We challenged chefs of three different skill levels - amateur Clarke, home cook Jon, and professional chef Jurgen David - to make us their take on an ice cream cake. Once each level of chef had presented their creations, we asked expert food scientist Rose to explain the choices each made along the way. Which cake will you be serving at your next party?
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hi, I'm Clark, and I'm a level one chef.
00:07Hi, I'm John, and I'm a level two chef.
00:09Hi, I'm Chef Juergen.
00:10I am the director of pastry research and development at the Institute of Culinary Education.
00:15I've been a professional pastry chef for 34 years.
00:20I love ice cream cake.
00:21Every summer as a kid, it was a must-have staple.
00:24A regular cake?
00:25Hate it.
00:26Ice cream cake?
00:27Fantastic.
00:28The best every time.
00:29Do you need to have a party to have ice cream cake?
00:31I don't think so.
00:32You can have ice cream cake any time you want.
00:41So we're going to start with the base, which is actually baking the cake.
00:44I'm going to use the strawberry cake mix, which is my all-time favorite.
00:48The one that comes out the moistest, in my opinion.
00:51So the ice cream cake I'm making today is going to have a brownie bottom.
00:54I figured it would be nice to have a light and fluffy base instead of a hard base.
00:58Sometimes that last little takes a lot out of you.
01:01So I want it to kind of glide through.
01:03We're going to stick in all of our wet ingredients.
01:06The butter, the eggs, one egg, and two egg.
01:09The sugar, the vanilla extract, how important.
01:13Time to do some whisking.
01:14Isn't this the greatest invention?
01:16Imagine what people had to do before this.
01:19Mix.
01:20Now I'm going to whisk this up.
01:22Grab another bowl and add in my egg yolks, the water, vegetable oil.
01:28And all of these are exact measurements from the cake mix.
01:31Throw this in the bowl.
01:33The base of my ice cream cake is going to be a vanilla cookie.
01:36I'm using unsalted butter because that way I get to choose how salty my dough will be.
01:43I'm actually going to add some salt.
01:45I'm using powdered sugar.
01:46I have a very expensive and beautiful vanilla bean.
01:51Run my knife over the back to make it flat.
01:55Cut it in two.
01:56And here's the best trick to get all the seeds out.
01:59Use the back of your knife and scrape all that beautiful vanilla goodness and add it
02:05to your cookie dough.
02:08I'm going to add one egg at a time.
02:11So I'm going to turn off this mixer.
02:12We're going to work on our dry ingredients now.
02:14We've got flour, cocoa powder, very important for brownies, our salt, baking powder.
02:20Just a slight whisk just to incorporate everything in there.
02:22I'm going to mix in my dry ingredients and my wet ingredients.
02:25Now we whisk.
02:26Not too much.
02:27My mom used to always say, like, don't overmix.
02:30Gotta respect the mom.
02:31I'm adding the flour in three additions so that we don't stand a big cloud of flour.
02:35You do not want to work this too long because that is going to create gluten that's going
02:41to make this tough.
02:42No one likes a tough cookie.
02:44Everything is combined.
02:45Perfect.
02:46That's beautiful.
02:47I think I'm all set with the whisking.
02:49I have to put this brownie mixture inside a nine-inch round pan.
02:54There's a piece of parchment paper in here that lines the bottom so I can take out the
02:57cake later.
02:58That's very important.
02:59If you don't do that, you gotta go through hell to take out your ice cream cake.
03:03I have some Pam cooking spray, and I'm just going to spray this all along the pan.
03:08I'm going to use an eight-inch ring for this cake.
03:11Roll the cookie dough between two sheets of parchment paper, the thickness of about a
03:16quarter-inch.
03:17I'm going to put this in the refrigerator just to chill it before I cut it with this
03:21ring.
03:22It's now nice and firm.
03:23I can remove the paper, use this cake ring, and then you have a perfect disc.
03:28Use a fork to dock this.
03:31Docking is something that you do so that your cookie stays flat.
03:36Now I'm going to add the mix in.
03:38I've got my oven preheated to 350 following the box instructions, and I'm just going to
03:42bake that for like 30 minutes.
03:44I'm going to spread out this brownie mix at the bottom of the pan just to make sure that
03:47we have a nice, even brownie.
03:50I'm going to put this in the oven, bake it at 350 for 20 minutes.
03:55This goes into the oven at 325 degrees until it starts to get a little tiny bit of color
04:00on the edge.
