I think the cake pictured is double that recipe. I'm pretty familiar ( too familiar ) with pint sizes of Ben and Jerry's and I just don't think a pint is going to get you that individual height as shown in a 12" pan especially when it's softened. Is there a source or any reviews for the cake?

Just pointing out my annoyance with internet recipes like this one which obviously does not match the photo.

Ok, I'm making it also. Today probably. I have a 10" springform which I'm using. It's big enough. The side can be built up with a piece of parchment paper doubled over and taped to the inside of the springform. No one does souffles glace any longer but that's how those were done.

I'm not using whipped cream. So Monday I bought dry ladyfingers (the kind used for tiramisu) and I'm lining the side with those, which will support the ice cream and finish the edge. They should get soft from the moisture after 2 days in the freezer but even if they remain crunchy that's ok as I'm serving a sauce with it. Regular ladyfingers would also work. But parchment is easiest.

I've got blueberry and raspberry sorbets and black raspberry ice cream. I'll get the strawberry and vanilla. By eye, a pint of ice cream should make each layer 1/2-inch but can't tell exactly till I start in. The good thing is working with pints as those measurements will be approximately the same.

Yup, Rococo. Untested recipes, the bane of my existence. And the reason I like Epicurious, even if every review starts with "I didn't have any beef in the house, so I made it with pasta, and instead of Mirin I used Balsamic".

I may wait to see how yours works, Rococo! : )

My back-up dessert, the Destrooper one, I might try out today. My local grocer here in Maine has a very large cheese selection, but no Mascarpone (dontcha watched "Chopped", people? They run to the fridge for Mascarpone all the time). So I bought Creme Fraiche. Then I come home, and realize the recipe uses Creme Fraiche all along! Duh

All along I assumed that two pans were used to get the height on the cake. I am not sure I have the patience for the perfection the ombre design requires. I don't mind a little work-- but I prefer "fun" work vs work that makes me neurotic LOL. I would spend far too much time getting the right flavor combos-- perhaps even making my own to get just what I have in mind.. then a ridiculous amount of time trying to get the layers level and the final product smooth and perfect. In the end, I imagine a pinterest fail.. something I'd hide in the back of the freezer to eat alone in the dark! LOL

I love the Destrooper sandwiches-- but I have a nostalgic love of ice cream sandwiches. I was totally enchanted and inspired by this ice cream sandwich I saw earlier today... so lovely. I am especially in love because of the fruit/herb combo (Strawberry and lovage in this case.. but could be mint, basil, whatev) I don't really want to get into making ice cream so I'd use two more banal store-bought flavors but keep the layer of fruit preserves.

Gorgeous, funky. ANd on my new fave pedestal ( i just love that line of wood and marble).

Oh, I am right there with you, Mtn -- I have been looking at their long serving board and the cheese box since the holidays. I hadnt consider the round ones until just now... here I am sitting at my rustic round table with the laptop screen and your photo against the background of my table. It's like an idea board come to life!

I've never been to the store. Not sure why. I need to make a point to go next time I am in the area.

Just walked into the kitchen to find DH helping himself to a nice big bowl of vanilla ice cream -- from a pint I bought for the ombré cake! At least it was vanilla as I have extra for the filling and not one of the colors I "need."

Update: The dessert is in the freezer. The recipe given by WoW for this is a bit of a bow wow.
It makes up about 4-1/2 to 5" high using a 8-1/4" springform with a 2-ply 6" high parchment paper collar wrapped inside. Additionally, I used two 8-1/4" parchment discs -- one to line the bottom of the pan and the other to cover the top of the cake -- like the paper cover over an ice cream cone. The collar is essential -- slight omission by Wow.

I substituted vanilla ice cream for the whipped cream and put a layer of dry ladyfingers on the bottom so it would cut evenly. The recipe takes 4 pints of color ice cream + 1 pint vanilla for top. With subbing vanilla for whipped cream 2 additional pints of vanilla are needed.

