Friday, January 20, 2006

The ice cream zucchotto (Jamie Oliver inspiration)


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During Christmas, I happened to watch an old Jamie Oliver Christmas show, I think it might have been filmed in New York. I was sniffing around for a nice dessert to make for a post holiday dinner with the fiance's family, so it had to be something nice. Jamie, my personal favourite "celebrity" chef (the lisp just does something for me! The other day I was telling a friend of mine how he might just be a semblance of the ideal man: mentor in the kitchen, trainee in, well, the other rooms:D Meh, my fiance reads this you know!). Anyway! He basically created a dessert which was meant to be an alternative to the usual english Christmas pudding, the heavy, liquor-laced dessert with all the dried fruit. I've never had it actually, just looking at it gives me a bit of an indigestion, but I promise I will first chance I get. I'd probably taste anything.
His recipe was basically for a globe-shaped cake with a stuffing in the middle, comprising of ricotta cheese, sugar, cherries, dried fruit, almonds, coffee and melted chocolate. My version was the "can't be asked" version, which I suspect must also be a little cheaper. So I simply made the cake and replaced the riocotta filling with plain ice cream.

The cake:
200 gr butter
200 gr sugar
200 gr flour (self raising. If you only have normal, add 3 teaspoons of baking powder on top of what the recipe already requires. So in this case, a total of 4 teaspoons)
1 teaspoon baking powder (see above)
3 eggs
3 tablespoons cocoa powder

Mix it all up, preferably eggs and sugar first. Bake in two round, flat forms, one slightly smaller than the other. The objective is to make two flat pieces of cake, like you would use in an actual layer cake. It should be fluffy, but not too thick. Bake at 190 degrees for about 10 to 15 minutes. Let them cool well before you handle them.

Next, take a round bowl and line it with plastic foil. Once the cake has cooled down, take the bigger slice and cut it like a pizza, in 8 slices, which you then place in the lined bowl, so as to make a small cake dome. Next, you fill the "cake bowl" with ice cream ( I used vanilla ice cream with strawberry sirup). The ice cream should be a little soft and melty, to enable easy handling. Place the second, smaller cake slice on top, like a lid, add a plate or something that matches the shape on top (so there will be a bit of pressure applied to the cake) and freeze everything for 2-3 hours. Make sure you let the cake defrost a couple of minutes before you serve it.

1 Comments:

At Friday, July 13, 2007 9:58:00 AM, Blogger lastAutumn said...

You're inventive, really)) Oliver should add you to the credits after his program for developing his idea!

 

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