. Got 2 thumbs up from the Doug and 2 from me as well. Good ratio of cake to ice cream and the fudge sauce was good too! Wish I would have got a photo of it before it was scarfed down. Thanks Sunita for a very summer worthy, fun challenge!!

Swiss roll ice cream cake

(inspired by the recipe of the same name from the Taste of Home website)

The Swiss rolls-

Preparation time- 10 minutes

Baking time- 10-12 minutes

Rolling and cooling time- at least 30 minutes

Filling-5-8 minutes

Filling and rolling- 5-10 minutes

Ingredients-

6 medium sized eggs

1 C / 225 gms caster sugar /8 oz+ extra for rolling

6 tblsp / 45gms/ a pinch over 1.5 oz of all purpose (plain) flour + 5 tblsp/40gm /a pinch under 1.5 oz of natural unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted together

2 tblsp /30ml / 1 fl oz of boiling water

a little oil for brushing the pans

For the filling-

2C / 500 mls/ 16 fl oz of whipping cream

1 vanilla pod, cut into small pieces of about ½ cm (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)

5 tblsp / 70gms/2.5oz of caster sugar

Method-

1. Pre heat the oven at 200 deg C /400 deg F approximately. Brush the baking pans ( 11 inches by 9 inches ) with a little oil and line with greaseproof baking paper. If you have just one pan, bake one cake and then let the pan cool completely before using it for the next cake.
2. In a large mixing bowl, add the eggs and sugar and beat till very thick; when the beaters are lifted, it should leave a trail on the surface for at least 10 seconds.

1. Add the flour mixture, in three batches and fold in gently with a spatula. Fold in the water.

1. Divide the mixture among the two baking pans and spread it out evenly, into the corners of the pans.
2. Place a pan in the centre of the pre heated oven and bake for about 10-12 minutes or till the centre is springy to the touch.

1. Spread a kitchen towel on the counter and sprinkle a little caster sugar over it.
2. Turn the cake on to the towel and peel away the baking paper. Trim any crisp edges.

1. Starting from one of the shorter sides, start to make a roll with the towel going inside. Cool the wrapped roll on a rack, seam side down.

1. Repeat the same for the next cake as well.
2. Grind together the vanilla pieces and sugar in a food processer till nicely mixed together. If you are using vanilla extract, just grind the sugar on its own and then add the sugar and extract to the cream.

1. In a large bowl, add the cream and vanilla-sugar mixture and beat till very thick.
2. Divide the cream mixture between the completely cooled cakes.
3. Open the rolls and spread the cream mixture, making sure it does not go right to the edges (a border of ½ an inch should be fine).

1. Roll the cakes up again, this time without the towel. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge till needed, seam side down.

The vanilla ice cream-

Preparation time-5 minutes+freezing

I have made the ice cream without an ice cream maker.

Ingredients-

2 and ½ C / 625 ml / 20 fl oz of whipping cream

1 vanilla bean, minced or 1 tsp/ 5 ml/ .15 fl oz vanilla extract

½ C / 115gms/ 4 oz of granulated sugar

Method-

Grind together the sugar and vanilla in a food processor. In a mixing bowl, add the cream and vanilla –sugar mixture and whisk lightly till everything is mixed together. If you are using the vanilla extract, grind the sugar on its own and then and the sugar along with the vanilla extract to the cream.

Pour into a freezer friendly container and freeze till firm around the edges. Remove from the freezer, beat till smooth and return to the freezer. Do this 3-4 times and then set completely.

The Hot fudge sauce- I made this just after adding the layer of vanilla ice cream to the cake.

Preparation time-2 minutes

Cooking time-2 minutes

Ingredients-

1 C / 230gms/ 8 oz of caster sugar

3 tblsp / 24gms/1.5 oz of natural unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tblsp /15gms/ 1 oz of cornflour/cornstarch

1 and ½ C /355ml /12 fl oz of water

1 tblsp /14gms/ 1 oz butter

1 tsp/5 ml / .15 fl oz vanilla extract

Method-

1. In a small saucepan, whisk together the sugar, cocoa powder, cornflour and water.

1. Place the pan over heat, and stir constantly, till it begins to thicken and is smooth (for about 2 minutes).
2. Remove from heat and mix in the butter and vanilla. Keep aside to cool .

The chocolate ice cream-

Preparation time- 5 minutes + freezing

Ingredients-

2C/ 500 ml whipping cream

1 C/230gms/8 oz caster sugar

3 tblsp/ 24 gms/1.5 oz of natural unsweetened cocoa powder

Method-

1. Grind together the sugar and the cocoa powder in a food processor .
2. In a saucepan, add all the ingredients and whisk lightly.
3. Place the pan over heat and keep stirring till it begins to bubble around the edges.

1. Remove from heat and cool completely before transferring to a freezer friendly container till firm around the edges. If you are using an ice cream maker, churn the ice cream according to the manufacturer’s instruction, after the mixture has cooled completely.
2. 5. Remove from the freezer, beat till smooth and return to the freezer. Do this 3-4 times and then set completely.

Assembly-

1. 1. Cut the Swiss rolls into 20 equal slices ( approximately 2 cms each ).

1. 2. Cover the bottom and sides of the bowl in which you are going to set the dessert with cling film/plastic wrap.

1. 3. Arrange two slices at the bottom of the pan, with their seam sides facing each other. Arrange the Swiss roll slices up the bowl, with the seam sides facing away from the bottom, to cover the sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till the slices are firm (at least 30 minutes).

1. 4. Soften the vanilla ice cream. Take the bowl out of the freezer, remove the cling film cover and add the ice cream on top of the cake slices. Spread it out to cover the bottom and sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till firm ( at least 1 hour)

1. 5. Add the fudge sauce over the vanilla ice cream, cover and freeze till firm . ( at least an hour)

1. 6. Soften the chocolate ice cream and spread it over the fudge sauce. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 4-5 hours till completely set .

1. 7. Remove the plastic cover, and place the serving plate on top of the bowl. Turn it upside down and remove the bowl and the plastic lining. If the bowl does not come away easily, wipe the outsides of the bowl with a kitchen towel dampened with hot water. The bowl will come away easily.

1. 8. Keep the cake out of the freezer for at least 10 minutes before slicing, depending on how hot your region is. Slice with a sharp knife, dipped in hot water.