Each color layer is a pint. Each "frosting" layer is half a pint (1 cup or slightly less). On that the Wow recipe was correct. The full pint layers took about 1 hour each to set in my freezer. The vanilla "filling" layers took about 45 minutes each. I bought hand-packed ice cream which helped. It took about 30 minutes for the full pints to soften and about 15 minutes for the vanilla. I had to chop the sorbet in a bowl to get the pieces even enough to go across.

What I used was raspberry sorbet, blueberry yogurt, black raspberry ice cream, strawberry ice cream + vanilla. I plan to serve it with chocolate sauce. And I will try not to forget to photo the result for anyone further interested.

Here's how the colors looked though they are darker and less vivid with this lighting as kitchen faces east so there is little afternoon light.

nice color variation!

did you consider not adding anything to substitute for the whipped cream in between the layers and just layer the colors on themselves?? I think that is what I would opt to do and just use the cream/icecream to ice the outside and the sides of the cake...

Thank you so much for posting, Rococo. I still have not located my 4th color. One thing I really like about your colors is they are all in the same "family" --- as if Farrow and Ball made ice cream, LOL. The cake pictured has some bright colors and some muddy.

So sorry for sending you down the rabbit hole with this recipe! One question ... is there any reason not to use more than one spring form, and then stack them when you are done? Whipped Cream hides a lot of sins

Ha.. it does look like Farrow and Ball jumped into the cake making business! Great colors and i am sure it will be lovely, Rococo! I think going the hand-dipped way might be the key... you can choose the colors and flavors that best work together and the hand-dipped places generally have more options.

Can't wait for the final reveal!

The other thing is that in some cases you will be able to view the colors if you go hand dipped. Not around here tho, all the hand dipped places are counters.

PS Funky, I forgot that you are near the only other Terrain! You must must go, and if it is anything like the CT store, you must have lunch in their farm-to-table restaurant!

@busybee - Just lucky to find the flavors with color variation. It's different than the photo. Might be different yet again depending on what's available.

Discussed this with my sister -- soft/dry ladyfingers for bottom & sides, meringue disks for frosting layers, pound cake, sponge cake, ice cream on ice cream. I went with vanilla ic in between as she thought the flavors would be too intense together.

I first thought, as you did, just stack them which would have cut down freezing time. This can go any way.

@mtn - Well you know I love me my Farrow & Ball and I have tons of leftover paint in the basement. This could easily inspire an ombré dresser.

This "recipe" is a stylists trick. The size of the springform will regulate the height. A 10-inch s.f. would hold the whole thing and it just might fill it. That would give about a 3" high result & thinner layers -- no worries. I wanted it higher -- more dramatic -- so I went with the 8-1/4". The parchment collar worked perfectly. It's nearly 2 inches above the top of the sf -- so about 5 inches high.

No reason it couldn't be made in 2 pans but that seems like way more work to me as it requires repeated freezing and softening of both pans to get the cake to bond and the logistics of getting it in and out of the freezer with no structure for support.

Could easily be iced at last minute with whipped cream for anyone who likes that (not me) or needs to camoflage. But I think parchment wrapper will give me a pretty layered side. If it looks bad there are parchment rounds top and bottom so easy to roll it in dry ladyfinger crumbs.

Having 7 for lunch and 5 are guys. DH and one of his pals are wisecrackers so for sure I will be teased about whether or not I churned the ice cream myself and who knows what else. I don't need a story about how I struggled to cut ice cream. This is a wicked bunch. I plan to slice in the kitchen. My sister also suggest that bittersweet chocolate sauce to cut the sweetness and I think I agree.

Lot of other cooking so just getting this out of the way. The reveal will produce other ideas. Just gotta limit my rose wine intake and not forget to photograph.

Funky, I admit that I am having a hard time imagining strawberry with lovage, although strawberry with basil or strawberry with lemon verbena could be great. I may have to try that next month. I think strawberry and pistachio could be a good combination.

On that pedestal, I believe I saw one just like it on World Market's website. I may have to get one for myself, so pretty.

I finally procured my colors. But I had to fly out yesterday and wont be able to work on it again until tomorrow when I am back.

