"…it pleases us"

The Daring Bakers’ July challenge was a Swiss roll ice cream cake (see here). We made all the essential elements but did not quite manage to put them together. I was in charge of making two ice creams. Emily and I made the Swiss roll together. Here follows our recipes…

I’ve tried making ice cream a few times before but have not had oodles of success. I’ve gleaned from the blogosphere grapevine that David Lebovitz is the guru of ice cream, so I spent a little time perusing his blog and came away with some great ideas. I now know that the key for quality homemade ice cream is to not be afraid of fat. It is fattiness that gives ice cream its creaminess. Similarly, the key for quality homemade sorbet is to add liquid sugar such as glucose, golden syrup or honey or a little alcohol (or in my version, both). This stops the sorbet becoming too frozen and icy.

I’ve also run into trouble before by being impatient and pouring my custard or sorbet juice into the ice cream maker before it is thoroughly chilled. Don’t do this! Be sure to chill your custard or juice before putting it in the ice cream maker – preferably overnight. And then, after you take it out of the ice cream maker, chill it again so that it is properly frozen before serving. In my opinion, the Orange and Campari Sorbet was the winner of the day. It was incredibly easy to make and easily incredibly delicious.

Orange and Campari Sorbet

Adapted from David Lebovitz (but changed quite a bit)

Ingredients
1000mL orange juice (about 10 oranges)
100g granulated sugar
80mL Campari
75g golden syrup

• Place your oranges in hot water for a few minutes to heat them up. This helps to extract extra juice. I used about 10 oranges.

• Squeeze your oranges to create juice. There is no need to strain out the pulp; it adds to the texture!

• Put the sugar and golden syrup in a small non-reactive saucepan. Add enough juice to cover the sugar and syrup. Heat the mixture until the sugar is completely dissolved.

• Stir the sugar mixture with the remaining juice.

• Chill overnight before freezing in your ice cream machine. I then re-froze the mixture after taking it out of the machine to help it become completely frozen.

Mint Choc Chip Ice Cream

Adapted from David Lebovitz

Ingredients
250mL full fat milk
150g granulated sugar
500mL heavy/double cream
Pinch of salt
60–80g fresh mint leaves
5 large egg yolks
140g dark chocolate, chopped

• Warm the milk, sugar, half the cream, salt and mint in a medium saucepan.

• Scald the milk, then remove it from the heat. Cover and let it stand for 1 to 2 hours to infuse.

• Strain the milk mixture to remove the mint. Press the mint with a spatula to extract as much flavour and colour as possible. Discard the mint.

• Pour the remaining cream into a heavy bowl and place a clean strainer over the top. Set up an ice bath or sink-full of very cold water.

• Warm the milk mixture again but keep it well below simmering point. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks well. Very slowly whisk the warm milk into the yolks and then pour back into the saucepan.

• Warm the custard and stir constantly until it thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon. It should reach about 77°C. Don’t let it simmer or boil – it will curdle!

• Strain the mixture into the cream and stir over the ice bath to stop it cooking and cool it down.

• Place the custard in the fridge overnight before freezing it in your ice cream machine.

• Place a storage container in the freezer to cool it down. When the ice cream is nearly ready, melt the chocolate slowly in a double boiler until just melted and smooth.

• When the ice cream is ready, remove the cool storage container from the freezer. Drizzle some of the chocolate over the bottom of the container. Pour some of the ice cream over the top. Drizzle some more chocolate over the top of this and quickly stir through to break up the chocolate. Continue layering and stirring the ice cream and chocolate until it is all used up. Place in the freezer to chill for several hours.

• Enjoy!!

Grated Chocolate Swiss Roll

Adapted from the 1989 Australian Women’s Weekly Cakes & Slices Cookbook

Emily and I made the Swiss roll together. The recipe we used is from Emily’s mum’s 1989 Australian Women’s Weekly Cakes & Slices Cookbook. Emily used to make this when she was six years old, but two fully grown women still managed to have some extreme troubles with this dish! The roll broke up a lot when we rolled it up the first time (it was undercooked) but we just rearranged it so that the cracks were all underneath and cemented together with cream. Our advice is not to panic – like we did – if it looks like things might go awry. The roll was surprisingly salvageable. In terms of taste, it was pretty good. The cake part was lovely and light due to the whipped egg whites and grated chocolate. An oldie but a goodie.

Ingredients for roll
4 eggs, separated
½ cup caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
2 tbs hot water
60g dark chocolate, finely grated
½ cup self-raising flour

Ingredients for vanilla cream
½ cup thickened cream
2 tsp icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence

• Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 25cm x 30cm rectangular baking pan with baking paper and grease well.

• In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar for about 5 minutes until it is thick and creamy.

• Grate the chocolate finely and weigh out 60g.

• Transfer the mixture to a large bowl. Fold in the hot water, chocolate, then sifted flour.

• In another small bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold this into the other mixture and pour into the prepared pan.

• Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes. It should be just cooked. Meanwhile, sprinkle some foil (or baking paper) that is larger than the Swiss roll tray with some caster sugar.

• When the Swiss roll is ready, turn it immediately onto the prepared sugared foil or paper.

• Trim the crisp edges from the Swiss roll. Roll it up in the foil or paper from the long side. Stand for 2 minutes, unroll, and cool.

• Do not stress if you have a disaster like we did! You can patch up the breaks with cream and manoeuvre them out of sight.

• To make the vanilla cream, beat the cream, icing sugar and essence in a small bowl until soft peaks form. Spread the vanilla cream on the cooled Swiss roll and roll up. Voila!

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.

Tags: campari and orange sorbet, custard, Ice cream, mint choc chip ice cream, sorbet, swiss roll