America's Test Kitchen Season 26 Episode 6

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Transcript

00:00Satsang with Mooji

00:30Today on America's Test Kitchen,

00:39Lon makes Julia a show-stopping ice cream cake.

00:44And Dan reveals the unexpected cooling powers of melting ice.

00:49It's all coming up right here on America's Test Kitchen.

01:00I've eaten ice cream cake my entire life because it's my signature birthday cake.

01:05And it's always been roughly the same, with a layer or two of ice cream separated with chocolate cookie crumbles.

01:11But today, Lon's going to show me a new kind of ice cream cake that actually includes a layer of actual cake.

01:17Cake and ice cream cake. It's shocking.

01:20Mind blown.

01:21I worked at a restaurant where whenever it was someone's birthday, front of the house, back of the house, didn't matter,

01:26my job was to run to the ice cream shop next door to pick up an ice cream cake for staff meal.

01:31And that was where I got to try this when I was assigned this recipe.

01:35I went straight to the ice cream shop to talk to Gus and Mimi Rancatori, who run Toscaninis,

01:41to learn how they make their ice cream cake.

01:43So that's what I'm going to show you.

01:44Okay.

01:44So I know we've talked about cake and ice cream.

01:46We're starting with fudge sauce.

01:49It's going to be the thing that brings those two layers together.

01:51And it's really easy.

01:53So we're going to start with seven tablespoons of unsalted butter.

01:56I've got it in a small pot here, and it's cut up into little chunks so it melts faster.

02:00To that, I'm adding a third of a cup of milk.

02:04So I've got a cup of sugar here.

02:06It's going to go right in.

02:09And we're going to heat this gently over medium-low heat.

02:12And all I'm looking for here is the butter to melt and that sugar to start dissolving.

02:16It's going to take maybe three minutes.

02:18Okay.

02:18So while you keep an eye on that, I'm going to get to the chocolatey bits.

02:21So this is a half a cup of cocoa powder, unsweetened, because we want to control the sugar.

02:27Next up is some heavy cream.

02:29This is a third of a cup.

02:31Finally, a little bit more sugar.

02:33I think it's really important to withhold some of the sugar from the pot.

02:36You're going to see why in a minute.

02:37This is a quarter cup.

02:39Last up, this is a quarter teaspoon of table salt.

02:42So the reason I'm withholding some of the sugar is I'm going to use it to break up those clumps of cocoa powder instead of sifting, which I find annoying.

02:50It just gets everywhere.

02:52And we're just looking to make a nice, thick paste.

02:57Okay.

02:57So everything's well combined.

02:58And now that our butter's melted and it's already looking like some of that sugar's dissolved, you can see there's some translucency here.

03:05All of this goes right in.

03:07We're going to give this a whisk, and this is going to cook.

03:10And it's already taking on that sheen that you want.

03:14So I want to turn the heat down to low while I do this.

03:17And the reason for that is I don't want to evaporate too much water.

03:21If we lose too much water, it's going to be too hard.

03:24Makes sense.

03:24So this is just going to cook for about five minutes, and what you'll see if you're really paying attention is it'll thicken up slightly.

03:32The starch is in that cocoa powder.

03:33They're going to cook and hydrate and absorb some of the water, and it'll thicken the sauce.

03:40Okay, Julia, it's been about five minutes.

03:43We're still at a gentle simmer, and it's time to get the rest of the ingredients in.

03:46Bring me a straw.

03:47It looks delicious.

03:49So next up, I've got two and a half ounces of finely chopped unsweetened chocolate.

03:54And again, we're trying to control the amount of sugar that's going in here, so that's why unsweetened.

03:59And then finally, a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

04:04So I want to shut off the heat.

04:06This last step, we're just whisking to make sure all of that chocolate is melted and evenly distributed.

04:13Looks great.

04:14Looks perfect.

04:15Let's get it into a bowl and let it cool.

04:17Oh, look at that.

04:18So this needs to cool fully before we can use it.

04:22That takes about an hour and a quarter.

04:23But you could obviously make this in advance if you were planning to make this for someone's birthday.

04:27That's absolutely right.

04:29This will keep in the fridge for about a week, and you just need to let it come back to room temperature before you can use it.

04:35All right, Julia, it's time to make this cake I've been talking about.

04:37I've got a nine-inch springform pan here, and we're going to use this for both baking the cake and assembling and stacking that ice cream cake.

04:44Very clever.