Rococo put it well, this is not a recipe; it is a stylist's trick. I think I may do a graham cracker crust on the bottom, since my family loves those. Or maybe crushed oreos would look better?

One of my flavors is strawberry balsamic, should be interesting.

Oh they look great! Can't wait to see your photos..

BTW I LOVE strawberry balsamic preserves on ice cream so I am sure the IC itself will be wonderful! (I use the epicurious recipe which is actually strawberry preserves with pepper and balsamic vinegar... )

PS.. I'd go graham crackers or meringue .. or even cake or biscuit crumbs.. but I should disclose that I am not a chocolate lover and I *really* dislike oreos.

I think the dark might look better? More visual weight at the bottom. And actually I would not use Oreos, Id use the chocolate wafers.

As an aside, Whole Foods makes a cookie that looks like an Oreo but it is black and white; choc on one side and vanilla on the other. They taste like a high quality Oreo and my kids love them. I was never much for Oreos because when you sneak one it shows in your teeth! My fave cookie is the Almondina pistachio.

This is non-humble brag: I think my colors and mtns colors look better than the stylist's already LOL.

Rococo, I agree. Who knows, with food stylists, maybe it is not even iced cream! And maybe that is shaving cream!

For amusement, I think we should come up with Farrow and Ball names for your ice cream colors.

Can't wait to see the results!

I agree! Both of you chose a beautiful progression of colors!

Oh, I get the dark cookie looking better on the bottom. And my dislike of oreos is about taste vs artificial anything (everything?). I think the chocolate wafers will look great... and since I wasn't invited to join you for cake, I think you should go with what you all like! LOL

@mtn - I agree with that assessment. I've cut ice cream with a knife before. There is usually some drag -- but not on the slice or on the stylist's "cake" mysteriously.

We shall know all soon. Baking bread. F&B has to wait.

the drag is partly why I thought it might be helpful to eliminate the white cream between layers... plus it didn't seem to add much to me. there is some drag in the photo, but not much- cleaned up I would guess...

interested to hear how you like the meringue disks in the cake, rococo. are you making them very thin??

nice colors, mtn! strawberry balsamic sounds very interesting! is that the lowest/darkest one?

Reveal and update: The ombré was a huge hit. It got raves and everyone asked what it was and how it was done. Who knew ice cream could be so mysterious? The bittersweet chocolate sauce worked very well with the flavors I'd chosen and the color was great with the ice creams I selected.

A food photo stylist, getting paid for his/her time, will do well with this dessert. It isn't difficult but it is extremely time consuming -- a full day project and then some. The type of ice cream/sorbet used affects the ease/difficulty. It's also a dessert that would be far easier the second time and after since the drill is clear.

With the 8-1/4" springform the cake was nearly 4" tall. It will easily serve 12-16 as the slices are much smaller than regular cake.

I knew from cutting half gallon blocks of ice cream I would need to cut it in the kitchen. It required my Chinese cleaver to get through. If you're a sculptor you may get perfect slices and have no trouble cutting this. I put it on a favorite porcelain cake plate which became a casualty of the cleaver. Next time, I'll use a cutting board.

Next time, I'll also use some type of soft cake crust on the bottom either a thin round, pound cake, or soft ladyfingers. My preference for the flavors I had would be a thin round of chocolate spongecake. I bet on dry ladyfingers to become moist under the sorbet but they didn't. They remained dry and brittle and were hard to piece. They also didn't freeze, which was a plus.

The cleaver was run under hot water and dried before each cut. The drag varied as the top softened up sooner than the bottom.

One comment made about the cake by the foodie at the lunch was how much he loved the thin vanilla layers between the other flavors. I was very surprised anyone would notice or make that comment. He agreed with my sister, evidently, without knowing it. Vanilla between the layers adds about 3 hours to the assembly time

The full recipe with all the tricks will go on my blog eventually. Meanwhile, here's how mine looked. I believe you can click on the photos to enlarge them, if interested.

Rococo, it is just gorgeous! I am at once sorry to have been the one to send you down the rabbit hole, and happy to have shown you a "recipe" that was such a hit.

