ICE CREAM CAKE

ICE CREAM CAKE

I don't think a cook's job should be to deceive, but there is something appealing about the fact that this looks and tastes as if it were incredibly hard work and yet involves no more than a bit of stirring. You must, though, serve a warm sauce with it - the crowning glory - and I've certainly given you options below.

To be frank, you can choose different biscuits, different nuts and nobbly bits to mix in with the ice cream and given crunch, texture and sudden shards of flavour. I find it hard to believe, however, that this could be in any way improved. Sorry, but that's just how it is.

Ingredients

2 Litres Vanilla ice cream

100 Grams Honey roast peanuts

200 Grams Peanut butter morsels (or nestle swirled milk chocolate or chocolate chips of your choice)

1 Crunchie bar broken into shards and dusty rubble

150 Grams Bourbon biscuits broken up into crumbs and rubble

1 Batch Chocolate sauce hot

1 Batch Butterscotch sauce (or chocolate peanut butter sauce)

Method

Let the ice cream soften either in the fridge for a while, or out in the kitchen.

Line a 20cm springform tin with clingfilm, both in the bottom and sides of the tin so that you have some overhang at the top.

Empty the slightly softened ice cream into a bowl and mix in the peanuts, 150g chocolate and peanut butter morsels or chocolate chips, Crunchie shards and 100g of the Bourbon biscuit crumbs.

Scrape the ice cream mixture into the springform tin, flattening the top like a cake, cover the top with clingfilm and place in the freezer to firm up.

Serve the cake straight from the freezer, unmoulding from the tin and pulling the clingfilm gently away, before putting on a plate or cake stand. Let it stand and soften for about 5 minutes before cutting.

Sprinkle the top of the cake with the extra 50g of chocolate and peanut butter morsels or chocolate chips, and the remaining Bourbon biscuit crumbs.

Cut into slices and serve with the butterscotch and chocolate sauces, letting both dribble lacily over each slice. If two sauces sound like too much trouble - they-re not - just opt for the chocolate peanut butter sauce. It's hard to find an argument against it.