Oreo Ice Cream Chocolate Cake

Happy birthday Bake-Along!

Bake-Along, just like its name suggests, is a twice-a-month bake-along session started by these lovely ladies: Joyce from Kitchen Flavours, Lena from Frozen Wings and Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids. I joined Bake-Along halfway and got to know so many other new bloggers. It was a lovely journey and I’m sure there’d be many more to come!

To commemorate Bake-Along’s 1 year anniversary, the theme chosen is a Layered Cake – and boy I was so excited! After browsing my freezer and pantry and realized I still have some vanilla ice cream and plenty of Oreos left, I decided to bake an Ice Cream Cake – but in mini form for greater portion control.

I used two (three if you include the Oreo cookies) short-cuts while baking this cake – store-bought vanilla ice cream and Hershey’s chocolate sauce. I would probably use my own chocolate glaze the next time (it’s richer and more sinfully tasty), but that’ll be for another time.

Pardon for the weird colour of the photo… the candle light seemed to screwed up the lighting of the photo…

The cake base is my trusty chocolate genoise – it’s the perfect cake base because it is uber chocolatey (made with Varlhona cocoa powder) and it has a really soft texture so even when served straight from the freezer, the genoise is not tough and will not knock anyone’s teeth off.

I brushed the genoise with a rum-flavoured sugar syrup – giving the cake an alcoholic boost and a more adult feel (but feel free to use a plain sugar syrup if you’re going to serve it to kids). The syrup is necessary so as to prevent the genoise from drying out. For the ice cream portion, I mix the vanilla ice cream with plenty of crushed Oreos ice cream and some chocolate sauce.

The resulting cake is a pretty sinful but absolutely delicious cake – well, chocolate, ice cream, and Oreos… can’t go very wrong when combined together, right?

Start off with chocolate genoise – I’m showing a photo of the baked one because I’ve already featured the step-by-step for it in another post.

Cut the rounds using a cookie cutter.

Brush with a little syrup.

Place the rounds into ramekins.

Next, grab some Oreo cookies.

Or some other chocolate cookies, or waffle cookies etc…

Bash them with a rolling pin – an excellent exercise for relieving stress.

Grab some softened vanilla ice cream…

You can use chocolate ice cream or any other flavours!

Dump in the crushed Oreos.

Mix them together.

I decided to add in some chocolate sauce for some kick.

Divide the ice cream among the ramekins.

Top with another cake round and freeze for at least four hours.

Unmould… and serve!

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Oreo Ice Cream Chocolate Cake (makes 9 3-inch mini cakes or 1 7-inch large cake)

This recipe consists of 4 components:

1. Rum sugar syrup;
   
2. Chocolate genoise;
   
3. Ice cream; and
   
4. Chocolate glaze

It’s not a very complicated recipe, and this whole cake can be made in advance and served whenever you want to – just remember that once assembled, the cake should be kept frozen for at least 4 hours so that it doesn’t fall apart when you serve the cake.

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Rum Sugar Syrup

You’ll need:

1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup rum

Place the sugar and water in a small pot. Bring the mixture to a boil, swirling the pot to dissolve the sugar crystals. Boil for 2 – 3 minutes on high heat then remove the pot from heat. Let cool to room temperature before stirring in the rum.

Make ahead:
Make the syrup ahead and store up to 5 days in the refrigerator.

Variations:
[1] Substitute with any other liquer you like.
[2] To make a non-alcoholic syrup, omit the rum, up the sugar and water to 1/3 cup each.

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Chocolate Genoise

adapted from recipe Chocolate Raspberry Ruffle Cake by Julia Child: Lessons with Master Chefs

Hop over here for step-by-step photos and notes on making the genoise!

You’ll need:

45 grams (1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon) plain flour
35 grams (1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon) good-quality cocoa powder
4 eggs, cold or at room temperature
100 grams (1/2 cup) caster/granulated sugar
45 grams (3 tablespoons) hot, melted butter

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease 2 9-inch square baking trays and line the bottom with parchment paper. Set aside.

Sift the flour and cocoa powder together thrice. Set aside.

Place the eggs in a medium pot or a large metal mixing bowl. Add in the sugar and whisk immediately until combined. You must whisk the sugar immediately into the eggs otherwise lumps will form and it will be very hard to get rid of them later on.

Hold the pot / mixing bowl over medium-low heat and whisk the egg-sugar mixture constantly, to bring up the temperature until its like baby’s milk – warm but not hot. The mixture would be foamy. You can set it directly over the heat, just make sure that you remove it from time to time so you don’t end up with cooked eggs.

Transfer the mixture in the pot into a mixing bowl and whisk it with a hand-held electric mixer on high speed until the bubbles start to disappear. The mixture will triple in volume. Turn the mixer down to low and whisk it for at least 1 minute, to stabilize the air bubbles in the cake batter. The cake batter will leave a trail when you lift up the beaters and will sink and merge back slowly into the batter.

