- [Babish] Today we're celebrating National Ice Cream Day
on July 18th by taking ice cream to the next level
in an ice cream cake.
It's only fitting
that today's episode is sponsored by Sensodyne,
the #1 dentist recommended toothpaste for sensitive teeth.
If you have sensitive teeth,
Sensodyne Rapid Relief can protect your teeth
and help you enjoy the subject of today's episode:
ice cream cake.
Let's get down to basics.
(upbeat music)
(casual music)
So for the ice cream layers of our ice cream cake,
you could most certainly buy your favorite ice cream,
let it defrost in the fridge
until it has the consistency of soft serve,
and just use that.
But if you wanna make your very own custard from scratch,
here's how you do it.
We've got 15 ounces of whole milk,
12 ounces of heavy cream, and three ounces of sugar
that we're gonna bring to a bare simmer.
While that's coming up over medium, medium-low heat,
we are separating out six large egg yolks
into a large, heat-proof bowl.
And for our vanilla custard,
we're gonna scrape out the contents
of one large vanilla bean,
tossing those delicious little seeds
and our vanilla bean carcass
into our nearly-simmering dairy.
Whisk that to combine,
and then back over to the egg yolks,
where, at the very last minute,
we're gonna add 3 3/4 ounces of granulated sugar,
and whisking until thick and ribbony.
We're doing this at the last minute
because if you let egg yolks and sugar sit too long,
they can sort of scramble the eggs and ruin your texture.
Now, when the milk, cream, sugar,
and vanilla mixture just starts to bubble,
we're gonna use it to temper our eggs.
That is, slowly ladle in about half the mixture
while whisking constantly so as,
once again, not to scramble your eggs.
Kendall says I do this way too slowly,
so I don't know, maybe you can do it a little faster.
But once you've added about half the mixture,
it's safe to add it back to the pot,
once again, whisking constantly, nice and slow.
And bring it back on over to the stovetop,
where we're gonna heat it,
once again whisking pretty constantly,
to a temperature of 180 degrees Fahrenheit
over a medium, medium-low flame. Once you get her up there,
it's time to strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve,
both to catch our vanilla pod
and any accidentally-scrambled bits,
and allow to cool completely before churning.
We're also gonna do a chocolate ice cream layer
to this cake.
Very similar recipe, except for the addition of,
as you may have guessed, chocolate.
One ounce of cocoa powder
and a 1/2 teaspoon of instant espresso powder
get tiny-whisked into our 6 3/4 ounces of sugar.
We are also finely chopping four ounces
of high-quality dark chocolate
with every intention of melting it into our custard.
I forgot to divvy up the cocoa-sugar mixture
between the egg yolks and the cream.
No big deal.
Just means we're really gonna need that damp kitchen towel
wrapped around the base of our bowl to keep it steady
as we repeat all the steps
for the vanilla ice cream verbatim.
Temper the egg yolks with half the simmering dairy mixture.
Add it back to the pot.
Cook over a medium-low flame until it hits a buck 80,
whisking pretty constantly the whole time.
But this time, once we get up to temp,
we are adding all of that lovely chopped chocolate,
allowing it to gently melt into our custard,
deepening its chocolate flavor.
Whisk until no chunks o' chocolate remain.
Add a teaspoon of vanilla, if you like.
And then, just like with the vanilla,
it's time to strain through a fine-mesh sieve
and chill as quickly as possible.
Normally, that would mean at least four hours in the fridge.
But because I don't wanna
spend all day making an ice cream cake,
I'm gonna speed things up by virtue of an ice bath,
nestling my tub o' custard in a big ol' bowl
filled with ice and water,
whisking occasionally to make sure
that it's getting cooled evenly
until it's nice and chilly, about 42 degrees Fahrenheit.
Meanwhile, we can make our other stuff.
First, a simple caramel sauce.
8 1/2 ounces of sugar and 2 1/2 ounces of water
are combined in a high-walled saute pan,
brought to a simmer without stirring,
and cooked over medium-high heat
until they reach a lovely amber color.
During this process,
you might notice tiny little crystals starting to form
around the outside of the bubbling mixture.
These are bad news
and a one-way ticket to crystallizing your caramel.
