Ice cream meringue cakes may seem complicated, but it doesn’t need to be with Chef James Martin’s recipe as he makes look so simple.
An ice cream meringue cake is essentially a layered ice cream cake with Italian meringue on the outside.
Speaking earlier this morning on his hit ITV show James Martin’s Saturday Morning, James revealed that he was inspired by a family-run dairy in Cardiff, Llanfaes Dairy, that produces “amazing” ice cream.
There are several types of meringue, with the three most common being French, Swiss and Italian.
However, for this recipe, James opts for making an Italian-style meringue for the cake as it “works better”.
Ingredients
For the cake
Two vanilla shop-bought round cakes
One later vanilla ice cream
One litre pistachio ice cream
One litre raspberry ice cream
One litre peach ice cream
For the sauce
300g dark chocolate, malted
One tablespoon butter
25ml sugar stock syrup
For the meringue
225g caster sugar
100ml water
Four eggs, whites only
Method
Start by slicing through the cake in three horizontally. Then, put the first cake back onto the lined base of the cake tin and layer up half the ice cream, top with the middle cake, smooth over the rest of the ice cream and finish with the third cake slice.
Make sure to smooth everything over, cover in ice cream all over the sides and top-level off before putting it in the oven to freeze.
For the sauce, you simply need to whisk all the ingredients listed above together.
Then, for the meringue, place the sugar and water into a pan, and slowly bring to a boil until syrupy and the temp reaches 121 degrees.
Whisk the egg whites until firm peaks appear, turn the mixer to a low speed and pour the sugar mixture in a steady stream, beat for a further five minutes.
James shared a tip for anyone interested in making a “lovely” lemon meringue ice cream. He claimed you simply have to mix Italian-style meringue into ice cream as it’s being churned.
Next, spoon or pipe the meringue all over the ice cream and cake blow torch before slicing and serving with the chocolate sauce.
