Daring Bakers Challenge: Swiss Swirl Ice Cream Cake

The Daring Bakers July 2010 Challenge: Swiss Swirl Ice Cream Cake  was hosted by Sunita from Sunita’s World – Life and Food. Sunita challenged us to make this dessert from scratch consisting of  swiss rolls encasing 2 types of ice cream and a hot fudge sauce centre.  

Hooray! I’ve finally joined the Daring Bakers, a conglomerate of enthusiastic bakers and food bloggers around the world who participate in challenges set out once a month by a chosen host blogger. To read more about the Daring Bakers and how it all began, click on the underlined link above.  It took me awhile to actually sign up with the Daring Bakers but I’ve finally done it and I am excited at the prospect of trying out recipes that I wouldn’t normally attempt and blog about the experience on the 27th of each month; this is a wonderful platform to improve as a baker. Inaugarating my first pledge to the Daring Bakers is July’s challenge of a Swiss Swirl Ice Cream Cake, hosted by Sunita from Sunita’s World – Life and Food  who was inspired by a bombe dessert of the same name from Taste of Home. As this is supposed to be a challenge, the rule was to make all components of the dessert (basically an ice-cream bombe)  from scratch; including the swiss rolls and filling, ice cream flavour 1, ice cream flavour 2 and a hot fudge sauce centre. All five elements must be present but they are opened to various flavour interpretations; however we liked it to be so I’ve made my own swiss rolls, the chantilly cream with toasted almond flakes as the swiss roll filling, a salted butter caramel ice cream from David Lebovitz, a raspberry vanilla ice cream (I wanted something pink and berrylicious for a contrasting effect) from my Hot & Cold Dessert workbook from William Angliss Institute and I just followed the hot fudge sauce recipe from Sunita but with added dashes of Kahlua. 

I had three concerns when I saw this month’s challenge; firstly, I don’t own an icecream maker so I worried that my icecream will not be smooth if I churned it by hand, secondly, I was confounded by my busting freezer so emptying and reorganising space was a heck of a task, thirdly I needed people to eat the bombe as I can’t have that sweet indulgence lulling me from its subzero confines at ungodly hours of the night. Fortunately, J’s birthday is coming up late this week so we had a small gathering for an early birthday song and cake session on Sunday. You need to be quite methodical with this challenge; the ice creams should be prepared in advance,  especially for me as I had to churn both flavours by hand every 1 hour or so. My first concern dissolved as the icecream turned out really well, but not without significant effort which included 6 churns and lots of in between freezing time, all to ensure that  the ice crystals formed during freezing are broken down to get a smooth creamy consistency. Thank heavens for my hand-held blender! Electric beaters will work but I suspect it might cause messy splatters everywhere. 

Overall, I was happy with the flavour of the ice-cream bombe eaten as a whole; cake, fudge, icecream and all so it was a pretty special dessert. I struggled with the concept of the hot fudge sauce being in the centre of the bombe as the entire dessert is frozen so ‘hot’ fudge was a bit of an oxymoron for me; frozen fudge sounds more apt but semantics should be the last thing on my mind 😉 . Apart from that, I was slightly miffed about my bombe presentation and photos (didn’t put as much heart into this part, was rushing, no fancy flower to decorate and pretty flat plate to present it)..ahhh..the bombe could do with a covering of sexy oozy chocolate fudge sauce or ganache..mmmm… I’ll hold that thought for future attempts when my freezer’s half-empty again! 

 

    

the yummy salted butter caramel ice cream with crunchy bits of caramel praline

 the other yum yum raspberry vanilla ice cream 

Click here for Sunita’s original recipe.

Below is my interpretation of the challenge.

1) CHOCOLATE FLAVOURED SWISS ROLL

(adapted and slightly modified from Prepare and produce cakes by William Angliss Institute)
makes 1 swiss roll log 
*the swiss roll can be made the day before assembly, just chill the log of swiss roll in the fridge)

 A    350 g  eggs
       100 g sugar 

B    10 g cocoa powder
       70 g cake flour
       20 g cornflour 

Method 

  1. Pre-heat oven to 200oC and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. (I used a 39.3 cm x 26.6 cm x 1.6 cm baking tray)
  2. Place A in a bowl; with the double-boiling method, boil a small amount of water in a pot and reduce it to gentle simmer; sit the bowl atop the simmering water and ensure the base of the bowl isn’t directly touching the water. With electric beaters, whisk A until it reaches 38oC.
  3. After this temperature has been reached, whisk the mixture until it is cold (you should reach ribbon stage i.e. when you lift the whisk, it should leave a visible trail)
  4. Sift B and gently fold into A in 3 additions.
  5. Pour batter into prepared tray and spread it evenly. Bake immediately in pre-heated oven  for 12 minutes or until the roll is just baked and is still springy. Avoid crispy crusts as this will make rolling difficult.
  6. Turn out the roll upside down onto another greaseproof paper sprinkled with extra sugar, (this is to keep the sponge roll moist). Gently peel away the greaseproof paper it was baked on and cover with a clean tea towel; leave to cool
  7. Before filling, cut any crust formed and straighten all sides; place sponge on top of tea towel; spread the filling evenly, leave a clear 1 cm border around the sponge unfilled, sprinkle with a handful of toasted almond flakes and with the longest side of the rectangle facing you, gently roll the sponge sheet, using your tea towel as a guide to form it into a log; seam side down.
  8. Slice into roughly 2cm swiss rolls and use these to line the ice-cream bombe (see assembly instructions below)

