chocolate orange bombe Alaska with hot chocolate sauce

⏲prep: 1 hour 15 minutes and 20 minutes cooking plus cooling and freezing

🍴serves: 8 persons

ingredients:

For the cake

For the marmalade ice cream

For the center

For the meringue topping

For the chocolate sauce

instructions

Step: 1 First make the cake: heat oven to 160C/fan 140C/gas 3. Gently butter a Swiss roll tin and line the bottom with non-stick baking parchment. Place the whole eggs, egg yolks, and caster sugar in a bowl and stir with an electric hand whisk for 8-10 mins until light and fluffy. For now, liquefy the chocolate and butter in a bowl over a pan of almost simmering water, gripping from time to time.

Step: 2 When the stirred egg concoction is light and fluffy, lightly fold in the flour with a big metal spoon or the whik blades, taking care not to lose too much volume. Beat a small amount of the egg combination into the melted chocolate, after that softly fold the chocolate into the remaining egg combination. Pour into the arranged tin, next tilt the tin from crosswise up to even and the corners become full. Bake for 10 mins until firm, then leave to cool properly.

Step: 3 Line a 1-litre freezer-proof pudding basin with cling film. Chop a small circle of sponge cake to fit the ground after that cut triangular pieces to line the sides. Fill any gaps with cuttings and save the remaining sponge for later. Put the bowl in the freezer to firm up the sponge.

Step: 4 Make the ice cream: chunk the vanilla pod in half lengthwise and reduce the seeds. Put the milk, vanilla seeds and pod, orange zest, caster sugar, and cream into a medium pan and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, mix vigorously the egg yolks together in a huge bowl. Pour the hot cream combination slowly onto the eggs, whisking all the time. Return the mix to a neat pan and whisk continuously over gentle heat for about 5 mins up to the mixture has just become firmer. Pass through a sifter and leave to chill for 30 mins. Churn in an ice cream machine (or make by hand, see ‘Try’ below). Add the marmalade and continue to churn for another 10 minutes until thick.

Step: 5 Scoop the ice cream into the cake-lined bowl, depart from a central indent for the sorbet layer. Sit a little bowl in the peak of the ice cream to make a soft indent for the sorbet later to sit in. Freeze for at least 1 hr, until just firm.

Step: 6 Fill the middle of the bombe with orange sorbet, cover the entire bottom of the bowl with a layer of sponge, cover with cling film, and return to the freezer until needed, or at the minimum 8 hrs ahead. This can be done well in advance and that’s all the really hard work done.

Step: 7 To make the hot chocolate sauce, shred the chocolate into a bowl and add the golden syrup, butter, and hot water. Liquefy over a pan of just simmering water until melted, stirring from time to time.

Step: 8 About 20 mins before serving, preheat oven to 230C/fan 210C/gas 8. Whisk the egg whites and a pinch of salt in a huge clean bowl until non-flexible but not dry. Stir in the sugar, a little at a time, bringing it back to stiff peaks before each addition. Turn the bombe out onto an ovenproof serving dish and remove the cling film. Spoon the meringue all over the bombe to properly seal it. Using the back of the spoon or a palette knife, pull the meringue into dramatic twiddles. Bake for 10-15 mins or up to golden. Reheat the chocolate sauce over a pan as in the presence of or in a microwaveable bowl for 1 min on Low, whisking halfway through. Take the Chocolate orange bombe Alaska to the table instantly and dish up sliced, drizzled with the hot chocolate sauce.