04:01We are back from the oven.
04:03It smells amazing.
04:04It's going to look so nice once I actually cut into it.
04:07You'll see that bright pink center, which is always so fun.
04:10At this point, you are going to want to eat the brownie.
04:13Don't.
04:14Do not eat the brownie.
04:15I want to eat the brownie so badly.
04:18Our cookie is ready.
04:19It has a little tiny bit of color.
04:21Make sure you let it cool before you place it in the freezer.
04:24Everything for the assembly of this cake needs to be freezer cold.
04:28And ice cream cake.
04:30So for my ice cream, I'm going to be using vanilla and chocolate.
04:33What I'm using today is green tea or matcha ice cream.
04:36It's a little more muted.
04:37These ice cream layers, I want them to be a little less sweet than everything else.
04:41I'm going to be making my own ice cream from scratch.
04:45I have never made my own ice cream in my life.
04:48The remaining sugar and the salt will go with the egg yolks.
04:53I'm just trying to dissolve the sugar in here while the sugar is dissolving in the milk
04:57in the pot.
04:59Use the hot milk and temper it with the egg yolk mixture so that I bring the temperature
05:05closer together.
05:07I make sure that way that this mixture does not overcook.
05:10Add the egg yolks in here.
05:13Gently stir until this mixture reaches, whoo, 170.
05:18This is done.
05:19We're putting it on the ice bath to stop it from cooking.
05:22Add the heavy cream to this.
05:25This is one of the most satisfying things I get to look at when I make ice cream.
05:30This space will now go into the refrigerator and mature for 24 hours.
05:35The ice cream base is separated into three batches.
05:38By adding cherry puree, I'm going to make a cherry ice cream, pistachio paste for the
05:43pistachio ice cream, vanilla paste for vanilla ice cream.
05:46Now that this is mixed together, the next step will be to make each ice cream batch
05:50and process it in the ice cream machine.
05:52It will take about 30 minutes per batch.
05:54We're looking for soft serve ice cream consistency.
05:58The ice cream looks like it's done.
06:01Nice and fluffy.
06:02So let's turn this off.
06:06Ready?
06:07Yum!
06:08No snacking.
06:09That happens later.
06:10Cherry ice cream, vanilla ice cream next.
06:12After all that work, we have our ice cream.
06:15Do not ask me to pick my favorite of these three.
06:18They're all equally delicious.
06:20For my layers, I'm going to be using some hot fudge and cookie dough right in the middle
06:24of the cake, and that's going to make the perfect crunch.
06:26Let's talk about the layers for my cake.
06:28Oreos and hot fudge, just like the ice cream cake that I grew up with.
06:33You need that crunchy, chocolatey layer in there to tie it all together.
06:38I'm going to be making a nut meringue.
06:41It's called a dacquoise in French.
06:43I'm going to make my own hot fudge today.
06:46Start with pouring in my condensed milk.
06:48Oh, this is going to take a bit.
06:50Adding to the condensed milk is going to be my chocolate chips.
06:53Stir it until the chocolate chips melt fully and are fully incorporated into the condensed
06:58milk.
06:59Put in the butter.
07:01Also the vanilla extract.
07:02Can't go without it.
07:03And once the butter's melted, congratulations.
07:05That's a hot fudge.
07:06You can put it on anything.
07:08You can even just drink it by itself.
07:10Not that I've ever done that.
07:11Take your egg whites.
07:15Start adding the granulated sugar slowly.
07:20I'm looking for a firm peak on this meringue.
07:23How do you know that this is ready?
07:25Have you heard about the cotton ball test?
07:28All right.
07:29So what I'm looking for is if I put this between my fingers and I squish it, it should feel
07:33like a cotton ball.
07:34Not quite ready.
07:35The meringue is going to start to look less shiny because that is also a telltale sign
07:41that it's ready.
07:42Feels like a cotton ball.
07:43This meringue is beautiful and I will show you the test my grandma showed me to see if
07:48it has the right consistency.
07:50She used to do it over my head anyways, so it was always very thrilling.
07:54Now that my meringue is ready, I will fold in the almond flour very carefully.
07:59So it's basically making a smooth movement through your mixture.
08:03It's like the letter J.
08:05Shape here again, shape here again, shape here again.
08:09This will make enough to make three eight-inch discs.
08:12Now there are many methods to crush Oreos.
08:14I could have used my just bare hands, gotten in there, but today I'm going to be civil.