The fix is simple:
keep a lid on your pot while the caramel is cooking.
The humidity in the pot will dissolve the crystals,
and you'll end up with a nice, smooth caramel.
Once everything's a nice amber golden-brown color,
we're gonna kill the heat
and carefully add two ounces of unsalted butter
cut up into small pieces,
whisking to make sure that it's fully melted.
A lot of people do cream and then butter,
but adding the butter first
helps cool things down a little bit
so the caramel doesn't bubble as frighteningly
when you add the cream, four ounces of it,
a little bit at a time, whisking constantly.
And by the time all the very scary bubbles have receded,
you should have a nice, smooth, creamy caramel.
Make sure you salt it generously.
Caramel without salt is like a mustache without a kiss,
or however the old saying goes.
And set aside to cool completely
while we make us some candied peanuts.
You can definitely just buy these.
You don't need to make them.
But I wanted to show you guys an example
of when you want to encourage
rather than discourage crystallization.
We're combining five ounces of sugar, three ounces of water,
and 10 ounces of roasted unsalted peanuts,
cooking over medium-high heat
and doing what you're never supposed to do with caramel:
stirring rigorously, which encourages crystallization,
as you're about to see.
The sugar's gonna start to seize up
and glue itself to the peanuts.
This is normally the point
at which you'd throw away your caramel and start over,
but we're gonna keep cooking it
over medium, medium-low heat
until the sugar starts to re-melt, caramelize,
and turn a lovely, toasty golden brown,
leaving us with some old-timey-style candied peanuts
that you can definitely just buy
and don't need to make on your own.
But if you do, go ahead and spread 'em out
on a parchment-lined baking sheet
and allow them to cool completely
before putting them to use in your ice cream cake.
I'm saving a bunch for garnish,
but I'm grabbing about cup, cup and a half of these
and smashing 'em up in a zip-top bag,
dumping 'em into a bowl,
and combining them with our cooled caramel
to make a chewy, crunchy, candy bar-like layer
in the center of our ice cream cake.
Now, we could stop the episode here.
You could just whip up a bowl of this stuff
and eat it with a spoon,
and you'd be perfectly happy with your life.
But whoever you're making this cake for
would be pretty disappointed on their birthday,
so we must soldier on.
Next up, a chocolate caramel fudge
that comes straight from Jess's family recipe book.
In a medium saucepan,
we are combining four ounces of unsalted butter,
one 12-ounce can of evaporated milk,
five ounces of sugar,
and two ounces of bittersweet chocolate.
Then, we're bringing it to a simmer
and cooking for 10 to 15 minutes, which should yield
a smooth, creamy chocolate fudge caramel thing
that freezes up beautifully
into a dense, chewy, flavorful layer.
Then, last but kind of first,
we have the base of our cake.
I've got about 12 ounces of chocolate sandwich cookies
that I'm gonna pulse in a food processor
until reduced to a fine dust
and combine with three ounces of melted unsalted butter.
This is gonna form a super easy crunchy cookie base
for our cake.
Now finally, to assemble,
I got myself a 10-inch springform pan,
which I'm going to line with acetate film.
You do not have to do this
if you plan on frosting your cake
with whipped cream or whatever,
but if you want a nice, clean, sharp exterior
that needs no frosting, this is your ticket.
This stuff's available for cheap online
and makes for beautiful cakes.
So, to finally start building our cake,
we're gonna dump our cookie-butter mixture
into the bottom of the cake pan
and find a nice flat-bottom thing, like this ramekin,
to press it firmly into a flat, even layer.
Go ahead and pop this into the freezer
for about half an hour whilst we commence to churning.
Now, once again, if you bought your ice cream,
this is not a step that you need to engage in.
Just let it defrost in the fridge
for half an hour to an hour,
beat it with a hand mixer
until it has the consistency of soft serve,
and you're good to go.
But if you joined us in making your own custard,
this is the time that we need to churn it
until it has the consistency of soft serve,
which, after a quick taste test,
we can form into the first layer of our cake.
It's as simple as dumping it in
and trying to smooth it out as, uh, smoothly as possible
so that you end up with nice, clean, even layers.
An offset spatula, bowl scraper,
or bench scraper are very useful in this situation.
