Ice-Cream Sculptures

At times the prospect of making dessert can seem a bit daunting.  You have to pick a recipe, make a list, go to the store, buy the ingredients, then return home, prep and bake.  Often there just aren’t enough hours in the day to make that special trip out.

Courtesy of axlotl

But does that mean dessert has to be forgotten altogether?  Never!  A marvelous website, “ice-cream-recipes.com,” shows how to dress up dessert using a single, readily available ingredient, ice-cream!

Try this out for yourself and make some funky Ice Cream Sculptures.

Believe it or not you can sculpt anything from an otherwise unassuming block of ice-cream; pyramids, houses, faces, flowers, all sort of things!  But here are a few tips to get you started.

First of all, it is best to use hard ice-cream, as soft scoop melts quickly, thus making sculpting trickier than it has to be.  Have a variety of utensils set out, so that you can scoop and sculpt as much detail as you’d like.

It is best to have a bowl of hot water on hand as well, so that you can clean utensils between scoops and slicing, especially if you’re using different kinds of ice-cream in a single sculpture.

Another helpful suggestion is to use a chilling tray.  Think of it as sort of a staging area for your sculpture, which can be easily slid into the refrigerator for safe keeping.  And last, but not least, keep your sculpture chilled.  Place it in the fridge about every 5 minutes while sculpting away to avoid melting.

Ice-cream sculptures can be as simple or complex as you’d like.  Use different flavours of ice-cream to achieve different colours and textures in your design.

Decorate with candies, chocolates, and sprinkles to bring forth a refreshing take on a classic favourite — ice-cream — who doesn’t love it?  Especially now that it is available in any shape and size.  Literally.