Ice cream cake

I got this recipe from a friend who got it from Good Food:

225 g blackberries
85 g caster sugar
1 dl water
1 squeeze of lemon juice
150 ml creme fraiche
icing sugar to taste

• Gently simmer the berries, caster sugar and water for 7-8 mintes, until the berries are soft, then let cool, add the squeeze of lemon juice and blend until smooth.
• Push through a sieve to get rid of the pips.
• Stir in the creme fraiche and add icing sugar if it's not sweet enough.
• Put in the freezer for 1 h, then take out and stir well. After that repeat the stirring every 45 minutes, this prevents ice crystals forming and makes it smooth and soft.
• Or if you are a lucky owner of an ice cream maker, freeze it in there.

Since creme fraiche comes in 200 ml or 500 ml tubs, I scaled up the recipe for 500 ml:

750 g blackberries
260 g caster sugar
3 dl water
1 tbsp lemon juice
500 ml creme fraiche
icing sugar to taste

This results in just over 2 l ready ice cream and is quite yummy.

The first lot I did was with full fat creme fraiche and there was no need for icing sugar. The second lot was with reduced fat creme fraiche, which tasted and looked like strained greek yogurt, so the resulting ice cream had a lot more sourness to it and a lot less fat, so I had to add a tbsp of icing sugar, which made it a bit too sweet.

Also the top tip for the scaled up version is to do the berry simmering the evening before and start the freezing process early in the morning. In both lots I did, I didn't get going until after lunch and had to stop the stirring by bedtime (around 21) and the ice crystals formed and the ice cream went hard.

Now part two - the cake.

I'm using ready bought sponges as they don't freeze (I ignore thinking of why they don't). It should be thick enough to cut in three layers. Towards the end of the ice cream stirring process, place the bottom sponge on a large plate, then put a thick layer of the thickened ice cream, about 1 cm thinck. Then put the next sponge, then a second thick layer of the ice cream, then the final sponge. This requires quick work, or the ice cream will melt, so keep everything ready at hand when starting. When done, put in the freezer for 24 h.

For the decoration, I melt 300 g of white chocolate and quickly cover the cake, both on top and the sides. The ice cream makes the chocolate go solid rather fast, so the decoration may take several go's. Actually 300 g is not quite enough for the sides and they are very difficult, particularly when the melted chocolate meets the ice cream, in fact it ends up in a mess. So a wide bow might be in order, to cover it up. Actually, another thing just crossed my mind. Edible paper is readily available now. Maybe cut out strips and stick onto the sides, then cover with chocolate. I'll give it a go next time I make this cake.

Actually, any ice cream will do, you need to let it soften to a stage where it can be spread on the sponges.

Note: Having the blackberry ice cream in the middle may give the impression of having put something very bloody in the cake, but hopefully people who make this association will forget it once they've tried the cake.