Cooking: Ice cream cake

I saw the recipe for an ice cream cake in a magazine recently and thought it looked so cool that I'd have to go if it a go. I've never seen anything like it in the UK before. Little did I know that the ice cream cake was ubiquitous at five year old children's parties in the late 70's and early 80's here in Oz. There were some sickly sweet memories to overcome.

This recipe is bordering on almost not cooking it's so simple and I think that you could mess around with the recipe as much as you wanted. It was absolutely delicious and went down very well. All childhood memories were successfully banished.

Here is what I did...

First step is to make a basic sponge cake:
225g Butter
1 cup (or 225g) Sugar
4 eggs
1 cup (or 225g) Flour
Baking powder

- Heat your oven to 180 degrees
- Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
- Add an egg and mix in, followed up a little bit of the flour and baking powder. Repeat until all of the eggs and flour are combined.
- Bake in 20cm round cake tin for 25mins.
- Take out of the oven and cool.

Once the cake has cooled you and assemble the ice cream cake:
One basic sponge (see above)
Two punnets of blackberries
150g bar of dark chocolate roughly chopped
Handful of toasted almonds
1.25 litres of vanilla ice cream

- Slice the cake through the middle so that you have two rounds. If you cake has a doomed top, slice that off so both rounds are flat.
- Line your 20cm cake tin with glad wrap (cling film) leaving plenty overhanging round the edges.
- Place one of your rounds of cake in the bottom of lined cake tin.
- In a mixing bowl place your ice cream. Take one punnet of blackberries, cut them in half and add to the bowl. Add half of your chocolate to the bowl as well. Mix with a wooden spoon until everything is combined.
- Spread half of your ice cream mixture over the cake in base of your tin.
- Put the second cake round into the tin and then top with the remaining ice cream.
- Put the cake bake in the freezer for 2/3 hours.

When it is time to serve the cake get it out of the freezer and remove from the tin onto a serving plate. Cover with the second punnet of blackberries, reserved chocolate pieces and toasted almonds. Leave to defrost slightly for 5-10mins before slicing.


I had some desicated coconut lying around so added that to my cake mixture. For the cake topping you could add whatever you wanted. How about mixing up the berries? Using a flavoured ice cream? Mixing in some smarties instead of the chocolate?

That Face at the Belvoir Theatre

Last night I went to see That Face at the Belvoir Theatre in Surry Hills. Much like the last play I saw at the Fitzroy Theatre, That Face is a small cast, gritty and intense emotional roller coaster. It is the debut play written by Polly Stenham an English playwright who is only 22 (and was 19 when she wrote the play)!

The play revolves around a dysfunctional family consisting of the mother Martha, who's in a downward spiral of depression, drinking and prescription drugs. Her son Henry who dropped out of school to try and look after his mother, sister Mia who's in the process of getting herself expelled from boarding school and the re-married father who rushes back from Hong Kong.

The play started a little slowly and I wondered if we were in for a painful evening, but got into it's stride pretty quickly. It took a while to work out the relationships between the main characters. The dynamic between Martha and her son Henry is particularly strange, at one point I thought the relationship might be incestuous. However, you were soon part of the emotional rollercoaster, perhaps not gripped, but definitely intrigued.

My favourite character of the evening was Henry, played by Kenji Fitzgerald. I thought it looked about 17/18yrs old (but thanks to the internet have just discovered he is 22). For someone so young (still comparatively young) he displayed and enormous range of powerful and believable emotions.

The set was very sparse, with the main prop being a double bed. It was a perfectly staged mess, that got ever more destroyed throughout the course of the show as shredded clothes and sketch books get thrown around. How the back stage crew manage to re-produce it every evening the mind only boggles.

When the play was first shown in England it was apparently divided into two acts. However, last night there was no interval which I think was probably a good thing. I am not sure the play could have recovered from a break in the intensity.

I noticed three theatre critics sitting in the crowd taking notes. I'm going to keep an eye out for their reviews in the weekend papers and as I'd like to know how their thoughts correspond to mine.

Restaurant Review: Devonshire Thai, Surry Hills

Last night I went for dinner at Devonshire Thai in Surry Hills. We were looking for a quick and cheap eat before seeing That Face at the nearby Belvoir Theatre.

From the outside the restaurant doesn't look anything special, a run of the mill Thai (they seem to be everywhere in Sydney) with large doors and windows opening onto the street. There seemed to be far too many staff for the number of tables buzzing around.

The menu was pretty broad with a two pages of stir fries, curries, rice dishes, noodles and salads. All of my favourites were there including som tum papaya salad, larb and pad thai. The only thing missing was the crispy pork from my local street stall in Bangkok.