08:18I'm going to chop them, get them tiny, get them crunchy, and there you have it.
08:24Starting from the center, I will pipe a big spiral.
08:28That's a very satisfying look.
08:31Dust it with some powdered sugar.
08:34The powdered sugar will provide a little crust and some extra sweetness.
08:38I'm going to do this three times and get them into the oven.
08:42Back from the oven, this is looking great.
08:43Adds a little extra texture and I love that.
08:46Now it's time to assemble my cake.
08:48I took my cake out of the pan, now I'm going to add some cling wrap into it so that I can
08:53lift the cake out once I've layered it.
08:55Now I'm going to add the cake back in.
08:57Oh my God.
08:59That was really nerve-wracking, but we're in and we only have one little crack.
09:03Going in with my chocolate ice cream first.
09:06This is softened a little bit to make it easier to spread.
09:09We're going edge to edge.
09:11I'm going to use this entire pint of ice cream.
09:14It's my favorite flavor of ice cream on the planet.
09:16I hate matcha.
09:17A matcha Oreo cake.
09:19I have no words.
09:20Wait, I'm speechless.
09:22And I have my first layer of matcha ice cream on top of the brownie.
09:27I got to throw this in the freezer just until it hardens.
09:30The pistachio ice cream will be the first layer on the cookie base.
09:34I'm using an offset spatula and mix it nice and flat.
09:38I like to put the flat side up so that the next layer also will be nice and flat.
09:45Back into the freezer, it goes immediately.
09:48I'm going in with the hot fudge.
09:50You got to do this real fast.
09:51I'm going to try to get it all over as much as I can.
09:55Smooth it out, smooth it out, smooth it out.
09:57And Oreos are going in.
09:59So there's my middle layer.
10:00I got to stick it in the freezer right now.
10:02Back from the freezer, we're going to build layer number two, vanilla ice cream.
10:06Press that in here once again.
10:08I'm going to place these amazing Amarena cherries in it.
10:12Create a small indent for each of the cherries.
10:17It's going to complement the cherry ice cream that's
10:20going to sit on top of that.
10:22Cold meringue disk goes on top.
10:25No time to talk.
10:26Let's get this back to the freezer.
10:28Now I'm going to add my cookie dough bites.
10:32These are like the edible cookie dough bites though, so none of the raw stuff.
10:36Not going to say what I was doing when I came up with this recipe.
10:38This is the cherry ice cream, so that means
10:42we're going to have three beautiful colors later on.
10:45And that back into the freezer until it's completely set.
10:49And now I'm going to add on the final layers.
10:51We're doing a big scoop of ice cream.
10:54Oh, this is perfectly spreadable.
10:57More of that cookie dough right on top.
11:00Take the cling wrap and press this all together.
11:04So I'm going to freeze this one more time.
11:06I'm out of the freezer yet again.
11:08It's ready for the final layer of matcha ice cream.
11:11Plastic wrap is on top.
11:14It's back to the freezer.
11:15Now it's time to decorate.
11:17I'm going to start by putting my Cool Whip all over the cake.
11:20I am not a frosting on an ice cream cake kind of girl
11:23because it's just too sweet, I think.
11:26I do not like Cool Whip.
11:27Tastes like plastic.
11:28Next question.
11:29Like, this is a masterpiece, honestly.
11:31And we're done.
11:32I'm just going to cover this quickly with strawberries.
11:34The strawberries bring a little touch of freshness to the cake
11:38and brings us back to that strawberry cake layer
11:40that's all the way on the bottom.
11:41So we really have, like, a little sandwich
11:43of symmetrical flavors.
11:45There's one last thing that I need to do,
11:46and that's just put matcha powder on top
11:49for a little pizzazz, for a little decor.
11:51Everybody likes a little matcha powder.
11:52Just a little bit in the sifter, and that's looking nice.
11:56And I'm going to make some whipped cream.
11:57It's going to be the frosting for my ice cream cake.
12:00This is just cream.
12:01There's nothing in it.
12:01There's no vanilla.
12:02There's no sugar.
12:03It doesn't have to be sweet since the rest of the ice cream
12:06cake is.
12:07All right, whipped cream is ready.
12:08Let's get this cake put together.
12:10I'm going to take my unsweetened whipped cream,
12:12and I'll place it on top on the side as well.
12:16I'm using a medium to large star tip on that.
12:19It makes it look nice and fluffy and fancy.
12:23And for the final touch, unicorn sprinkles.
