Daring Bakers in July: Swiss Swirl Chocolate-Mint Ice Cream Cake

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.



Greetings from the USA! I just barely got this month's challenge done before I hopped on a plane Sunday night for a week-long work conference in downtown Boston. I was literally taking pictures and editing an hour before leaving for the airport - since I skipped June's challenge I figured I better get my act together for July, and not only because it has "Swiss" in the name!

I followed the given recipe pretty closely this month, only switching out the ice creams for two from David Lebovitz (Chocolate and Fresh Mint).   The recipe called for making the ice creams, freezing them completely, and then softening again to layer them into the bombe.  I was pretty worried that softening and then re-freezing would result in a crystallized, crunchy ice cream texture - growing up in Egypt where everything melts in the blink of an eye, I ate a LOT of yucky melted-and-refrozen ice cream. However, I only let it become just barely soft enough to spread in the mold before popping it back in the freezer, and the final result showed no signs of crystallized texture.



This dessert turned out very nicely, perfect for summer, and it's quite fun to cut into the bombe and see all the pretty layers and combination of flavors.

You can find the original recipe here. One step I would add is to freeze the cake roll until firm after the whipped cream filling has been added, and then slice with a bread knife. This makes it much easier to slice and layer into the mold without the cream filling squishing around everywhere.