04:45Step one, I've got a little baking spray, and I'm just going to spray the bottom.

04:50I'm not going to put it together first.

04:52And this is just going to provide a little bit of glue to help our parchment stay in place, and that'll make unmolding this cake a little bit easier.

05:02Pop the collar on.

05:05All right, Julia, time for the cake.

05:06I've got two-thirds of a cup of cake flour here, and to that I'm adding six tablespoons of sugar.

05:13Now, this is a tiny bit more sugar than you would normally see in a cake, but because it's frozen, you're not going to taste that sweetness.

05:22The sugar will keep the cake from being too firm, even though it's cold.

05:26Okay.

05:27The other ingredients are a half a teaspoon of baking powder and an eighth of a teaspoon of table salt.

05:33In the end, it's about getting enough sugar in there to prevent the water in the cake from turning into ice.

05:40It depresses the freezing point just enough.

05:43Okay.

05:43So we whisk our dry ingredients together, no more lumps, and then we can add most of our wet ingredients.

05:49I've got one large egg.

05:50Two large egg yolks, and we've saved those whites.

05:56Don't worry.

05:56I'm not wasting anything.

05:58This is three tablespoons of vegetable oil.

06:02This is going to help tenderize the cake.

06:04Two tablespoons of water.

06:07Oh, interesting.

06:07Yeah, there's definitely more water in here than you would normally see, and then last up, a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

06:14And we'll just whisk this together until it forms a nice, smooth batter.

06:19Okay, that's it.

06:21Making ice cream cake is a project, so I wanted to keep all the steps as simple as possible.

06:26All right, next up, those egg whites I was talking about.

06:29Now we're going to use them.

06:30They're not only full of water, they're full of protein, and protein will provide the structure for this cake.

06:35And then just a pinch of cream of tartar.

06:38Just throw that right in, and broke out the hand mixer for you.

06:42Old school.

06:43Yeah, I haven't used one of these for so long, but there's so little stuff in here, you can't really use a stand mixer.

06:48So I'm going to beat this at medium-low speed until it's nice and foamy.

06:52It's going to take about 30, 60 seconds.

07:00That's looking pretty good to me.

07:01Nice and broken up.

07:03There's no stringy bits.

07:05So next, I'm going to sprinkle in two tablespoons of sugar.

07:08And this sugar is just going to help these egg whites beat up to stiff peaks and hold those peaks.

07:14So I'm going to beat this until those stiff peaks form.

07:17That'll take one to two minutes, and we can crank it up this time.

07:25All right, what do you think?

07:27I think you're good.

07:28Let's see.

07:30Look at that.

07:31Yeah.

07:32Perfect.

07:33So I'm going to scrape about a third of this into that batter, and we're just going to whisk it.

07:39We're not trying to preserve the bubbles.

07:41What we do want to do is lighten this and make that less thick and viscous, so that when we fold this in, those bubbles stick around.

07:49You're tempering it.

07:50Yeah, exactly.

07:51You just want them to have a similar consistency before you start folding.

07:56And it's totally okay that it's a little streaky.

07:58So the rest of these egg whites can go right in, and then we're just going to fold.

08:03We're almost there.

08:09I can still see a couple streaks of white.

08:12All right, let's get this in that pan.

08:15We're going to bake this in a 300-degree oven on the middle rack.

08:20It's going to take 20 to 25 minutes.

08:23It's not going to pick up much color.

08:24It won't look like the most beautiful cake.

08:26Then we're going to top it with fudge and ice cream.

08:32I can smell it.

08:33Yeah, it's just kind of a light vanilla cake.

08:36Really simple, really elegant.

08:37You're right.

08:40That doesn't look like much.

08:41It doesn't.

08:42That's okay, though.

08:43It's structural.

08:45You can see there's a tiny bit of browning around the edges.

08:47The top is a little bubbly.

08:49Sometimes it comes up a little more bubbly and, like, totally fine.

08:53Don't stress it.

08:54You can see it's slightly domed.

08:56Now, normally, we would let this cool slightly, run a knife around it, and get it out of the pan so it could cool fully.

09:02We're not going to do that this time.

09:03What are we going to do?

09:04We're going to let it cool in the pan, and the reason for that is I want this cake to stay stuck to the pan through the entire cooling process.

09:12Okay.

09:12Those egg white proteins that are forming the structure for this cake, they're going to contract and shrink as the cake cools.

09:20And if you unmold that cake, those sides go from something like this to that.

