Vice Cream Cake

Ice cream cake is simple: cookie crumbles, ice cream, and syrup and/or preserves.



Remember when cookie used to be spelled "cooky?"  I wasn't alive then, but I read my mom's copy of Ginny's Baby-sitting Business (Catherine Woolley, 1969) in 2001, and there it was, "cooky" instead of cookie.




How kooky is that?!



Here's what went into this vice cream (ice cream) cake pie. (It's technically a vice cream cake but I didn't have a deep enough cake pan available.)

1 recipe of vanilla vice cream (about a quart)

About half a batch of Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles, minus the snickerdoodly parts (no sugar coating, cinnamon, and cayenne)

About half a batch of Vaniljkakor minus the jam (also known as Jam Thumbprints, recipe to follow)

1/4 cup cranberry sauce (the first part of this linked recipe; use sugar or maple syrup and cook the cranberries down until they explode and gel, about 20-30 minutes total)

I strenuously encourage you to make your own vegan ice cream.  Various and sundry commercial brands, while created by people who either care about the dairy-free or are just trying to get their scoop of the dairy-free market (I'm looking at you, Ben & Jerry), are nice in a pinch.  However, DIY OR DIE.  I'm done arguing this point anymore; making your own is better than store bought because of cost and taste.  My local grocery store carries vegan ice cream (shocker), but they also carry coconut milk, agave, xanthan gum, and tapioca starch, all of which are pantry staples for me (curry and baking).  Personally, I find commercial vice cream too sweet for my taste, as I noticed when making a cryogenic destruction dessert in late 2012.  I guess you could call this a type of cryogenic strata, though the only two ingredients I was "using up" were vice cream from Xmas and cranberry sauce from TC's birthday.

Viz., Cranberry Oatmeal Bars (If you're interested, I recommend you follow the Bob's Red Mill recipe, not my 2013 version.)



Is this recipe authentically Swedish?  Not the vegan and gluten-free version.  I follow a bunch of Swedes on Instagram, I listen to music created by Swedes, and I visited Sweden once in 2005.  I have no pretensions to understand Swedish culture, especially food.  I am from the pretentious school of thought, though, if it's more or less understandable in the original language, keep it that way, hence the title.



Vaniljkakor

Modified from Food.com

• 1 cup vegan margarine


• 2/3 cup powdered organic sugar


• 1/4 cup warm water


• 3 tablespoons finely ground flaxseed 


• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract


• 1 1/4 cup sorghum flour


• 1 cup GF oat flour


• 1/4 cup tapioca starch (only necessary for high altitude)


• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum


• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder


• [If you're actually making jam cookies, 1/3 cup jam]

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.


2. Line two baking sheets with parchment or Silpats and set aside.


3. In a small measuring cup, combine water and flaxseed and set aside.


4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the margarine and sugar until fluffy.


5. Beat in the flaxseed mixture and vanilla until combined.


6. In a separate bowl, sift then whisk together the flours, optional starch, xanthan gum, and baking powder.


7. Gradually add in the flour mixture to the margarine mixture and mix until thoroughly combined.


8. Using a tablespoon cookie scoop, arrange cookies about 1 1/2-inches apart on the prepared cookie sheets.  They don't spread much.


9. [If jamming, make an indent in each cookie and spoon about 1/4 teaspoon jam into the indents.  Yes, you will bake the jam into the cookies.]


10. Bake cookies for about 15 minutes or until domed up and golden on the bottoms.


11. Remove from the oven and let cool on the sheets for five minutes, before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Notes: For the sugar, I blitz regular organic and coconut sugars until powdery.  While you have the blender out, also blitz your ground (or whole) flaxseed to a fine powder.  If you are using coconut oil instead of margarine, you may need to add a pinch of salt.





Onto the cake.  Once you have assembled all your ingredients: your cookie base, your sauce or syrup, and your vice cream...

1. Make space in your freezer to house your container of choice.  A 9-inch pie, cake, or springform pan is dandy, and a lidded ensemble would be even better.


2. Let your vice cream soften.  You could put it in a glass bowl and microwave it in 10-second intervals until soft and pliant.  You could avoid bombarding it with EMF and just remember to move it from the freezer to the fridge about an hour before you're ready to assemble.


3. In a large bowl, use your hands and a potato masher (or pastry cutter) to crumble up those cookies.  You will only need to use about a dozen of each kind of cookie (or one entire batch, if you prefer chocolate or vanilla).


4. What, new ingredient?  PSYCH!  Melt 3 tablespoons of vegan margarine or coconut oil.


5. Mix the melted fatty substance into the cookie crumbs until moistened and they stick together when you press them to the side of the bowl.


6. Take the cookie crumbs and press about 2/3 of them into the pan of choice, across the bottom and up the sides, in approximate uniform thickness.


7. Take your melty vice cream and spread about 2/3 of it in the bottom of the crumbed pan.


8. Layer the rest of the crumbs (and maybe a little sauce/syrup, if you're feeling sinister) on top of the vice cream base.


9. Apply the rest of the vice cream to the stuff in the pan.


10. Smooth out the top and spread, drizzle, or otherwise add the sauce/syrup to your heart's content.


11. You may want to sprinkle 1/4 cup of sprinkles, nuts, coconut, or chocolate chips on top of the sauce, so as to keep your lid/plastic wrap from coming in contact with the cake itself.


12. Cover and freeze for an hour before serving.

You know what I would like to know?  Now that Picasa is gone, what is everyone using to save the proper orientations of their photos?!

This tool is how I did all the smoothing, spreading, and swirling in this recipe.  Bonus: it fits in the Vitamix without getting speared by the blades (once it's off, silly).  I'd like about five more Tovolo Multi-purpose Scrapers, please!

And no, I don't get paid to say that.  It seems like I do a lot of product placement and band mentioning, but believe me--all five of you who read Gothic Granola--no one has ever offered me free stuff.  I'd gladly offer an opinion for a sample, but I will never be anything other than brutally honest.  Let's face it, I also don't have the Google Analytics stats, post consistency, photography skillz, or makeup technique to merit free samples from the companies whose products I purchase. BLAGH.



Speaking of silicone, remember when I was so excited that TC and I got QALO rings in November 2015?  I am 700% disappointed.  I stopped wearing mine and switched back to my owl ring in May 2016.  Less than one year, and constant wear (as a wedding ring is generally meant to be worn 24/7), with my active lifestyle, and it stretched out to the point where I could fling it off my finger.  They're $20, so you get what you pay for!





I wish I could still find this on the Internets: a skull with flaming eyes in green beret, with the following text around/under it.  Mercenary Stagehands: When the Money's Gone, So are We!  I printed out a bumper sticker from some website and put it in my vinyl theatre bag when I was in high school, and it was a huge joke.  I was a stagehand (lights, sound, backstage tech) for a professional children's theatre and I was 100 percent a volunteer.  Get it?  Get it?!



I have the most awesome earworm right now, and it is a combination of London After Midnight's "Sacrifice," Sleetgrout's "Special Night," and Christian Death's "The Drowning."  "Special Night" and "Sacrifice" pick up after about the same interval of intro (00:57 and 1:13, respectively).  I've had "Special Night" since this past summer and have been singing along to "The Drowning" since I was a senior in high school (I graduated HS in 2008; song was released 1984 on the album Catastrophe Ballet).  "Sacrifice" on LAM's Selected Scenes from the End of the World came out in 1992...and I turned two years old on Halloween 1992.  Whatever happens to "nu" & "Goth" music, there's plenty of dark music that came out when I was either too young or non-extant for me to hear yet!