When Big Sis goes wrong

This recipe has some history. Heck, it predates me so you know it's old. Here's the quick story: at some point Mom got this recipe from a really great lady--the wife of one of Dad's college buddies. This was our traditional birthday cake for a lot of years once us kids figured out we could actually request our birthday dessert. My brother, who is also older than me, to this day gets Mom to make it for him on special occasions.

There's some work here, beware. But it's not too bad. Aside from the name, of course, which while sorta descriptive, just has zero flair.

Chocolate Ice Cream Dessert.

1 12 oz box Nilla (tm) wafers, crushed
1/2 c melted butter
Basically you're making a crumb crust here, but you're not going to use all of it at once, so once you've prepared it, divide it in half and set it to the side. You do know the easy way to crush these cookies, right? Zipped plastic heavy-duty gallon freezer bag (Ziploc (tm) or equivalent will do), place the cookies inside. If you've got a walloping great heavy marble rolling pin, go get that, otherwise go digging in the toolbox for the hammer (flathead--normal hammer, not a ball peen). Whack away all those frustrations on the bag on the counter. Or hand this off to your kid if you've got one standing about. Just make sure you haven't left too much air in the bag when you sealed it or it may pop and then you'll have crumbs everywhere. That would be bad.

Separate 3 eggs and set aside. If you don't have the fancy egg separator tool (and who does?) you will want to be fairly careful of this step: the egg whites do not get cooked so you really don't want them to come in contact with the shell. I liked this site, except for the really annoying sound on one of the ads. Since the egg whites don't get cooked, you'll also want to be fairly secure of your source of eggs. Just sayin'.  By the way, eggs seem to separate easier when cold, so you can do this straight out of the fridge.

2 squares unsweetened chocolate
1/2 c butter
Melt these two together. Ignore the directions in the previous recipe on melting chocolate--this time you're cooking on the edge. Pan, very low heat, directly on burner. The butter will help keep it from scorching but you will need to stir constantly til it's melted. Then immediately pull it off the burner, leaving the burner on.

By the way, if you like chocolate, never, ever, be tempted to taste one of these unsweetened squares. Not even in a desperate 3:00 am PMS-fueled chocolate fit when there's no other chocolate in the house. The flavor, well, the flavor stays with you. And I'll just leave it at that.

Next add:
2 c powdered sugar
3 egg yolks (one at a time, mixing well after each).
Place back on burner and bring just to boil, stirring constantly.

Take off the burner again and turn off the burner. Add:
1 t vanilla
1/2 t salt
Mix and let cool.

When it's cooled, you're going to go into the freezer and pull out a 1/2 gallon container of good vanilla ice cream. For logistical purposes and to keep yourself from going insane with food prep details later, I strongly advise the kind that comes in the rectangular brick packages. Place it on the counter. Keep the kids or cats away from it.

Now take the egg whites, beat them til stiff peak stage or fairly close. The benefit to having separated the eggs way back before you started this fudge mixture is that by now they're no longer fridge temp which means they'll whip up that much more quickly. Remember that the bowl they're in has to be absolutely clean: no grease, no whatever, or they're not going to whip up very well. Fold those beaten egg whites very, very gently into the fudge mixture. Part of the problem of folding stiff airy things into heavy dense semi-liquids is the crush factor: the eggs just seem to collapse and you're aiming for airy here. Or as much of it as you can get. One way to approach is to take a small proportion of the egg whites and mix those into the fudge sauce--you can be a little less gentle here and the resulting mixture ends up a little lighter which makes the rest of the folding-in procedure a little easier.

Okay, pull out a 13x9 pan.  Take 1/2 your crumb mixture (remember that from way back when?) and spread it out in the bottom of the pan. It's not going to form a full crust, but that's okay, because you're not trying for a full crust. Pour the fudge sauce over.

Sprinkle 1/2 c chopped walnuts over that.

This is where the explanation of the posting title comes in. See, Big Sis doesn't like walnuts. So whenever she makes this recipe, she leaves them out. And this is wrong. The walnuts add a depth of flavor, texture, something, that without it the recipe is just too sweet, too bland, too boring. You could head to other nuts/legumes, but not too many would work.  Peanuts would be too much of a contrast of flavors, cashews too. Almonds would have to be sliced razor thin to work and then the texture would be wrong. Hazelnuts chopped up quite small might work, but again flavor/texture: just isn't quite right. So unless you're allergic to walnuts or hate them with a passion beyond all understanding, give in and use them.

I'm no fan of nuts mixed into things either, but the thought of this recipe without the nuts makes me think "why bother?" Which is astounding, given that pretty much the only thing I care about when eating the dessert is the fudge layer anyhow. We used to fight over licking-the-pan-out-privileges.  Real strategy went into timing the kitchen visits while Mom was prepping this: you wanted to make sure you were around at exactly the right time when the dessert was being assembled so you'd have a shot at the pan, but a) wouldn't be in Mom's way or b) end up having to do the dishes. If any of us are good at planning, this recipe is the childhood foundation of that skill.

Back to the recipe.

Walk back over to your softened brick of ice cream and open up the package. Shoo the cats away. Totally open it up--not just the top up, pull away the sides so the paper is flattened and just the brick is standing there by itself. Do some quick quantity surveying and guesstimate about how thick you'll have to slice it (vertically, stop showing off with the long cuts) so you can do one full layer of ice cream across the whole pan. It's been forever since I've done this, but I'm thinking it was about 3/4". Place the slices in the pan, totally covering over the fudge layer. You'll probably have to cut a few of the slices further to fit in the corners and edges and such. Take a spatula and smooth out the seams.

Now, if you ignored my very sage advice and bought a bucket of ice cream you're about to have some fun. You'll probably want to take a metal serving spoon (not a ball scoop) and scoop out the ice cream and layer the flat scoops over the fudge. But it will take longer, the layer won't be as even, and the ice cream has to be way softer to really make this work well which tends to result in granularity when you refreeze the dessert. Next time, you'll listen to me. You can still get a halfway decent vanilla ice cream in the box. And the high end stuff is probably overkill anyhow.

Back to the pan. Once the ice cream layer is on, crumble the remaining crumb mixture over along with another 1/2 c of chopped walnuts. Put a lid on the pan (if you use cling wrap, use the heavy stuff, otherwise just give in and buy the 13x9 pan that comes with a lid, okay? It's amazing how often you have a need for that lid once you've got one.) Place it back in the freezer and freeze til solid.

Pull it out of the freezer at least 15 minutes (or more) before you're planning to serve it. If you don't, and you try and cut it while it's still solid, I am in no way responsible for the loss of your entire kitchen knife fleet. That fudge layer freezes SOLID. You'll also want a really sharp strong knife, and you may even want to dip it into a bowl of hot water between cuts so it slices more easily.

Serve. And keep my brother locked out of the house if you have any leftovers because a few days later you'll go into the freezer to polish off the leftovers and all you'll find is the empty pan. (Okay, I can only prove he did that once.)

And remember the walnuts, okay? Really, Big Sis is wrong about this one. Really. I'll give her props for still making it regularly. I've made it once in 12 years, so she really is the moral inheritor of this recipe. And I'm a huge fan of experimenting with cooking, but this is wrong. Wrong, I tell you. Put in the walnuts.