09:25So, the solution is really simple.

09:27We're going to let this hang out for about 45 minutes until it's fully cooled before we can take it out.

09:33Julia, it's been 45 minutes.

09:34You can see the cake has collapsed slightly.

09:36Yeah.

09:37So, I'm just going to run a knife around the perimeter to release it.

09:41Looks loose.

09:42Moment of truth.

09:45Ta-da!

09:46I felt like it needed a presentation moment.

09:49So, what we want to do is get it off this pan and get that parchment off of there.

09:53I'm just going to invert it.

09:55Lift off our parchment because no one wants a bite of that.

10:04And then I'll re-invert just because the amount of sugar we have in this cake can grab water as it cools and that surface gets super sticky.

10:13This will make getting the cake off of the rack a lot easier.

10:16Julia, it's time to stack that cake.

10:18We're going to use the same 9-inch spring form we used to bake because it's the right size.

10:23And there's just a little bit of prep you've got to do.

10:26A lot of recipes will have you unmold the cake by warming it, but that melts the ice cream.

10:31Not ideal.

10:32I think it's a lot easier to line the pan with parchment.

10:34But if you just put parchment in there, it's kind of all over the place.

10:39It makes assembly tough.

10:41So, what I do is I take all that parchment out, give it a quick spray, and then line the pan.

10:48It goes in the freezer just to chill so that our cold ice cream isn't hitting a warm pan.

10:53And at the same time, the ice cream in the freezer goes to the fridge to temper.

10:58It's going to take about 20 minutes to warm up to a workable consistency.

11:02Okay.

11:03I've got a prepared pan and tempered ice cream ready to go.

11:06I'm just going to go get it.

11:07Okay.

11:09So, here's our nice and chilled pan.

11:11I've got three quarts of ice cream here.

11:13I hope you like pistachio.

11:14I love pistachio.

11:15Oh, good.

11:16Oh, good.

11:16Because that's what I'm baking.

11:19This is nice and tempered.

11:20It should be soft.

11:23Nice and soft to the touch.

11:24Very scoopable.

11:25So, now that the ice cream is out, we're kind of on a little bit of a timeline.

11:31I don't want this to melt.

11:33And so, I'm going to work fairly quickly.

11:35I want to scoop about a quarter of this into the pan.

11:39And then, just for fun, I thought it would be nice to add a ripple.

11:43And I'm going with apricot.

11:45It'll add a nice brightness and acidity.

11:48You can use up to a cup of any inclusion.

11:51It can be preserves.

11:52You could buy some lemon curd.

11:54You could chop up brownies or cookies or cake, candy.

11:59It's really, it's kind of up to you what you want to do.

12:02Do you want to get more of that?

12:03Oh, you bet.

12:04I'm not really worried about getting things in evenly.

12:07It's actually kind of nice to have it be a little bit haphazard.

12:10Oh, okay.

12:10The slice, the cross-section is just beautiful.

12:12So, ice cream's in.

12:16Now, we need to make it into an even layer.

12:18And the way to do that without melting things with our hot little hands is this little setup I have.

12:23First, I want some plastic wrap down so that I'm not mushing directly onto ice cream.

12:29Gluing the parchment strips to the pan is really helpful.

12:34It's not moving around.

12:35And then I want to use a kitchen towel just because it'll insulate the ice cream from my hands and prevent things from melting.

12:42And there's really no right way to do this.

12:45All I'm trying to do is flatten this into a mostly even layer.

12:52So, mostly flat.

12:53Parchment is still in place.

12:55We'll peel off this plastic wrap.

12:59And here's where our chocolate sauce is critical.

13:02Oh, yes.

13:03Because that layer isn't perfectly smooth, if I were to pop the cake on right now, there'd be kind of gaps, right?

13:11This fudge sauce is going to even everything out.

13:14So, that is three quarters of a cup of that fudge sauce.

13:18I've just warmed it slightly so it's spreadable.

13:21So, last up is our cake layer.

13:23It's really nice to build this thing upside down.

13:26You just kind of slip it in.

13:27Oh, look at that.

13:28It's a flat top.

13:30It is.

13:30It's like you did a perfect job baking it.

13:34And then we're just going to give this a nice little press just to flatten it out.

13:39Make sure there's no air in there.

13:41And then if you could hand me a piece of plastic wrap, we'll just wrap this up and pop it in the freezer to set.

13:48I like to do this just to keep the cake from absorbing weird smells in the freezer.

