The Best Way to Eat Ice Cream with Cake
By Sarah Jampel
Would you like a piece of cake right now? For Goodness Cake is here for you.
Today: Cold ice cream plus warm cake equals a bowl of soggy mush. Here’s a better way to eat ice cream and cake without compromising the integrity of either.
More: How to make ice cream cake without a recipe
If it seems like a good idea to encourage your two best friends to start dating, you haven’t spent enough time watching sitcoms and soap operas. Because if we can trust television, odds are that your two friends’ personalities will morph into one very boring version and you’ll be left prying open your eyelids as one person gushes to you about the other.
You’ll only be able to tolerate so much.
More: Chocolate coffee ice cream cake
The same thing is true for the union of ice cream and cake. It seems like a good idea—a cold scoop of ice cream atop a warm piece of cake—but the reality is that in this mingling, both components are compromised: The ice cream coalesces into the cake, both succumb to mush, and all individuality is lost. What was once two distinctly valuable desserts becomes a mess of sweet, soggy drippiness.
You’ll only be able to tolerate so much.
More: The easiest chocolate meringue ice cream cake
With this ice cream cake, however, both parts—the ice cream (roasted banana) and the cake (chocolate-date)—maintain their identities. Because the cake is frozen completely before a layer of just-churned ice cream is spread on top and the whole pan is sent back into the freezer, you’ll get two discrete layers. It’s a process that involves a tolerance for delayed gratification you probably never knew you had.
More: Whoever you are, there’s a cake for you
But in the end it means that the cake is complemented, rather than overpowered, by the ice cream—and vice versa. The fudgy, truffle-like texture of the cake stands up to the ice cream but becomes a bit softer; the richness from the dates and the chocolate is more pronounced with the barely-bitter banana flavor as a foil. Rather than icecreamcake, you get ice cream-cake—joint yet separate.
More: How to make a no-churn ice cream cake
It’s as if your dating friends have refused a couple name. They are not Bennifer or Brangelina or Kimye or Icecreamcake. And maybe you’ll decide it’s okay for them to date after all.
More: It’s time to change the way you feel about cheesecake
Chocolate-Date Cake Topped with Roasted Banana Ice Cream
Makes one 9- by 13-inch pan of ice cream cake; serves so many
Cake adapted from Mast Brothers Chocolate: A Family Cookbook; ice cream from Max Falkowitz at Serious Eats
For the cake:
2 cups water
2 teaspoons baking soda
14 ounces dates (I used Medjool)
¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
14 ounces dark chocolate, chopped (do not use chocolate chips, even if it’s tempting)
Preheat the oven to 375° F. Line a 9- by 13-inch pan with parchment paper, making sure the parchment hangs over the sides. You’ll need to use it as handles later in order to remove the cake from the pan.
Remove the pits from the dates and discard them. In a medium saucepan, combine water and baking soda and bring to a boil. Add the dates to the water, remove from heat, and let soak for 30 minutes.
As the dates soak (and you do want to do this next step as the dates soak, as they should still be warm when they’re needed next), use an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment to cream the butter and the sugar until fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the egg and mix until fully incorporated. Add the salt and mix. Add the flour ½ cup at a time, mixing until just incorporated.
Drain the dates and add them to the mixture. Add the chocolate and mix until evenly distributed. It will begin to melt into the warm dates—that’s good. Transfer the batter (which will be very thick) to the cake pan and spread it with a rubber spatula.
Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, until the center is still gooey and wobbly but the edges are set. Let the cake cool completely in the pan, then wrap it very well with plastic wrap and stick it in the freezer until it is completely frozen.
For the banana ice cream, the chocolate drizzle, and the cake assembly:
3 ripe bananas, sliced into ½-inch coins
¾ cup raw sugar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon lemon juice
2 cups cream
1 cup milk
3 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
50 grams coconut oil
When the cake is in the freezer, lower the oven temperature to 350° F. In a baking dish, toss the bananas with raw sugar. Bake until the bananas are very tender and the sugar is bubbling dramatically all around them.
Transfer the bananas to a blender and add the salt, lemon juice, cream, and milk. Blend on high until very well combined.
Chill the mixture until it is very cold, at least 3 hours. I recommend chilling the mixture as your cake freezes.
When the cake is frozen, churn the ice cream according to the manufacturer’s instructions. When the ice cream has been churned, spread it onto the frozen cake. Wrap the whole pan very, very well in plastic wrap and send it back into the freezer for at least 3 to 4 hours or, preferably, overnight.
When you’re ready to eat the cake, make the magic shell. Add the chocolate to a microwave-safe container with the coconut oil. Melt in 30-second intervals until liquid. Drizzle over the cake and let harden.
Remove the whole cake from the pan using the parchment handles. Let it sit at room temperature for 5 to 10 minutes, until it is soft enough that you can slice it with a knife. Serve with forks.
Photos by Mark Weinberg.
