Chocolate Arctic Roll

Can't decide between ice-cream and cake for dessert?  No worries, make an Arctic Roll and you can have both!

'Arctic Roll?' I hear you ask.  I'd never heard of it either until I it appeared as the teaser picture for the upcoming edition of taste.com.au.  It looked great, but as it is in next month's edition, there was no recipe. So I turned to Google and discovered an arctic roll it is a 'retro English' dessert, traditionally made from plain sponge, layered with jam and rolled around an ice-cream centre.

My version uses a chocolate sponge wrapped around vanilla ice-cream with a Picnic bar centre. Same, same but different!

I had intended to use chocolate ice-cream but we already had vanilla in the freezer.  A home-made, no-churn ice-cream, like the one I used in my Cherry Ripe Chocolate Tarts, would also work well.  

You could use any chocolate bar in the middle,  however you really need a textural element to complement the light sponge and soft ice-cream. Whoa, I just re-read that last sentence and realise I sounded like a MasterChef wanna-be.  How about 'it really needs some crunch' instead? So try to make sure your selected chocolate bar has a bit of crunch or bite to it.

Also try to mirror the flavours of your selected chocolate bar in your toppings.  For example if you use a bar with a caramel filling, you could also drizzle the roll with some caramel sauce.

I don't have a Swiss Roll tray, but a standard shallow oven baking tray worked well for me.  I used the sponge recipe from this recipe at Red Online.  I like their idea of using Nutella in place of the traditional jam, maybe next time?

It's a great dessert to make when people come over as it can be made completely ahead of time.

Chocolate Arctic Roll

adapted from this Chocolate Arctic Roll

Ingredients:

• 40g plain flour
• 30g cocoa
• 6 eggs (3 whole, 3 separated)
• 110g caster sugar
• 45g brown sugar
• 1L vanilla ice-cream
• Picnic chocolate bars (2 large or 5 small)
• Chocolate sauce and crushed peanuts to serve

Cooking Directions

1. Remove ice-cream from freezer to allow to soften
2. To make Swiss Roll: Pre-heat oven to 210 degrees Celsius. Line a 22cm x 33cm Swiss Roll pan with baking paper.
3. Sift the flour and cocoa into a bowl.
4. Take the three eggs and three yolks and place in a mixing bowl with the caster sugar and whisk until pale and doubled in size.
5. In a separate bowl, whisk the 3 egg whites and brown sugar until soft peaks form and carefully fold this into the egg yolk mixture.
6. Gently fold into the flour and cocoa.
7. Pour the batter into the lined tray and bake for 10-15 minutes.
8. Allow to cool for 10 minutes and turn out onto clean tea towel and remove baking paper.
9. Spread softened ice-cream over roll. Marble some chocolate sauce through the ice-cream.
10. Place picnic bars along the middle of the roll.
11. Use tea towel to help roll the sponge firmly and tightly.
12. Once rolled, place on a tray and cover in cling wrap.
13. Place roll in the freezer and remove 10 minutes before you are ready to serve.
14. Top with chocolate sauce and peanuts to serve.

Have you heard of an Arctic Roll before?

Keep smiling

Dani