12:26Actually, I love sprinkles because they even
12:28add some extra texture and some sweetness
12:31that's also really nice.
12:32Where does it go?
12:33Say it with me now.
12:34In the freezer.
12:35Off we go.
12:35Our cake is complete.
12:37This is my ice cream cake.
12:39And this is my ice cream cake.
12:42And this is my ice cream cake.
12:51This looks great.
12:52Dare I say even perfect?
12:54Look at them layers.
12:55What a cross section.
12:57See how straight and separated everything is?
12:59That's wonderful.
12:59That's just what I want because we eat with our eyes first.
13:09I'm not going to say I'm a chef, but this is good as hell.
13:13Every bite, you get a little bit of the crunchy texture.
13:15And then, of course, the cake is there, which is most of it,
13:18which is my favorite.
13:19The soft, fluffy brownie at the bottom,
13:22the layers of matcha ice cream that break up the sweetness,
13:25and the little crunch in between that I
13:26loved as a little kid and still love as an adult
13:29makes this a wonderful ice cream cake.
13:32The cherries are nice and soft.
13:34Everything just works together really well.
13:36You saw that this takes a lot of steps,
13:38a lot of waiting in between steps,
13:40but it's definitely worth it.
13:42This ice cream cake is everything
13:44I want in an ice cream cake.
13:48Ice cream cake is all about celebration.
13:50Let's see how each of our three chefs made theirs.
13:56Clark used a pre-made strawberry cake mix.
13:59The cake's pretty pink color is from artificial red 40,
14:02which is synthetic coloring approved by the FDA
14:05but sometimes associated with adverse health effects.
14:08John baked a brownie for his base layer.
14:10The only part of baking in this entire recipe,
14:13thank the Lord.
14:14Brownies already have a denser, less porous crumb than cake,
14:18and John's choices made his brownie cakier.
14:20He used cocoa powder, which has more starch and less
14:23fat than melted chocolate.
14:25As a result, his brownie was much more cake-like than gooey.
14:28Clark used store-bought chocolate and vanilla ice cream.
14:32Most commercial ice creams contain gums like carrageenan,
14:35which are polysaccharides or complex carbohydrates.
14:39These are used to stabilize the delicate combination
14:42of cream, sugar, air, and ice by replacing some of the cream.
14:47They prevent the ice cream from melting as well.
14:49Juergen made French or custard-style ice cream,
14:52which starts as a creme anglaise,
14:54which is a flat, thin layer of cream.
14:58which is a flowing custard with enough viscosity
15:00to coat the back of a spoon.
15:02Cream is added to the cooled creme anglaise before churning
15:05to make it thicker and even more decadent.
15:08Churning the mix serves two purposes.
15:10The addition of air, called overrun,
15:12inflates the volume of the initial mix,
15:15while freezing forms ice crystals
15:17and concentrates the milk proteins,
15:19sugar, and air together.
15:21["In the Hall of the Mountain King"]
15:24John made his own hot fudge by cooking chocolate chips
15:27with sweetened condensed milk,
15:29which is 42% sugar and viscous.
15:32The almond dacquoise Juergen made is a type of meringue
15:35that's equal parts almond flour, egg whites, and sugar.
15:38The structure is derived almost entirely
15:41from the egg white proteins,
15:43which can increase up to eight times
15:45their original volume when whipped.
15:46The final mixture is piped onto disks for baking
15:49at a low temperature so that the egg proteins
15:52don't overbake or collapse.
15:54Egg white proteins start to denature
15:56at 140 degrees Fahrenheit,
15:58and slightly higher with the addition of sugar,
16:01so low, gentle heating is the best method for the crispest,
16:05but tender and slightly chewy result.
16:07All three of our chefs were careful
16:09to keep each layer cold during assembly.
16:12My cake is back from the freezer.
16:14John crumbled Oreos between each ice cream layer.
16:17Oreos have an intense chocolate flavor
16:19because of the highly alkalized cocoa used in the cookie.
16:22The higher pH affects the anthocyanin pigments,
16:25making the chocolate very dark, almost black.
16:28Juergen added Amarena cherries to his cake,
16:31small, dark cherries stored in syrup
16:34and grown in Modena and Bologna, Italy.
16:37They're the perfect balance of sweet,
16:39sour, and slightly bitter.
16:41Ice cream cakes are irresistible.
16:43Next time you're making a frozen dessert,
16:45we hope you'll take tips from our three marvelous chefs.