Is it Ice Cream O'Clock yet?

There is no point in trying to be kind, so I'm just going to come out and say it:

Vanilla ice cream is CRAPPY.

It is a rare event where I find a vanilla ice cream I like - because most of them are either flavourless, artificial-tasting, or just plain old' BLAH. A vast majority of commercial vanilla ice cream is just not worth the calories, which is not generally something I would say about ANY ice cream. There are a few premium vanilla ice creams which are mostly okay (Sara Lee, I'm looking at you) but most of them are just pathetic. As the inventor of 'ice cream o'clock' - which is the offical time of day or night when you feel the need to eat some ice cream - I feel I'm fairly well qualified to wax lyrical on the crappiness of vanilla ice cream.

I'm nothing if not fair, though, so when DD2 saw this recipe for an ice cream cake ... which involved copious amounts of vanilla ice cream.. I couldn't possibly refuse her, now could I? Plus I might have been just the tiniest bit influenced by the fact that this recipe also includes chocolate, 2 whole packages of sprinkles, and savioardi biscuits. Even bad vanilla ice cream can surely be improved by all those additions, right?

Absolutely right.

Chocolate Freckle Ice Cream Cake

2 litres vanilla ice cream
200g butter, softened
1 1/2 cups pure icing sugar
4 eggs at room temp
400g good quality dark chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup thickened cream
250g sponge finger biscuits
2 x 175g packets hundreds and thousands (sprinkles)

1. Remove ice cream from the freezer and allow to stand while you do all the other bits.
2. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until pale. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition - the mixture may look curdled but that's fine.
3. Combine chocolate and cream in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for one minute and stir, and continue one minute at a time until melted and smooth. Add to butter mixture and beat until smooth.
4. Sprinkle one packet of hundreds and thousands into the bottom of a springform tin (25cm base). Spoon over half the chocolate mixture, taking care not to disturb the sprinkles.
5. Cut all the biscuits in half, length ways to make two thinner fingers (as though you are torting a cake, not right down the middle but across the width.) Lay these over the chocolate mixture in a single layer, cutting some smaller if need be. Spoon over the ice cream and gently smooth.
6. Press remaining biscuits into the tin and then pour over the remaining chocolate mixture. The sprinkle over the remaining packet of sprinkles. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and foil and freeze overnight.


This cake was, in a word, totally AWESOME and would make a great, quick cake for a kids' birthday or family event. In our case it was the perfect dessert for Oscars watching! A word of warning, you need to use quite a large springform. Ours wasn't quite big enough so we ended up in a delicious mess - all it meant was that the next day I had to flip the cake over and use the bottom as the top. No less delicious and fabulous but the sprinkles were not as bright as I would have liked.