Dave and I shared a duck curry and pork larb (a minced pork salad). I really liked the flavour of the dishes, you could tell that they had been made by a Thai chef. The larb had a lovely balance of heat from the chili, kick from the lemongrass, sourness from the lime and hints of fish sauce. It really was rather good.

Then what took the food up another level for me was how they had tried to integrate some local Australian ingredients into the, otherwise authentic, Thai food. The duck curry had a couple of hidden grapes and strawberry halves in it. Before trying them my initial reaction was sceptical, but they went really well. The textures are complimentary and they gave a little bust of sweetness to the dish. The larb had a couple of olives in it, the salty tang worked. To me this shows a restaurant that is thinking about the food and doing something imaginative.

Devonshire Thai met our needs exactly, a quick, cheap and tasty eat that got us to the theatre 15mins before the start of the play. The bill was very reasonable, even considering some of the table were drinking beer. A great local for those who live in the area.

Government House

Back in August last year I visited Government House, run by the Historic Houses Trust, after a good reports from my sister's visit. The house was formerly the official residence of the Governor of New South Wales. It is no longer an official residence, but is still used for official functions meaning that it is only open to visitors at the weekend.

I walked to Government House through Hyde Park and noticed that a lot of the trees have graffiti carved into the bark which I thought was very cool (although it might not be good for the tree).

Visits inside Government House are by a free guided tour only. Our guide was pretty informative telling us about some of the history and current uses of the house. We were shown round some of the state rooms on the ground floor.

I have to be honest and say that I can't remember the tour perfectly being so long ago. There were some nice furnishings and interesting stories relating to various bits of furniture e.g. a sofa purchased especially for the Queen to sit on during one visit. It isn't an enormous building so there are only about five rooms in the tour.

There is a manicured garden which offers a unique angle of the Opera house that is well worth the visit.

I took the below photo of some of the stonework on the outside. I rather like it.

An experiment in Black and White

Back in August I got out my film SLR and shot my first ever roll of black and white. I'm pretty pleased with how some of the photos turned out. You can see the photos by clicking the champagnes bottles above (or here).

The pictures are mostly of Brad and Chel's wedding and my trip to Government House (on which they'll be more soon).

A quick trip to Melbourne

I have just been to Melbourne with work for three days. Nothing too exciting to report as I spent most of my time in the office. I didn't even find any particularly good places to have dinner. Must try harder next time.

I was staying at the Crown Towers hotel which was very nice. The rooms were stylish and had everything you could want including, most importantly, a comfortable bed. The gym and pool were plush, although I hadn't thought to take my swimmers. I don't stay in many hotels, but the Crown is second on my list after the Mandarin Oriental in Tokyo as the best place I've stayed.

Dangerously there is a casino in the Crown complex. The photo above is of Jay and I on a roulette table in Las Vegas back in 2008. We were betting on the numbers in the fortune cookies we received at dinner. The numbers worked that night and I've had that scrap of paper in my wallet ever since. I am pleased to report that the fortune cookie still has it's magic and I more than doubled my in the Crown. Thankfully I don't get any buzz out of gambling and can't imagine finding it addictive.

Restaurant Review: Sugarcane, Sydney

On Friday night I went for dinner with a couple of friends to Sugarcane in Surry Hills. I thought the menu was interesting. Firstly, there are only three dishes that could be classified as starters and two deserts, sandwiching a long list of main courses. Secondly, it's a pan South East Asian mix, which can often lead to disappointment as a restaurant over-reaches beyond their speciality. I'm pleased to report there was no let down on this score at Sugarcane.

We shared three dishes, which arrived one after the other. Perfect for sharing and a good job as you wouldn't have fit more than one of the large plates on our table at any one time.

Our first dish was salt and pepper squid. Large pieces of fried squid with a moorish dipping sauce. I think there is limited excitement with salt and pepper squid regardless of how well it's done. We probably should have gone for something a bit more adventurous.

Next we had our star dish of the evening, crispy pork hock with stir fried vegetables. The pork was crispy and tender at the same time, which I always think it s feat to achieve. The sauce was delicious with perfectly balanced layers of garlic, ginger, fish sauce and chili coming through (plus flavours I couldn't identify).

Our last dish was a prawn stir fry. There was a generous helping of large butterflied prawns in the stir fry. However, the accompany vegetables and sauce was pretty similar to the pork hock. Bad ordering from us ordering two similar dishes or a lack of imagination from the kitchen?

The restaurant was only half full when we arrived, but by the time we left there was a queue forming outside. The open plan interior and large doors onto the street made for a good vibe and breezy atmosphere. When the bill arrived we faced a morale dilemma as our bottle of wine was missing. We did the honourable thing and pointed out the mistake.

I enjoyed Sugarcane, but I don't think I'll be rushing to go back. The food was good, but not exceptional. I've read a few reviews saying what good value the restaurant is, I thought it was mid-range to a little expensive.