G/F Chocolate HoneyComb Ice Cream Cake

Cindy had a ice cream potluck for her birthday on Sat. So I made her this gluten free chocolate honeycomb ice cream cake with chocolate crackle base. I took inspiration from two online non-vegan, non-gluten free recipes and combined them. The chocolate crackle base idea was from Koali's life blog and the inclusion of honey roasted nuts was from the Eat Drink Live version of nigella's cake.

First I made the honeycomb, unfortunately I had tried a few more honeycomb recipes which all failed. Maybe due to the humidity before finally returning to the original recipe that I made last time. I covered in chocolate again and cut it into small chunks.

To make the chocolate crackle base. I simply copied Koali and followed the same recipe but substituted the chocolate for dark chocolate and the rice bubbles for g/f version of rice bubbles. YES STUPIDLY REGULAR RICE BUBBLES AREN'T G/F!

1 250g dark chocolate
roughly 1 1/2 cup of g/f rice bubbles
1. Line a 20cm spring form cake tin with baking paper (I didn't do this but it didn't seem to matter)
2. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler
3. Add rice bubbles a large serving spoonish at a time. Mix through until you get the consistency of chocolate crackles. You want enough chocolate to set but enough rice bubbles to give a constant crunch.
4. Spread the mixture over the bottom of the cake tin.

Then I made honey roasted nuts, but instead of roasting them or using honey. I followed this recipe from the sweet and salty life for agave walnuts and substituted peanuts:

Agave Glazed Peanuts

4 TBSP Raw Agave Syrup
2 TBSP Margarine
1 Cup Peanuts

Pour it all into a medium pan and sauté on medium heat.
When the Peanuts are hot, lower the flame and allow the nuts to simmer until the glaze has become thick. You will know the Walnuts are ready when there is no liquid in the pan and the nuts have completely soaked up the Agave and Earth Balance. Let them cool and then store the nuts in an air tight container to keep them soft and moist. I then cut them into chunks too.

For the ice cream, I just followed the vanilla ice cream recipe in Vegan Scoop but instead of adding vanilla essence I added a whole vanilla pod and cooked it with a combination of rice and coconut milk.  I don't think the vanilla was needed though and probably wasted with alll the other flavours combined.

In the last few minutes in the ice cream maker I added the chopped honeycomb and nuts. Then spread it over the chocolate crackle base.

And decorated it by making a C with some honeycomb and nuts that I had put aside.

I was pretty happy with the end result, especially given that it was a big experiment and I wasn't sure how it would all go together.  It was pretty sweet and had loads of crunch. I think you could easily reduce the nuts and/or honeycomb and just get rid of the chocolate crackle base or the nuts if you wanted to.

Instead of taking pictures like I normally did, I just relaxed and ate and ate and ate. There was so much amazing ice cream and g/f penguin waffles! Toby will talk about his ice cream dish next.