Honeycomb crackle ice cream cake

This cake was a big hit at work today. I’m not really suprised as it contains home made icecream and home made honeycomb, chocolate and rice bubbles.

The Recipe

There are three parts to this recipe, the base, the honeycomb and the icecream. You can make the base and honeycomb before hand if you wish. I made it all in one night so I started with the icecream and while waiting for the first 45min freezing time, got the base then the honeycomb made and even did the washing up!

The base

1 250g block of milk chocolate
A few large scoopfuls of rice bubbles (sorry didn’t count)

1. Line a 20cm spring form cake tin with baking paper
2. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler
3. Add rice bubbles a large serving spoonish at a time. Mix through until you get the consistency of chocolate crackles. You want enough chocolate to set but enough ricebubbles to give a constant crunch.
4. Spread the mixture over the bottom of the cake tin.

The honeycomb

I found this recipe in a forum somewhere but forgot to bookmark. This makes 3 times the amount of honeycomb you will need, but that isn’t a bad thing 😉
Feel free to try any recipe you want. You only need about a handful of honeycomb.

6 tbs white sugar
2 tbs golden syrup
2 tsp water
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1. Prepare a any heat proof flat dish with sides with baking paper over the top
2. Put sugar, golden syrup and water in a small saucepan. Stir over medium heat till the sugar is all disolved.
3. Let it boil for a few minutes
4. BE CAREFUL – take the syrup off the stove and add the bicarb soda and stir it through. It will froth. Pour it quickly onto your baking paper tray and spread it out. It isn’t too bad if your honeycomb doesn’t work out perfectly because you are going to crush it up anyway.
5. Set it aside to cool – it will set at room temp. Don’t try to move it too quickly as it will still be hot in the middle.

The icecream

I used the recipe for Vanilla icecream from David Lebovitz. It is the same recipe I used for my rocky road ice cream and is very very creamy (especially with pure double cream) but also very very yummy. Sure you could just buy icecream, let it go soft and refreeze but you are really missing the delicious taste of the custard and of the icecream.

1. Follow the recipe to make the icecream – be patient with the custard it does take a lot of time and stirring but it will thicken evenly and reward you in the end
2. Take off the heat and quickly set up an icebath.
I do mine with a large mixing bowl containing ice and water and put the cream and eventually the icecream in the medium sized stainless steel bowl
3. Pour cream into the medium mixing bowl. Strain the custard into the cream and then return the vanilla bean into mixture.
4. Using a hand mixer or a whisk, beat the mixture to get some air through it
5. Put in the freezer for 45min
6. Take out of the freezer and beat again. You want to make sure you get all the frozen stuff from the edges as you want the mixture to cool evenly all the way through.
7. Keep doing 5 and 6 until the soft serve stage (the time will depend on your freezer and how quick you are at getting it back into the freezer). In my old fridge it took 6 hours, this time it took 3.  Sometime during this stage melt some chocolate and drizzle it over the top. The beater will break it up and spread it through the mixture. Also break the honeycomb up into small chips and spread it through with the beating stage.
8. Once it is at the soft serve stage pour it into the base and store in the freezer overnight.

Take it from the freezer at home to the portable freezer your workmate has carted into work specifically for the cake. I only have a 10min drive to work so a freezer bag did the job for the journey. It didn’t even melt a tiny bit.

The details

David is going to work for IBM on the coast so today was his last day. Anna said her favourite cake was a chocolate krispee icecream cake (She is from England). So after working out that Krispees are ricebubbles the cake plan started. I’ve been looking for a reason to make honeycomb for a while and this just seemed perfect. We don’t have a freezer at work so Ed carted his huge portable in. The cake was devoured during our Friday chocolate biscuit meeting.

We then went and had a 3 course lunch at LAcademie. I had the escargot and the salmon, which was LOVELY and I am still full! You could tell that the serving staff were in training but it was still delightful.

In other good news, I now have left over egg whites. I think Macarons are on the menu this weekend.