My assembly started this morning. I decided it needed a bottom crust, and made one with chocolate wafers. It is cooling now. I also made some bittersweet sea salt chocolate sauce.

My DH found me a small level, but I think the only way you could get the straight lines on the original would be to literally melt each layer; but that is bad for the texture of the ice cream. I kind of like the organic look of your waves anyway, more than the "jello" precision of the original.

As if all this weren't enough trouble, it occurred to me that my plates here (Octopi and the like) are too vivid for the presentation. I really need plain white plates. I think I want to try to do a "spoon push" of the sauce next to a slice. I may run out to a thrift store to get some plain white plates.

ETA: I forgot one more difficulty! My springform pan was 9". The recipe calls for 12". The largest I could get was 10.25", so i got that ... two of them so I can freeze two parts at the same time. But... my pie crust recipe is for a 9" pan.... I had to use the 'ole "pi*radius squared" to adjust my pie crust recipe up and my filling amounts down!

mtn - No apologies necessary, please! I'm a sucker for projects and I knew when I read the recipe it didn't work -- it was just a question of figuring out how to do it. And there isn't one way at all.

Will look forward to seeing how you develop yours and what tricks you have.

I'm very wabi sabi about most everything, even bruti ma buoni. I'm starting a "bring back sauce" movement to eradicate squiggles and the most-hated dots.

But what meant most was that everyone just loved it. So you picked a winner for sure!

@busybee - meringue discs were just an idea. Having made this once, nothing brittle that will freeze hard seems helpful in the final process of cutting it and having it look great.

I think it looks more artisanal that way.

One year I had a goal of making the perfect batch of Christmas cookies. I learned all the tricks of the trade of rolling out, cutting out and decorating cookies. I was merciless in discarding rejects.

I made three kinds, packed them in baskets, scooped them up in shiny glassine and tied it all with a french wire ribbon bow.

People thought id picked them up at Neiman Marcus. It was all wrong. A homely oatmeal raisin would have struck a much better note!

Oh that looks great-- and I agree, I actually prefer it with the less than perfect layers! It looks watercolor-esque and all the more summery! What a shame about the cake plate!

LOL Mtn.. all that work and the credit goes to neiman marcus!

My cake is resting comfortably. I may cut it tonite, if so I will post. Or if it looks really bad I will just have to delete this whole thread and wear a fake nose and glasses the next time I post.

Mtn - You sound like a plastic surgeon speaking about a job on a patient LOL

You two have amazing staying power....at this point I would have just passed out individual pints of Ben and Jerry's! Just one more recipe that proves I am NOT a cook.

You'd think the ice cream cake was in my freezer... I am so excited for the unveiling! Tonight, perhaps??

Ahaha.. Ice cream for breakfast? I am sure your kids did think something was up! But oh my, it's lovely! I am especially glad to hear that the flavors remain distinct!

I agree.. the chocolate base looks great. It really sets off the colored layers. What about the whipped cream? Would you use it again?

I pulled out my springform pan and it is 12" -- really too big without a large group. It sounds like even the 10 1/2" is a lot of ice cream (and 4 of us can't eat ice cream-- wah!). The mini springforms aren't very high so I may pick up a 7" springform if I am going to give it a try... though individual cakes sound so precious!

Thanks for sharing Mtn and Rococo! Your results are inspiring!

We have sister cakes mtn! Gorgeous! Love your colors too. Not as muted as mine. The larger pan accentuates the layer. I might try it again the my 10" the next time I have a crowd. What's amazing is how many this thing serves.

And I agree: the Wow recipe is a bad joke.

I also thought this would be a perfect dessert for a kid's party. It could even have some small "prize" hidden in a layer.

very nice! I like it with the dark cookie bottom crust!

I still think the white between each layer takes away from the ombre effect tho.....

I think the chocolate/mocha/nut flavors idea is fantastic!!

It's a little embarrassing how frequently I checked back here to see the unveiling of the cakes here! Both are beautiful, and I've taken note of the revised instructions (thank you, mtn!) so I can try it myself someday. And thanks CindyMac for the "ice cream sandwich" recipe. My daughter is making it now!

