Panettone Mascarpone Ice-cream Cake: Festive Recipe.

Without a doubt we overindulgence ourselves at Christmas time throughout until New Year celebrations. Often you’ll find your way snacking through left over chocolate selection boxes and some form of savoury wheat snacks for weeks posterior to Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Thesedays the struggle in my family is getting though Christmas puddings, that my Dad encouraged my Mum to buy triple of. Occasionally we will also have remaining Panettone cake which is tasty, but not exactly appealing in it’s basic form. I can’t recall exactly where I saw this recipe, though I do remember watching a variation of it on television five plus years ago. The celebrity chef who prepared it used some pricey ingredients that aren’t easy to obtain, so I have adapted this to make it more effortable; yet equally as scrumptious.

Ingredients:

• A medium or large Panettone
• Mascarpone ice-cream
• Unsalted, deshelled pistachio nuts
• Raspberries (frozen ones in a decent quantity will be cheaper during this season)
• Icing sugar
• Glacé cherries

A round glass bowl is needed for this recipe; the size will depend on the size of Panettone you use.

Recipe:

1. Begin to slice the Panettone into strips, make them as equal in length and width as possible. Reserve one full slice for later use.
2. Line the bowl with cling film/saran wrap. Vertically lay the strips of Panettone down the sides of the bowl; they should overlap each other slightly, ends meeting in the centre of the bowl’s base. If the Panettone is too dry to curve with the shape of the bowl, delicately dampen the slices with either water, milk, vanilla essence, rum, coffee or golden/maple syrup. Don’t make the Panettone too wet, it may weaken the bread’s strength.
3. Over a separate bowl press the raspberries through a sieve using the back of a spoon. Discard the seeds.
4. Stir in one tablespoon of icing sugar into the the raspberry puree to form a sweet coulis. Set aside.
5. Returning to the Panettone, place 2-3 scoops of Mascarpone Ice-cream into the hollow, Panettone crevice you have arranged. Flatten the ice-cream until one even layer is distributed.
6. Pour half of the raspberry coulis on top of the ice-cream section, with some diced or halved glacé cherries.
7. In a zip lock bag, crush some pistachios. Sprinkle them onto the coulis and cherries.
8. Repeat the laying process once more: Mascarpone ice-cream, then the raspberry coulis, more glacé cherries, followed by some pistachios.
9. Now you are going to make a base for the ice-cream cake using the reserved full slice of Panettone, so that no ice-cream is exposed. As best as you can, cut a circle out of the remaining Panettone slice. You may use a bowl or cup as a cutting guide.
10. Rest the circle of Panettone on the last layer: which should be pistachios. Carefully use the back of a spoon to squash the bread base.
11. Chill in a freezer for 4-6 hours.
12. For serving: tug on the cling film/saran wrap to release the dessert from the glass bowl. Still in the protective plastic, rest in on your kitchen work surface. Cover the base of the ice-cream cake with a presentation plate of your choice. Flip over the plate with the cake; it should resemble a dome. Remove the cling film/saran wrap.
13. Slice the cake like a pizza. If any coulis remains, drizzle it onto each slice.