Culinary Concoctions: Cinnamon Ice Cream Swirl

The Original Recipe.  Why does it look like an 8 year old wrote it?

A few days ago, Allison told me she wanted to make a recipe card for my recipe box.  “Great,” I thought, “This will probably be cute and a nice keepsake.”

She got out some paper, handed me a pen and without further ado, began to dictate her culinary masterpiece.  “This is called Cinnamon Ice Cream Swirl,” she stated seriously.  “Did you write that down, Mommy?”

The recipe went like this:

Ingredients:
    4 scoops sugar
    1 little teaspoon milk
    1 cake
    Cinnamon; 4 or 1 or 2 scoops so there is enough room for the sprinkles
    1 Candle on top; optional
    2 cups flour
    1 cup oil
    2 eggs

Directions:
    Put it in the stove so you can bake it really well.  You can make it tall or little, but it takes a long time to bake the big one, so be careful.

When I was finished writing it down, Allie drew a picture of the finished product at the bottom.  The circles are cinnamon and the ‘x’s are where she put too much cinnamon and crossed some out.

I was surprised that the recipe for Cinnamon Ice Cream swirl did not include any ice cream, but who was I to judge?

Allie carefully folded her recipe and tucked it neatly into my recipe box.  Then she tiptoed into the family room where Chris was watching TV.  “Daddy, guess what!” she whispered excitedly.  Well, she tried to whisper.  Allie has many wonderful qualities but stealth is not among them.

“Tomorrow, I am going to wake you up early and we are going to make my recipe for Mommy!!!!”  She made her eyes super big and turned her mouth into an ‘o’ of surprise for effect.  She stared at Chris expectantly until he noticed her and said, “What?  Yeah, okay, that sounds good.”

Which is hilarious because Chris never agrees so easily to anything that requires him to get up earlier than he absolutely has to.  I enjoyed a good chuckle before putting the kids to bed, figuring Allie would forget her recipe by morning.

Only she didn’t.  She asked if we could make it the following day.  And the next day.  And the day after that.  Finally, Saturday rolled around.  We usually do something out of the ordinary for breakfast on Saturday: chocolate chip pancakes or blueberry buckle.  This Saturday, Allie convinced me to try making “Cinnamon Ice Cream Swirl,” which would definitely be out of the ordinary.

Allison was ecstatic.  She gathered ingredients and bowls and measuring spoons and pulled a chair up to the island to begin baking.  Nicole, of course, had to pull up a chair as well.  She requested her milk and her cheerios (with signs--she still isn’t talking), and settled in with what can only be described as an, “oh, this is going to be good,” sort of expression.

Fortunately, since Allison had used some rather vague measurements in her recipe, I was able to doctor it as we went.  Unfortunately, I am far from gifted in culinary pursuits, and I had no idea how to doctor it in a way that would make the final product edible.

In the end, we made these changes:
    1 cup sugar (4 scoops with a 1/4 c measuring cup)
    1 heaping 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon (so as to leave plenty of room for sprinkles)
    omit the ‘cake’
    omit the candle
    1/2 cup oil instead of 1 cup
    We also added 1/4 teaspoon salt and one and a half teaspoons baking soda    

Allison dumped all the ingredients in our kitchen-aid mixer bowl while Nicole pointed and grunted in a helpful sort of way.  We turned on the mixer and watched.  I was curious what kind of consistency we were going to be dealing with--Allie hadn’t really specified if this was a cake, a cookie, a biscuit, or something entirely new.

After a couple of minutes, she switched off the mixer.  “There, that’s just right,” she announced.  Nicole and I peered into the bowl.  It looked.......sticky.  Thicker than cake batter, but maybe a bit runny for cookies or biscuits.  I raised my eyebrows and looked at Allison for guidance.

“CAKE PAN, PLEASE!” she asserted.  I greased a 9x9 glass pyrex pan and spread the gooey mixture as best I could.  Allison oversaw my progress with words of encouragement: “Make sure you swirl, Mommy.  It’s Cinnamon Ice Cream SWIRL, remember?!”

When it was sufficiently swirled, we stuck it in the oven at 350, and I set a timer for 20 minutes.  About 10 minutes passed before Allison suddenly bellowed, “The topping!  We forgot the topping!!”

The 'cake' after the topping was added.

This was news to me, as I recalled nothing about a topping from the original recipe.  However, I mixed a teaspoon of cinnamon with a tablespoon of sugar (Allison remembered this particular ‘topping’ from making snickerdoodles), and Allie added about a half a jar of red sprinkles for good measure.  We took the cake out of the oven and spread our sugary mixture somewhat evenly over the top.  Allison added more and more sprinkles until I finally took the container out of her hands.  Then we popped it back in the oven.

After a total of about 30 minutes, the cake passed the toothpick test, and we took it out to cool.  It actually smelled pretty good, and the edges had puffed up nicely.  However, there was a big chunk in the center that sunk down, and it continued to sink as the cake cooled.

The highly accurate toothpick test.

I tentatively cut a couple of slices.  Allison took a bite and exclaimed, “Mmmmm, delicious!”  She had maybe two more small bites before wandering off to watch “My Little Ponies”.  Nicole, on the other hand, was a HUGE fan of the cake.  She ate most of my slice and part of Allie’s.

Surprisingly, I think the cake has some potential.  The edges tasted kind of like a cinnamon scone.  It’s biggest downfall was that it didn’t bake properly in the center...maybe it was really destined to be more of a biscuit?  If we ever make ‘Cinnamon Ice Cream Swirl’ biscuits, we’ll be sure to let you know how they turn out.

Taste-testers.  Nicole REALLY wanted that cake.