Too funny, fouram. I really must say, though the focus of this dessert is aesthetics, there are some really good sorbets out there and it is a delicious combo.

I've been carrying the Destrooper back and forth to the beachhouse, because i keep planning to make it. Soon I am just going to wolf down the cookies!

Thx, Busy. IDK, I think it might look messy without the white layers. I guess if you were to get really crazy (crazier) about the ombre concept, the middle layer between two flavors would be a (custom) mix of the two colors/flavors

Thanks, Funky. Yes, i would use the whipped cream again. Fresh whipped, very lightly sweetened, i think it tones down the overall sweetness (of course the whole thing is very rich; thin slices!) and i like the look. It seems to me it freezes in a straight line, which helps neaten things. Plus covering the whole thing in WC makes it look nice.

I thought about smaller ones. But you don't get the drama of the slice. l think that is why an individual one might be underwhelming.

One thing I was not clear enough on, above, and another example where the recipe was wrong. If you put whipped cream over an ice cream layer before freezing the ice cream layer, the whipped cream will become infiltrated by the color of the layer. I froze each layer individually --- sorbet, ice cream, WC -- all were done one layer at a time, one hour each.

Rococo, Thanks. You got that right, it is very rich and feeds a lot of guests!

Fouram,

any tips on making the ice cream sandwiches? We are having a party tonight and I thought I'd make them

Mtn, we just followed the recipe. Well, we left off he chopped pistachios because we thought the kids might not like nuts. It was so good that we got two requests for the recipe!

But wait: one good thing to note is that the recipe calls for twelve wafers, but there are only ten to a box of the Destrooper brand.

Have fun tonight!

Yes, oddly enough the box says there are 3 wafers in a serving, and 3.5 servings in a box .... uhh, not really.

I am doubling the recipe so I got three boxes of 10. I will use pistachios because this is the "adult dessert" im serving.

thx!

My only tips. 1. It doesn't say, but each one uses about 1/4 c of the creme fraiche mixture. 2. I wondered how the nuts would stick after the thing is frozen, but they do ... you just have to sort of pat them on. and 3) Be sure to freeze them 4hr minimum.

Thank you, Cindymac!

The patience you two have!!! The results are beautiful!

Saw Ina make an ice cream bombe this week and thought of this thread.

Ice Cream Bombe

Mtn., looks great! Glad you liked them.

Yes, you all have much more patience than me. Thanks for posting pics, the results were beautiful and my mouth is watering.

Interesting that Ina's IC bombe is the same thing, just not as complicated. Softening ice cream and putting it into a mold isn't difficult. Just time consuming as you wait to do the next bit.

Back in the day I'd make baked Alaska with a soft center in an oval shape. I'd inherited oval melon mold from my Mom. Those required an oval cake layer (I may still have those cake pans) Italian meringue, ice cream and then after it was all assembled and frozen, meringue went over it all and it was glazed under a hot broiler. We always had company for Easter and I'd make that dessert.

The chocolate wafer/whipped cream cake is way older than 50 years! We used to call it icebox cake because that is what my grandmother called it when used to put it in an actual icebox before electric refrigerators were common. They are delish.

Everything looks delicious! But I gained 4lbs reading this thread!

Roc, I think it's time you wrote another cookbook.

Mtn - Don't you have room for an Orangerie on your property? Then you can cultivate your very own Meyer lemons. Just make sure you don't make the same mistake we did. We had the 'Lisbon' variety which tends to have a lot of thornes. The 'Eureka' variety is nearly thornless.

Well in fact, we do have an "orangerie", which is generally another name for a conservatory, as I learned from the British firm that built ours. However, it is open on one side to our indoor pool. The indoor pool air is kept dry through the use of an enormous piece of eqp called a Dectron. It is the reason no one ever feels any humidity when they come into our house, despite the indoor pool. But, it makes it very hard to grow plants in orangerie/conservatory/greenhouse. We have a disco ball in there and hula hoops instead, LOL. It's a great place for the kids to play loud music that we can't hear!