Reductionist Baking: Mixing, Pouring, and Waiting (TWD)

This week's TWD is the Chocolate-Banded Ice Cream Torte, selected by Amy at Food, Family, and Fun. She calls it -- rightly so -- a "grown up ice cream cake." I call it -- also rightly so -- "an exercise in patience, perseverance, and hurrying through your photography so that the lights don't melt the product."

If you want to make this dessert, block off an entire afternoon and purchase the Season 1 DVD's of The Office. There's very little mixing involved, relatively speaking, but a lot of waiting around.

Here are the recipe Cliffs' Notes:

Mix, pour, wait. Spread, wait. Pour, wait. Spread. Curse because you didn't wait long enough and the chocolate isn't fully set (which is what caused the wave in the middle chocolate layer). Wait. Pour. Stick the thing in the back of the freezer for four hours (which is just fine because by now you're sick to death of it).

There you have it. Piece o' cake. Frozen cake.

This is a nice, elegant dessert, but I had a hell of a time serving it. Cutting a pretty slice was impossible. Cutting ANY slice was almost impossible -- mine was pretty hard (I had banished it to the freezer overnight.) I am convinced that the torte picture in the book was made in a special slice-shaped springform pan. I want one of those pans.

The Saint (my mom), who was the end-user of the torte, said it was a little easier after letting it sit out for a while, but then the chocolate layer slid around a bit.

To answer the question I know that someone will ask -- the Saint got the torte because I don't like chocolate desserts and the Golden Spouse doesn't like raspberry I am a wonderful, thoughtful, generous daughter.

(I don't know how the Golden Child feels about this dessert. And it really doesn't matter -- but he wants me to mention him in every post possible, so here he is. The Chocolate-Banded Ice Cream Torte, guest-starring the Golden Child.)