Sift in half of the flour mixture and gently fold it in until almost all are combined. Sift in the remaining half of the flour mixture and fold until no flour pockets are visible. Do not over-mix.

Add one-third of the cake batter into the hot, melted butter. Use a smaller spatula and fold the butter into the cake batter thoroughly. Pour the butter-mixed batter back into the rest of the cake batter and fold in gently.

Divide the cake batter between the trays. Tilt the trays so the batter spreads out evenly and drop it once on the counter top to burst the uneven air bubbles.

Bake in the middle rack for 10 to 12 minutes until the cake springs back when touched gently and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave it to cool completely.

Make ahead:
Make the cake one day ahead and store in an air-tight container in a cool place or in the refrigerator.

To make a 7-inch cake:
Bake the cake in a 7-inch baking pan (round or square is up to you) at 170 degrees Celsius for 15 to 20 minutes.

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Assembly

You’ll need:

Rum Sugar Syrup (as above)
Chocolate Genoise (as above)
2 1/4 cups (560 ml) vanilla ice cream – about 9 regular scoops
20 – 25 pieces of Oreos
1/4 cup Hershey’s chocolate sauce (optional)

Get 9 1/2-cup ramekins (3-inch base) and line the insides with plastic wrap, leaving an overhang. Set aside.

Use a 3-inch cookie cutter (that is the same size as the bottom of the ramekin) and cut out genoise rounds. You should get 18 rounds.

Brush both sides of one genoise round with the Rum Sugar Syrup and lay it on the bottom of the ramekin. Repeat until all the ramekins are lined with one genoise round.

Scoop the ice cream into a large mixing bowl and leave it to softened slightly. Place the Oreo cookies in a large ziploc bag and crushed them with a rolling pin – don’t crush them into smithereens, leave some large chunks in for texture. Dump the crushed Oreos and chocolate sauce into the softened ice cream and fold with a rubber spatula until fully mixed. Divide the ice cream mixture among the 9 ramekins.

Brush both sides of the remaining genoise rounds and place on the ramekins. Press down gently. Wrap the cake with the plastic wrap and freeze for at least 4 hours.

Variations:
[1] Substitute the vanilla ice cream with chocolate ice cream.
[2] Substitute the Oreos with other chocolate cookies.

To make a 7-inch cake:
Line the insides of a 7-inch cake tin with plastic wrap. Split the genoise into two. Brush one of the genoise halves both sides with syrup and lay at the bottom of the tin. Dump in all of the ice cream mix. Brush the remaining genoise half with syrup on both sides and lay it on top. Wrap and freeze.

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Chocolate Glaze

You’ll need:

115 grams dark chocolate, minimum 61% cocoa, chopped
90 ml heavy cream
2 tablespoons golden syrup / corn syrup

Stove method: Place the chopped chocolate in a heat-proof bowl. Place the heavy cream in a small pot and heat over medium heat until the heavy cream comes to a simmer (small bubbles appear on the sides of the pot). Pour the hot cream onto the chocolate and let it stand for 1 minute. Stir the mixture until all the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth. Stir in the golden syrup. Add more syrup until it’s of a consistency that you like (I like the glaze to be quite runny, so I use more than double the amount of syrup). Let it cool slightly.

Microwave method: Place the heavy cream in a microwave-safe bowl (glass or ceramic). Microwave the cream on medium for 30 seconds until the cream is hot. Add in the chopped chocolate and stir – the chocolate will start to melt. Place the bowl back into the microwave and microwave for 10 seconds. Stir the mixture and if there’s any remaining un-melted chocolate, repeat the process (do not microwave for too long at one go unless you want to burn your ganache). Stir in the golden syrup. Add more syrup until it’s of a consistency that you like. Let it cool slightly.

Make ahead:
Make the glaze one day ahead and store in an air-tight container in the refrigerator, warm it up slightly and stir until it is smooth before using.

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Serving

You’ll need:

Ice cream Cakes
Chocolate Glaze (as above)

Unmould the ice cream cakes and place it on serving plates. Pour the chocolate glaze over the ice cream cakes (or transfer the chocolate glaze into a small serving pot for the guests to add as much sauce as they like). Serve immediately.

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Happy baking!

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Tags: baking, Biscuits, Cake, CHOCOLATE, Cookies, food, frozen, genoise, ice cream, oreos, photography

• May 29, 2012
• 4) Desserts & Sweets, b) Medium, Bake-Along, Cakes (Chocolate), Chocolate, Creative Bakes, Events, Ices, Jellys, Mousses, Semifreddos, Special, Step-by-Step Photos
• 39 comments