The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop

Dearest Readers,

It has become something of a Whimsy tradition that when overseas, I provide you with a review of an ice cream shop. (Well, it's a tradition in my head anyway and that's good enough for me.)

Thus, I write with news of Ice Cream Wonder across the Atlantic - Big Gay Ice Cream Wonder from, where else, The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop in New York's East Village.

The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop started out life as a food truck whizzing around the streets of NYC but, owing to demand, became an-all-year-round ice cream wonder palace in 2011. It's a tiny walk-in shop with a permanent queue outside in the amazing East Village. 

The inside of the shop is the definition of whimsy. There is a giant glittering Unicorn on the wall, and My Little Pony ephemera dotted about the shop. 

I was particularly taken by the multi-coloured cat chalk board next to the menu. 

The menu itself, modelled here by the SIBF, is a thing of sheer joy. I didn't have sufficient time to peruse it, unfortunately, so sort of panic-ordered an ice cream I wouldn't normally go for, but it was still amazing.

The thing about Big Gay Ice Cream is that it's a playful variation on traditional American 'soft-serve' ice cream. Ie Posh Mr Whippy. But better. A million times better. The joy is that the soft-serve itself is beyond delicious - creamy, air-whip-light and flavoursome - but that on top of the ice cream, the toppings are imaginative, exciting and generously portioned. In much the same way I would suggest that eye make-up is all about the glitter, Big Gay Ice Cream is all about the toppings. But I digress. 

I ordered the Rocky Roadhouse - a chocolate ice cream covered in rocky road topping comprising of marshmallows, dark chocolate chips and salted almonds. The ice cream takes its name from Patrick Swayze's 1989 movie Road House and serves as a tribute to the late great man himself. The combination of the crunchy nuts, the chewy marshmallow, the super-soft-serve ice cream and the bitey choc chips was A-may-zing (as Craig Revel Horwood might say if he were judging ice cream rather than dancing).

The SIBF ordered the American Globs which is possibly the quintessential Big Gay Ice Cream as it is 'dipped'. This means that the entire ice cream is dipped in a vat of hot chocolate sauce which then dries and creates a hard outer shell - like what a Magnum tries to do but fails. If someone decided to come up with this idea and sell it here they would make their fortune because once eaten no other ice cream is the same. On top of this, the American Globs featured dark chocolate salty-sweet pretzels dotted throughout it and its name is a tribute to Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods' making it ice cream nirvana! 

Anyway, you go in, order your Big Gay Ice Cream, leave and find a stoop to sit on and eat it. Alternatively, you could take your ice cream into Tompkins Square Park, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you like eating ice cream with rats crawling round yr feet. (Not the definition of whimsy.) 

 The trouble is that now that I've had my Big Gay Ice Cream and eaten it, how will I ever go back to ice cream of any other variation?

Coming up next: The Secret Cocktail Bars of NYC #2.

Happy Days,
Whimsy x

Life is one hell of a rocky road, so you may as well eat chocolate...

Q: What does a Hampstead Baker do when the oven is broken?

A: Experiment with the creation of Rocky Road. 

I have long been fascinated by the slabs of chocolatey biscuit treats you often see in the front counters of cafes country-wide. I think this fascination stems from a cafe I frequented during my university years (whose name I forget and extensive googling for which does not locate) which had the widest array of every type of biscuity-slab you might ever possibly find in their window. This being the case, I am surprised to find myself saying I have never until this day attempted to make any of these things. Possibly because they are ubiquitous and why should one attempt to make something so readily available, but probably because no baking is necessary and wherefore art one a Hampstead Baker if one is merely melting and refrigerating? This being said, my oven is broken and so I find myself in the melting and refrigerating stage of sweet-treat making and I must say it is an unexpectedly satisfying activity.

Be warned! Rocky Road is not a cheap creation and the more money you put into the chocolate you use, the better and more delicious your product will be...

 

You will need: 400g best quality dark chocolate (green and blacks is the best really, let's face it)

100 g mini marshmallows or full sized ones cut in quarters

200g rich tea biscuits 

3 tablespoons golden syrup

125g unsalted butter + about 20g more

Buying the ingredients for this recipe is fun as you look pretty much like either someone throwing a child's birthday party or a really useless contestant on Ready Steady Cook.

You do NOT need an oven, but you DO need a hob and a refrigerator.

Crush your rich tea biscuits using a rolling pin. It's good to have a mixture of decent sized bitey bits and some crumbs for textural purposes. 

Check out my silver nail polish, dear Readers. (These details are important.)

Melt 300g of the chocolate with 125g butter and the golden syrup. Melt it slowly over a v low heat. The saucepan I used was too small - would have been much less messy in a bigger pan as you do all your mixing in the same pan.  Simultaneously, melt the other 100g chocolate with the 20g extra of unsalted butter and leave to cool - this will be poured onto the top of the Rocky Road to smooth over the surface. Rather like laying the tarmac over the rough road. (Clearly, I have experience in the art of road surfacing.)

Fold the biscuits and then the marshmallows using a spatula into the original melted chocolate mix (the one with golden syrup). The mixture won't look beautiful but more like the rocky road surface after which it is named! 

Scoop the mixture into a foil lined brownie tray and smooth the surface as much as you can. 

Then pour the extra melted chocolate all over the top allowing it to fill in all the ruts and ridges of your ridiculously rocky road. Pop it in the fridge and leave it to chill over night. 

The following day, cut your creation into small squares (you may need to dip your knife in boiling water to help you cut through the dense chocolate) and drench in icing sugar. Serve with strong, hot tea to very hungry/sugar craving individuals. It is incredibly rich and gooey and not really for the faint hearted. 

  Having made my first Rocky Road I am slightly taken aback by what a long process it is to make something so apparently effortless and simple. There may not be very much skill in melting chocolate and stirring in some biscuits, but an element of patience is required (along with foresight) seeing as these have to be made a day in advance to be enjoyed - or at the very least in the morning to be eaten in the afternoon. Equally, for something that manages to cost about a pound in the shops, making these choclate-bars/biscuits/*things* is not an exactly economically viable day to day activity BUT there is something pleasing about having made it from scratch rather than merely consuming it. 

 Definitely a recipe to keep hold of and bring out on those occasions where you need to be reminded that however rocky the road might seem, there is always chocolate around the corner...

 Love and biscuits,
Silver Whimsy x