Homemade Blueberry Ice Cream Cake: My Way or No Way

Maya’s birthday was coming up. I asked her what she wanted, and she said she wanted to have a fridge full of blueberries the whole season. That’s something I could easily commit to, given our joint love of fruit in general, and especially blueberries. So, every week during this season, I’d come home with a 20-30lbs box of blueberries, seemingly filling our fridge with blueberries for that week. But lo and behold, they would be gone by the end of the week. How do two and a half people finish 20-30lbs blueberries in one week? I think we must be bears in disguise…

Maya’s other request was an ice cream cake. I figured I had better do it right. So I bought an ice cream machine on Craigslist, and got to work… It turns out Maya was thinking we would just buy an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen, ha! My idea was to combine three recipes: a chocolate base, blueberry ice cream and a blueberry sauce to go on top. By nature this is a bit of a long process, due to waiting periods to get everything to cool down, so I spread it out over two days which worked well.

If your ice cream maker has a bowl that must be in the freezer for 24 hours before using,  just store it (empty) in the freezer, that way it’s always ready to go. The ice cream mixture has to be at refrigerator temperature for best results, so you’ll have to make it in advance. Once the chocolate cake base is cool, place it in the freezer, even before constructing the cake, so that it doesn’t melt your ice cream. I used a spring form tin for the cake.

Once the cake is baked, take off the sides, and then shape the ice cream on top of the base using a spatula. At this stage you want your ice cream to be soft but not too soft, and you need to work relatively fast – so it doesn’t melt. Once it is shaped, it should go straight to the freezer, to cool back down again, at which point you can pour the sauce over it. Make sure you have a larger tray or plate holding the tin, so that it catches any of the sauce that spills over (and some will). Once you’ve poured the sauce over, ideally put it back in the freezer, for the sauce to harden a bit on top of the cake. When cutting the cake, it should be well frozen so it doesn’t fall apart. To get a clean cut easily, you might want to heat a knife by dipping it in boiling water and then wiping before each cut.

Chocolate Cake Base
(based on a recipe by Martha Stewart)

Dry ingredients:
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt

Wet ingredients:
1 egg yolk
1/4 cup buttermilk or yogurt
1/4 cup warm water
1 tablespoon butter (melted)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (pure, not artificial!)

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
2. Grease an 8-inch springform cake pan.
3. Mix all the dry ingredients.
4. Whisk in the wet ingredients.
5. Bake about 10 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
6. Leave to cool completely on a cooling rack, and then transfer to the freezer.

Blueberry Ice Cream
(based on a recipe by Melissa Clark)

1 1/2 cups blueberries
2 cups heavy cream
1/3 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons rum or vodka

1. Mash blueberries with a fork or with a potato masher.
2. Combine mashed blueberries with cream, sugar and salt and bring to a simmer.
3. Simmer till sugar dissolves, stir in rum or vodka.
4. Cool completely in a refrigerator or over an ice bath.

Blueberry Sauce
(based on a recipe by Ina Garten)

2 cups blueberries
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 cup water

1. Combine ingredients and bring to boil while stirring occasionally.
2. Lower heat and simmer until thick, around 15 minutes.
3. Either mash to wanted consistency or blend (if you want a smooth consistency).
4. Cool to room temperature and then refrigerate to cool completely.