Passion fruit ice cream cake with coconut-caramel sauce
A dream to eat, and a doddle to make. Ever since my first pavlova, I’ve been utterly sold on the combination – smooth, chewy, sour-sweet and fragrant – of cream, meringue and passion fruit. And to turn these ingredients into a coolly elegant ice cream cake, you need do nothing more than stir them all together and leave to set in the freezer overnight: a no-cook, no-churn, no-stress affair.
Equipment: You will need a 450g/1lb loaf tin, approx. 18x12x7cm/12x5x3in.
Ingredients
For the ice cream cake
- 300ml/10fl oz double cream
- 4 passion fruit
- 4 tsp orange liqueur
- 8 shop-bought meringue nests
For the sauce
- 50g/1¾oz unsalted butter
- 50g/1¾oz soft light brown sugar
- 50g/1¾oz caster sugar
- 3 tbsp golden syrup
- 250ml/9fl oz coconut cream (not creamed coconut)
Method
Line your loaf tin with cling film, leaving plenty of overhang on the sides of the tin so that you can cover the top later.
To make the ice cream cake, whip the double cream until ripples start to appear in the bowl and it’s slightly thickened but not stiff. Add the pulp, seeds and juice of the passion fruit, then the liqueur and fold briefly just to combine.
Break up the meringue nests, making a mixture of both dust and small pieces of meringue, and very gently fold in, until evenly mixed.
Spoon gently into the lined loaf tin, pressing down as you go so that you don’t have any air pockets. Once the mixture is carefully packed in and the top smoothed, cover with the cling film overhang, then wrap the tin in another sheet of cling film and put in the freezer overnight.
To make the sauce, gently melt the butter, sugars and golden syrup in a deep, heavy- based saucepan about 20cm/8in in diameter. Once melted, turn the heat up a little and let it simmer for 3 minutes. Lift the pan up off the heat every now and again and give it a swirl.
Add the coconut cream when the pan is off the heat and swirl again, then put back on the heat and cook at a fast simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring every now and then, until it’s the colour of peanut butter and slightly thickened (it will thicken more once cooled).
Pour the sauce into a heatproof jug and leave to cool to room temperature. The sauce will thicken too much if refrigerated.
When you are ready to serve, take the tin out of the freezer, remove the outer layer of cling film then lift out the ice cream cake and sit it on a board before fully unwrapping. Cut into thick slices; if you don’t want to eat all the cake at one sitting, wrap the remaining unsliced loaf up and put it back in the freezer.
Put a slice onto each plate and leave to soften for 5–10 minutes, depending on the warmth of your kitchen. Zigzag some of the coconut-caramel sauce over each slice – stirring it briskly first if it’s got too thick – and pour the rest into a serving jug to take to the table alongside.