Once we've got it spread out evenly,
this guy's headed back into the freezer
for about an hour to firm up,
and then this is optionally
where you can add your secret channel
of chocolate caramel fudge.
You'll notice that I'm digging a sort of ring
out of the ice cream,
and then it's into this ring
that I'm going to pipe our cooled fudge.
Top it up with your scooped-out ice cream,
and nobody'll even know that it's there.
Until they slice into it,
and that's, I mean, that's the whole idea.
Anyway, we're smoothing this guy back out
and dropping him back in the freezer
for at least another half hour,
just enough to firm up
so that we can add our layer of candied peanut caramel.
I love the things I get to say on this show sometimes.
Likewise, get that nice and super smooth.
Pop it back into the freezer
for another half hour to an hour,
during which time we can churn our next ice cream.
Once churned, we can add it to the cake,
get it nice and smooth just like the vanilla,
and that's it: the body of our cake is done.
To ensure structural integrity,
we're gonna let it camp out in the freezer overnight
before removing it, decorating, and serving.
Speaking of decorating,
I'm gonna make a super simple chocolate ganache,
one that will be liquid at room temperature
but solidify once it hits the cake.
We're just finely chopping nine ounces
of high-quality dark chocolate,
covering with 6 1/2 ounces of simmering heavy cream
in a heat-proof bowl,
covering, and letting sit for five minutes
before whisking into a smooth chocolate ganache.
Now, if you didn't chop your chocolate finely enough,
like me, you might find that you still have some chunkers
floating around in there,
and the fix for that is to place it over a double boiler
or a steaming pot of water
and let the gentle, steamy heat melt the chocolate
the rest of the way.
Once you got that nice and smooth
and placed into a squeeze bottle or piping bag of some kind,
it's time to lift it up, let it drape for the camera,
maybe stick your finger under there, grab yourself a sample.
Make sure it's not poisoned or anything.
Nope, no poison.
And then it's time to crack this bad boy open.
Now I'm just using my hot, hot hands
to warm the sides of the springform pan.
If you did not use the acetate film,
you might wanna run a butter knife around the outside
to separate it from the cake pan.
Once you've done that,
things should pop open pretty easily,
revealing a nice, neat ice cream cake,
depending, of course, on your attention to detail
and the steadiness of your hands,
both of which I have very little.
Once you've removed the film,
because of all the butter in the crust,
it should slide pretty easily
onto a cake stand for decoration.
But like all cake-moving processes, it's pretty harrowing.
Once you get it on there, though,
all there is left to do is make it look pretty again,
something I'm not terribly good at.
I also definitely made my ganache way too thick
so that it did not drip down the sides of the cake,
so I would do more like seven or eight ounces of chocolate
instead of nine.
But even if your drippage looks ugly as sin, like this,
we can still rescue it and make it look beautiful
by turning it into an aggro crag
of candy, nuts, cookies, wafers, sprinkles,
everything that you can imagine.
Ice cream cakes in and of themselves
are the definition of excess,
so you might as well go crazy with the toppings.
And as you can see, even with my crappy ganache,
this doesn't look half bad.
It's like an obstacle course of deliciousness.
Dip a sharp knife in a tall container of very hot water,
wipe it clean, and you should end up
with nice, clean cuts through your cake.
Now, here's a cross section
I've been looking forward to since yesterday.
Oh, yeah.
Candy bar ice cream cake, folks,
24 hours in the making and worth every calorie,
crunchy, creamy, chewy, sweet, salty,
and everything in between.
It is absolutely delicious, and oop, uh-oh.
Sensitive teeth, Andy?
Well, in that case, there's only one place to turn:
the sponsor of today's episode, Sensodyne.
Switching to a daily sensitivity toothpaste is an easy way
to make sure you can enjoy your favorite cold treats.
Just three days of twice-daily brushing
with Sensodyne Rapid Relief will help you be ready
to enjoy the foods and drinks you love without sensitivity,
which is especially timely with National Ice Cream Day
just around the corner on July 18th.
Life's too short to miss out on the things you love
due to twinges caused by sensitivity,
so start brushing twice daily
with Sensodyne Rapid Relief today
to enjoy your ice cream cake pain-free.
(jazzy easygoing music)