13:58I've got a math problem for you.

14:00I have two ounces of whiskey at 70 degrees.

14:03And I have a cup of ice, which is at 32 degrees.

14:06What temperature will they be after 30 seconds of shaking?

14:10You might guess 40 degrees, maybe even 32.

14:13Well, let's find out.

14:14Okay, we're at 40 degrees.

14:32Actually, under.

14:3334 degrees.

14:3432 degrees.

14:36But it keeps going.

14:39And stop.

14:4020 degrees.

14:45That's 12 degrees colder than the ice we started with.

14:49How is that possible?

14:50Well, ice cools in two ways.

14:52The first is pretty obvious.

14:53It is colder than the whiskey, so it removes heat and the temperature drops.

14:57But ice is much more powerful at cooling because it melts.

15:01Melting is a phase change.

15:03And it takes a ton of energy for water to change from one phase to another.

15:07In our drink, that additional energy is pulled out of the liquor in the form of heat,

15:11chilling well below the initial temperature of the ice.

15:14So, the next time you make a drink, you take that first super cold sip.

15:20May I suggest that you make a toast to phase changes?

15:23Your friends won't like it, but I will.

15:25Julia, I've got a nice and chilled bowl and chilled beaters, and what we're going to make

15:36is a whipped cream frosting.

15:37Great.

15:38So, this is one and a half cups of heavy cream.

15:42And again, nice chilled bowl to make whipping easier.

15:46I'm going to sweeten it lightly with two tablespoons of sugar.

15:49And then last up, just for an extra bit of flavor, vanilla.

15:54One teaspoon.

15:56I want to start slowly so that I'm not splashing you with heavy cream.

16:03This is looking nice and thickened.

16:05I'm going to go up a little bit faster.

16:09The reason I don't want to go with medium peaks here is I want as much air in there as possible.

16:15This cream is going to be the insulator, and it's going to keep our ice cream cake from melting.

16:20And so, the more air there is in there, the better it'll be for that job.

16:27That's looking pretty good.

16:27It looks good.

16:28All right.

16:29So, I'm going to need about two-thirds of this to mask that cake, to coat it fully.

16:34The rest is going to be for decorating.

16:37In order to mask this cake quickly, we're actually going to use a piping bag.

16:40I fitted it with a half-inch petal tip.

16:43You can see how it's flat, and that's going to help us apply that whipped cream quickly and evenly.

16:48So, two-thirds of this is going to go in the bag.

16:54Okay.

16:59This will hang out here.

17:01This I'm going to pop in the fridge so that it holds its shape while we're working on the cake.

17:07Julia, here's our cake.

17:09Now, I chilled this for four hours to ensure that the ice cream has fully set, but, of course, you could do this a couple days in advance if you wanted to.

17:16So, we're just going to remove this collar.

17:21And then, look at how easy this is.

17:24You just peel the paper away.

17:27There's no fussing with trying to, like, warm the sides to get it out of a pan.

17:32Now, you can build this on a platter or a cake stand.

17:36I like to make sure I have something really flat.

17:38So, the other thing I did was I chilled this cake stand.

17:41It's just going to buy us a little bit more time for decorating.

17:44Very smart.

17:46I want to get this off.

17:47I usually just spin it gently and ease the sides of the pan from the cake.

17:54And you can see it's starting to lift slightly.

17:58And once it does, I use an offset to kind of...

18:02Oh, you know what?

18:03This one's coming off beautifully.

18:05Ta-da!

18:06Right?

18:06Doesn't this look fun already?

18:08Yes.

18:09It's only going to get better from here.

18:11Okay.

18:11So, this is great, but it's going to melt if we don't cover it with some insulation.

18:17Which is what the whipped cream frosting is.

18:19Gotcha.

18:20I'm going to set it on a turntable because that'll make applying the frosting a lot easier.

18:25Do not stress doing it neatly.

18:28Okay.

18:28You just want to get it on there.

18:31So, you can see you just kind of squeeze gently and rotate the pan.

18:36And as you work your way up, if there are gaps, that's actually kind of good.

18:41Those gaps in between, it's going to keep the whipped cream from freezing solid immediately.

18:46That'll mean that there's time for us to even it out.

18:50We're just going to smooth everything into place.

18:55That's looking pretty good, right?

18:56That's looking great.

18:57I don't really stress it if it doesn't look perfect because it's a really thin layer of frosting.

