Don't Bother Me, I'm on Vacation: April Fools!



Ice Cream Sand Castle by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Oh, girls, guess where we’re going for spring break? The sandy beaches of Florida, where you can dip your toesies in the warm Gulf waters and frolic in the sand. You can build sand castles all day long, instead of staying at home in Georgia, watching the cherry blossoms fall.

April Fools!

Instead of digging our feet into the sand, we'll dig our spoons into a sand castle cake made of ice cream. This cake is fairly simple to make, just molded ice cream coated with sugar. The time-consuming part is two stages in the freezer. If you're making this for a party, be sure to start a day or two ahead of serving time.

Sand Castle Ice Cream Cake

1 gallon light-colored ice cream, such as vanilla

3 cups natural cane sugar (you could also use sifted light brown sugar)

Clean sand pail and castle molds

1. Soften ice cream either at room temperature for about 15 minutes or in the microwave for 30 seconds. Scoop or spoon soft ice cream into sand castle mold. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze until solid, about 3 hours, or overnight.

2. Remove molds from freezer. Fill sink with several inches of hot-as-you-can-stand-it water. Dip mold into water until it releases the ice cream.

3. This is the part where you do as I say rather than as I did: Coat the molded ice cream with sugar, cover with plastic wrap and return to the freezer until ready to serve.

4. At serving time, take ice cream out of the freezer, unwrap and turn out onto sugar bed. Arrange molds attractively. Cover sand castles with additional sugar, if needed, then decorate with small paper flags and candy.

The recipe is adapted from ideas in "The Family Baker" by Susan Purdy and Family Fun magazine. By the way, I have a lot of respect for food stylists - this was a bear to photograph - it looked more like a sand castle before I took the picture on a hot afternoon! Decidedly unprofessional, but certainly delicious according to the kid-tasters!

Text and images copyright Lucy Mercer, 2010.