2) SWISS ROLL FILLING 

250 ml thick cream (35% fat)
     30 g icing sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract 

optional: a handful of toasted almond flakes 

  1. Place all ingredients except for the almond flakes and beat to stiff peaks (do not overwhip as cream will separate)

3) ICE CREAM 1: SALTED BUTTER CARAMEL ICE CREAM (make 1 – 2 days before assembly)

Click the following links to David Lebovitz’s recipe for a mouth-watering toffee heaven icecream and tips on churning ice cream without a machine. 

Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream 

Tips on making ice cream without an ice-cream machine 

4) ICE CREAM 2: RASPBERRY VANILLA ICE CREAM (make 1 – 2 days before assembly)

(adapted from my class’s Hot & Cold Desserts handout at William Angliss Institute) 

for the Crème Anglaise Ice cream base 

500 ml   Milk
     1           Vanilla Bean
   125 g    Sugar
    5           Egg yolks
   150 g   Cream
   190 g   Raspberry Coulis 

for the raspberry Coulis
   250 g   Raspberries
   50 ml   Water
   100 g   Sugar 

  1. To make the coulis, bring all the coulis ingredients to the boil, simmer until dissolved, strain with a fine sieve to remove the seeds and set aside to cool
  2. Place egg yolks, scraped vanilla bean and sugar into a bowl; combine well with a whisk
  3. Add the milk to a pot and bring to the boil; slowly add this hot milk to the egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly.
  4. Place the custard base in a double boiler or in a bowl sitting atop a pot of simmering water like in step 2 of the Swiss Roll instructions and cook slowly; stirring constantly until the custard reaches a temperature of 82oC or as soon as it coats the back of a wooden spoon; remove the bowl from the steam and sit the bowl in a bigger bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process.
  5. Add the cream and raspberry coulis and chill in refrigerator until ready to churn; if using an ice-cream machine, follow the manual instructions; if churning by hand, use the same tips in the link provided under Ice Cream 1.

5) HOT FUDGE SAUCE (make on the day of assembly)

(developed by Sunita from Sunita’s World – Life and Food)

Ingredients:
1 C / 230 grams / 8 oz of caster sugar
3 TBS. / 24 grams /1.5 oz of natural unsweetened cocoa powder
2 TBS. /15 grams / 1 oz of corn flour/cornstarch
1 ½ C / 355 ml /12 fl oz of water
1 TBS. /14 grams/ 1 oz butter
1 tsp/ 5 ml / .15 fl oz vanilla extract

Note: I added 2 ½ tablespoons of Kahlua into the fudge sauce

  1. In a small saucepan, whisk together the sugar,cocoa powder, corn flour and water.
  2. Place the pan over heat, and stir constantly, till it begins to thicken and is smooth (for about 2 minutes).
  3. Remove from heat and mix in the butter and vanilla. Keep aside to cool.

TO ASSEMBLE THE SWISS SWIRL ICE CREAM CAKE/BOMBE

(adapted from Sunita’s Recipe)

  1. Line a deep bowl or dish with cling film/plastic wrap. ( I used a 2 litre capacity, 9 inch diameter and 4 inches deep pyrex bowl, same as Sunita’s)
  2. Arrange two swiss rolls at the bottom of the bowl, seam sides facing each other.  Then, arrange the Swiss roll slices up the bowl,with the seam sides facing away from the bottom, to cover the sides of the bowl.
  3. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till the slices are firm (at least 30 minutes)
  4. Remove Ice Cream 1 from the freezer 10 minutes before layering;  take the swiss roll lined bowl from the freezer, remove the cling film cover and add the ice cream on top of swiss rolls. Spread it out to cover the bottom and sides of the swiss roll mould. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till firm (at least 1 hour)
  5. Add the fudge sauce over Ice Cream 1, cover and freeze till firm. (I only used half of the fudge sauce as I wanted to fill it with more raspberry ice cream)
  6. Remove Ice Cream 2 and spread it over the frozen fudge sauce; cover with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 4-5 hours till completely set.
  7. To serve, remove the cling film and place a serving plate on top of the bowl. Turn it upside down and remove the bowl and the cling film 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.
  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.

 

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