19:04And we're going to actually add some decor that will kind of hide any imperfections.

19:09So, now that the frosting is on, we're going to pop this back in the freezer and let it set.

19:15It's going to take about 20 minutes to set up.

19:18And the way to check for that is you kind of feel the whipped cream at the very bottom where the cake meets the plate is the last to solidify.

19:25Okay.

19:25So, this cake is now fully set and what's really nice about it, it's firm, right?

19:32Very firm.

19:33What's really nice is at this point, you don't have to rush.

19:36If you want to do some fancy decorating, you can absolutely go too.

19:39How long can this hang out while you decorate it?

19:42I've had it out for about, I'd call it half an hour.

19:45I've not had trouble with the ice cream melting or it losing its shape or anything.

19:49Interesting.

19:50There's so much mass in there that's really cold that it just gives you more freedom to take your time, which is, you know, the decorated part.

19:58This is the fun part.

19:59Yeah, it's great.

20:00So, I'm going to keep this pretty simple.

20:02I'm just going to pipe a ring of dots around the top.

20:07Aww.

20:08Now, I promised you that not doing a perfect job on the sides wouldn't matter.

20:13Here's why.

20:13You can actually press candies, cookies, crumbs, whatever you have that you feel like using.

20:21I'm going to use sprinkles.

20:22Oh.

20:23Depending on the size and shape of the pieces, you're going to need anywhere between two-thirds to one cup of decor.

20:31And I like to pop it in a big pan that'll catch any of the bits that kind of come bouncing off.

20:37Mm-hmm.

20:37And this is going to feel a little dangerous, but it's pretty easy.

20:42I just want to pick up a handful in my hands, and I'm just going to press them onto the sides of the cake.

20:49And I'm not going to stress making sure that it's perfectly uniform.

20:53I'm just kind of rotate and press.

20:57It really does hide any flaws, and it adds a nice bit of texture on top.

21:04I'm just going to take a second to clean up this plate.

21:08But before I do, top's looking a little plain, right?

21:11Aw, that looks so sweet.

21:13Now, I know it looks like it's ready to go.

21:16It does.

21:17Almost.

21:18I'm going to pop this in the freezer to make sure that everything is fully set, and it can hang in the freezer for one hour to 24 hours.

21:24Okay.

21:25Julia, half an hour ago, I moved this cake from the freezer to the fridge, and there it came up slowly so that we have a better texture for serving and slicing.

21:35That makes sense. Not a hard freeze any longer.

21:37Correct.

21:39You ready for this reveal?

21:40Yes.

21:40Okay.

21:42Do you go small with ice cream cake? I'm not judging. I am judging.

21:48Go big or go back and get seconds.

21:53Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it.

21:56Oh.

21:57Oh, not bad, right?

21:59That is gorgeous looking.

22:01The whipped cream on top almost has a little shimmer sprinkled to it. It almost looks like frosted or snow, you know?

22:08Yeah, yeah.

22:08And that's the neat thing that happens when whipped cream freezes. It's got a natural glisten.

22:13Yes. It's just extra festive.

22:16Yeah.

22:16I know what that is. That's the extra chocolate sauce you made.

22:19It is. I just warmed it gently in the microwave, 50% power, just till it was nice and saucy.

22:25I'm going to make sure to get it on the side of the cake so that it doesn't melt everything.

22:29Mmm.

22:32Mmm.

22:33That's delicious.

22:36The cake has the perfect texture. It's almost like the middle of a macaron, just a little chewy. Your teeth go right through. It's satisfying.

22:48satisfying oh and that fudge it's so satisfying and the really awesome thing is even though i've cut

22:54into it this cake i've had it out cut for about half an hour and it barely melts really yeah it's

23:02it's just so easy to serve i really appreciate that cake on the bottom it gives a texture you

23:09don't usually get it gives you that chewy texture that you've always kind of wanted in ice cream

23:14cake and it's not just melting lon this is spectacular this is the best ice cream cake i've

23:21ever had hands down and i've eaten i've eaten 50 years of ice cream cake so i know what i'm talking

23:26about if you want to make this incredible ice cream cake don't grease the sides of the pan when making

23:33the chiffon cake layer assemble the layers of ice cream fudge and cake into the springform pan

23:39upside down and cover the cake with a base layer of whipped cream and chill it well before decorating

23:45from america's test kitchen hands down the best ice cream cake

23:50this is incredible i'm surprised testing went on so long that you are you really now

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