We have a tradition of the kids choosing a theme for their birthday cake. I'm thankful that this year for Rilien's 11th birthday he chose a splice ice cream cake. This was significantly easier than past cakes - Transformer Bumblebee, Star Wars, Mario Kart, Despicable Me - you get the picture.
Just to be clear, this was not sugar free but I don’t have a problem with it.
We generally don’t have much added sugar during the week and this is a birthday.
As parents, our job is to help our kids build a positive relationship with food - all kinds of foods. Sugar is ok but only when you’re conscious of how much you’re having and when it's sometimes.
Suffice to say, he was pretty damn happy with it. And there's enough left for our Fun Family Friday night dessert this week too, plus leftovers of the sorbet for another time.
Here's how I went about making Rilien's Splice Ice Cream Cake.
Vanilla Ice Cream Ingredients
The vanilla ice cream served as the centre of the cake.
- 600ml pouring cream (not thickened)
- 1 can condensed milk
- 1 tsp vanilla powder
Vanilla Ice Cream Method
- Choose a dome bowl, then place line the bowl with something like plastic film or a thin cloth so there is plenty hanging over the edges (baking paper does not work for this).
- Whip all ingredients together until soft peaks form.
- Spoon the ice cream mixture into the bowl and cover the edges of the plastic over the top of the ice cream. (note, if you want to decorate the top of the cake or around the edges, keep aside about 5 tbs of the ice cream in a separate container to use to decorate the cake).
- Place in the freezer for a few hours until hard or overnight.
Splice Flavoured Ice Ingredients
You will need a food processor of some sort that is strong enough to blitz the ice
- 80-150g of sugar, milled to icing sugar *
- 300g chopped fresh pineapple
- 70-100g baby spinach
- Juice of 3 limes
- 700g ice
- 1 x egg white
*I used a Thermomix Sorbet recipe as the inspiration for this. It called for 150g of sugar but that was way too much for where our family's taste buds are at, so I used only 80g. If you've been cutting out sugar for a while, go the lower end. If you're still adjusting, go towards the higher end. Remember, the vanilla ice cream is sweet too.
Splice Flavoured Ice Method
- Remove the vanilla ice cream from the freezer.
- Place the pineapple, baby spinach, lime juice, egg white and 350g of ice in a blender and blitz for between 10 and 30 seconds. You want most of the ice to be broken down.
- Add the remaining 350g of ice and blitz again until smooth like an sortbet.
- Remove the vanilla ice cream from the bowl and turn upside onto a plate. Remove plastic.
- Now spoon some of the green splice ice onto the outside of the vanilla ice cream and use a spatula to wrap it around the cake. You will not use all the splice ice this time.
- Place the leftover sorbet into a container and place both the cake and the leftover sorbet into the freezer.
- Freeze for 20 minutes.
- Repeat steps 5 & 6 three more times. You may need to give the sorbet another blitz to soften it up again in order to add another layer to the cake.
- After the last round of adding the splice mixture, put in the freezer for 20 minutes again, then pull the cake out to add any decorations.
- Store any leftover splice ice for another day. Take it out of the freezer before your ready to use it, then just blitz it up again.
Notes:
IF YOU WANT TO DECORATE THE CAKE
I put about 5 tbs of the vanilla ice cream into a ziplock bag, cut off the corner, then piped around the bottom edge of the cake. Then I rotated placing Maltesers and slices of fresh strawberries. I used some of the ice cream to write the # 11 on the top too.
IF YOU'VE HAD THE CAKE IN FREEZER OVERNIGHT
If you've pre-made the cake and left it in the freezer overnight, remove the cake about 20-30 minutes before you're ready to cut - depending on the temperature of the day. If you don't do this, it will just mean the cake is very difficult to cut.