Ice cream cake: when heaven freezes over

At first, I thought this recipe may be too amateur to post here, and then I realized this was The Rookie Cookbook, where professional photography is frowned upon and nothing is too amateur. Nothing. Thus, I present to you the ice cream cake.

Image 1. Homemade ice cream cake

This ice cream cake has a flourless chocolate cake base, topped with cheesecake ice cream, graham cracker crumbs, and dark chocolate ganache. In other words, it's heaven frozen over.

But enough of my babbling. Let's get to it.

Flourless chocolate cake relies on eggs to retain its shape, and the lack of flour can make it taste like a giant chocolate truffle. There's nothing wrong with that, but this isn't what I'm going for in this recipe, for which you need:

• 1/4 c coffee
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 c granulated sugar
• 1 c bitter chocolate chips
• 1/4 c unsalted butter
• 3 eggs, separated

The first thing you need to do is melt the chocolate chips, sugar, salt, and coffee over a double boiler. Once completely melted, add the butter one tablespoon at a time.

Image 2. Mmmmm butterrrrr

After you set that mixture aside to cool, you want to whip the yolks into a smooth, pale yellow liquid that falls in ribbons and whip the whites into - you guessed it - stiff peaks. This will impart a more airy texture than adding un-whipped eggs to the mix. To see a diagram of that, check out my tiramisu recipe here.

Pour the yolks into the whites, and add the cooled chocolate mixture little by little until fully incorporated. Pour into a baking tray lined with a baking sheet, like so:

Image 3. Ready for the oven

I baked the cake at 300 degrees, for 15 or 20 minutes (I cannot remember which. SORRY).

Image 4. Baked and punctured in the middle to ensure done-ness

After that's done, you want to set that in the freezer until it's cold enough to ensure that the ice cream doesn't transform into a puddle upon contact, but not so cold that it becomes hard to spread. As for the actual ice cream itself, you can use whatever you like, but I went with this:

Image 5. Sexy cheesecake ice cream.

Naturally, chocolate and cheese is my go-to. In a frenzy of inspiration I crushed some graham crackers all over the ice cream.

Image 6. Covered in graham crackers

Then I made some chocolate ganache (1 part bittersweet chocolate chips combined with 1 part heavy cream) and poured it over the top. After spending a night in the freezer, the ice cream cake was hard enough to be cut into squares and devoured.

Image 7. Gurl. Dat side view.

I experimented a second time with a brownie base, peanut butter & chocolate ice cream with peanut butter smeared over the top, and chocolate buttercream frosting. While definitely delicious, the first one definitely takes the cake (har har har), and the reasons for that are twofold:

1. The brownie gets really hard in the freezer. A chocolate cake (which, in my opinion, is just a brownie with a leavening agent added to it) base may fix this problem.
2. The chocolate frosting doesn't set the way the ganache does in the freezer, and instead migrates into a gooey mess.

The best thing about this recipe is that the possibilities are endless! Just pick up some ice cream at the store and start brainstorming about what flavors will go together (Ben & Jerry's works especially well for this, because more often than not they already come with a myriad of flavors combined). Good luck!