Party Time! How to make Marshmallows, Rice Krispie Treats and Ice Cream Cake!

Mstr H is 9!  Can you believe it?  I can't!  He is getting so old!  He had his birthday yesterday, and asked for Minecraft Creeper Rice Krispie Treats to take to school, and a lasagne cook up and ice cream cake for dinner last night.  So I went to work.  I love doing lasagne night, we do normal meat with nomato sauce and make a second one of spinach and mushroom.  Everyone eats up big!  I even make some GF garlic bread for Miss A (I used a tiny amount of Garlic and some herbs in her mix.  Next time will use garlic chives instead.)  As I always fail when I try to make marshmallow in the 'cook' method, I scoured the internet for a no-cook marshmallow.  I found one!  It was posted by Jody on stayathomemum.com.au.  Here it is:

NO COOK GLUTEN FREE MARSHMALLOW

INGREDIENTS
2 cups white sugar
1 cup boiling water
2 tbsp gelatine
pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

METHOD
Dissolve the gelatine in the boiling water.  In a large stand mixer, place the sugar in a clean bolw and pour in the gelatine mixture and salt.  Beat on the highest setting for approx 10-15 mins or until the marshmallow is really thick and white.  Mix in the vanilla extract.  If you are making Rice Krispie Treats, add a whole pack of GF rice bubbles, mix, colour if necessary and press in a greased lamington pan.  Refrigerate until set.  If making marshmallow bunnies, grease your moulds and press in the marshmallow.  Refrigerate until set.  If you are making marshmallows to coat in coconut, grease a lamington pan and press in the marshmallow.  Refrigerate until set, cut into squares and roll in coconut.

See how easy it is?  I added the rice bubbles and some green food colouring and made chocolate Creeper faces.  I put these on the mix while still sticky.  When set, I cut out the squares and we were done!  Gluten, wheat, nut, egg free, fructose friendly Minecraft Creeper Rice Krispie Treats!  If you use Agar Agar instead of gelatine, and vegan chocolate for the faces, you can make vegan easily too.

After the success of the treats above, I set about trying to find a gf cheese sauce that actually works, and I found one!  The sauce in our lasagnes was perfect, so I have to share it.  The trick, it appears, is not to cook the butter and flour and make a roux, but to just mix them together, add the milk, and wait for it to thicken.  This recipe was found on a site called Carla's Gluten Free Recipe Box and I will definitely be going there again.

GLUTEN FREE BECHAMEL OR WHITE SAUCE RECIPE

INGREDIENTS
4 tbsp butter
1 Tbsp Tapioca flour
1 cup milk
1/2 cup grated cheese (optional - if making a cheese sauce)

METHOD
Melt butter in a frying pan.  Do not allow to burn.  Whisk in flour.  Slowly pour in milk while whisking constantly.  Cook and continue to whisk until it thickens to the required consistency.  Remove from heat and stir in cheese if using.

It is the first time I have actually had a gf cheese sauce work.  I doubled the amounts and it was so perfect!  Yummm!

Now to the fun stuff!  The Ice Cream Cake.  I know it isn't pretty, but trust me, the taste was incredible!  Everyone ate a huge piece and was tossing around flavours for our Christmas Ice Cream Pudding!  I think strawberry and coconut won!  I just need to work on my presentation............lol.

To start with, I made my Simple Vanilla Ice Cream out of the Cuisinart Recipe Booklet I got with my Ice Cream Maker.  I lined a cake tin with Glad Wrap, and put half of the ice cream in and pressed down tight.  I placed the tin in the freezer to harden.  Then I added 1 tbsp of cocoa to the rest of the ice cream.  It made a light chocolate taste that was not too overpowering.  I placed that bowl in the freezer too as it was quite melted by then.

Next I brewed a decaffinated coffee pod in our coffee machine and refrigerated that.  Then I crushed up a pack of plain chocolate gluten free biscuits, the Macro brand double choc ones but any will do, and put a layer of that on the vanilla ice cream, and smoothed the chocolate ice cream over the top.  Back in the freezer it went.  Now is the good bit!  I whipped up 600 mls of thickened cream and added 2/3 cup icing sugar.  Just as it got really stiff, I added half of the shot of coffee and mixed it in.  This was then spread on top of the chocolate ice cream to make a harder base (when you turn the cake out).  Back in the freezer for at least 2 hours to get really hard.

20 mins before you cut it, you need to take it out of the freezer to soften slightly, and turn out onto a plate.  And voila!  You too can have an ugly, but delicious, ice cream cake!  Now to work on making to pretty for next time!  I love that the ice cream is home made for this, it gives a great sense of achievement, even if I did cheat by using ready-made biscuits!

If you want the ice cream recipe, you can find in one of my previous posts.  Let me know what you think in the comments.