By Leah Eskin / Chicago Tribune
Cake and ice cream make a good couple. They change any other out. One’s topsy-turvy cold, a other’s baked hot. One’s creamy, a other crumbles. One loves cold weather, a other resents it.
Blistering marital bliss. Ice cream insists on arctic temperatures; uncover it a sideboard or countertop, and it goes all drippy. Give cake a shelf in a freezer, and it turns frosty, crisp and dry.
The span could shelter to apart homes. But a small counseling, some eagerness to change can help. If cake can concentration on a best facilities — chocolate, sugarine and eggs — and abandon a aged habits — like butter and flour — it can live in pliant, tasty comfort alongside ice cream.
Win-win for them. Win-win for a rest of us.
Ice brick cake
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened, for pan
9 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs, separated
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
2 tablespoons brewed coffee
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon salt
¼ crater belligerent almonds (sold as dish or flour)
2 quarts coffee chip ice cream
Whipped cream, to serve, optional
Chocolate sauce, to serve, optional
Butter an 8-by-8-by-2-inch baking pan. Line a bottom with vellum paper, withdrawal some overhang. Butter vellum and shower with 1 tablespoon sugar.
Whip egg whites and 2 tablespoons sugarine to silken peaks with an electric mixer.
In a vast play set over simmering water, warp chocolate with coffee into a paste. Still operative over simmering water, stir in yolks, vanilla, salt and remaining 6 tablespoons sugar. Remove play from heat. Stir in one-third of a egg whites. Fold in remaining whites, afterwards a belligerent almonds.
Scrape beat into prepared pan. Bake during 350 degrees until only set, about 15 minutes. Cool. Grasp vellum overhang and lift out a cake.
Line a same vessel with cosmetic wrap, with several inches overhang. Scoop in somewhat malleable ice cream, dire resolutely and smoothing a top. Set cooled cake on top, sugar-side up. Cover with suspended cosmetic wrap. Freeze firm, during slightest 8 hours.
Unmold and uncover solidified cake-and-ice-cream square. Set cake-side down on a slicing board. Dip a complicated blade into prohibited water, clean dry and cut into 9 squares. Serve with churned cream and/or chocolate sauce. Makes 9 servings.