Tuesday, August 26, 2008

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.)

12 comments:

Nancy/n.o.e said...

Love your cast of characters! Next time use a different ice cream and the Golden Spouse might love it! I used coffee and it was yummy! I was trying to figure out a work around for my spouse who is allergic to ice cream...
Nancy

chocolatechic said...

Yes, it was a bit time consuming, and my layers didn't freeze well, but wow! what flavor.

hoagiefest 2020 said...

The Office! Now THERE'S the secret ingredient I should have used!

Anonymous said...

I used the hot knife trick for slicing, but it was still a royal pain in the Golden Ass. ;)

Kelly said...

LOL... Golden Ass. I'm going to have to use that.

MacDuff said...

Yeah, Jon made the barf face for raspberry/chocolate desserts, too. But I liked it! The ice cream alone was "grab the headboard" worthy, in your words, in my opinion.

Nancy/n.o.e said...

Oops, I meant I was looking for a work-around for my spouse who is allergic to chocolate. He loves ice cream!
Nancy

Engineer Baker said...

I actually really like the ripple effect, but I bet the Saint appreciated it no matter what.

Bungalow Barbara said...

It looks like it made its own chocolate sauce. Not such a bad thing, really!

Eleganza Strings/ The DeLadurantey Family said...

Looks Good!

Jayne said...

Hahaha...your Golden Child did a fabulous job in his guest role!

Mine had that wavy layer, too, for the same reason - it just took forEVER to harden. Ah well. My kids slurped it right up!

Great job - awesome Cliff's Notes!

Anonymous said...

Your photos and layers are fab! I agre, we all need sliced shaped spring form pans. (I didn't relaize such things existed till I googled it...)