Passiona Spider Cake (or Passionfruit Icecream Soda Cake)

Oh dear. It's another post, another apology around here! But I'm about to make up for not posting for a while, starting with this super easy icecream cake. Then I'm going to bombard you with baby shower ideas, so hang on for the ride! You don't know this yet, but that's funny because one of the parties is a plane theme.

So, I discover the oddest-slash-funniest things doing this blog and I've got a great example this week, but first let me give you a bit of background. See, this is a Passiona Spider cake. The problem is, to many of our international visitors (love you all, particularly you Guatemalans that check in from time to time!), that will make absolutely no sense.

A Spider in Australia is not only an evil being that appears menacingly close to your head while you're driving on the freeway (yes, that happened recently!), it's also a glass of soft drink (or soda) with a scoop or two of ice cream dropped into it. So it all fizzes and eventually melts together to create a fruity, creamy, delicious concoction.

According to Wikipedia, that translates to an Ice cream Soda in the USA and a Snowball in the UK and New Zealand. By the way, that makes sense, a snowball. Can anyone explain to me what this drink has to do with creepy, crawly spiders?!

And, what I also discovered is that a person who made ice cream sodas in the original American drugstores was called a Soda Jerk?! That's just mean. Funny, but mean.

Well, what a massive jerk I've turned out to be this week, because I took that spider idea and turned it into a cake. A passionfruit flavoured one, made from that great 80's Aussie staple, Passiona!

And to really rub it in, this cake has three ingredients. I'm not kidding! So, whatever we call it, we have to agree this is an ideal summer cake. Which probably makes me less of a jerk, but a jerk nonetheless!

Passiona Spider Cake

This cake is passionfruit flavoured, with a vanilla ice cream centre. Piled on top are scoops of the Passiona and ice cream, which was mixed together and frozen and came out like a cross between ice cream and sorbet. Substitute with proper passionfruit ice cream if you prefer. If you fancy another flavor of spider, try it and let me know how it goes. I was tempted myself to go with pineapple or orange soft drink.

 

Ingredients

2 vanilla cake mixes
1 litre Passiona or passionfruit flavoured soft drink
2 litres vanilla ice cream

Instructions

1. Preheat oven according to cake mixes you are using and grease and line a deep 19cm round spring form cake tin.

2. Place cake mixes in a large bowl, then add 600ml of soft drink. Whisk quickly until mixture is combined well and any lumps have disappeared.

3. Transfer cake mixture to prepared cake tin and bake according to the cake mixes you are using, or until a skewer comes out clean.

4. When the cake is baked and cooled completely, split it horizontally into two even layers. Line spring form tin again and place one layer of the cake back into the bottom.

5. Remove ice cream from the freezer and defrost it until it resembles a thick, spreadable consistency. Spread half of the ice cream over the first cake layer and cover tin with clingfilm. Place back into the freezer and freeze until ice cream has set again, at least 2 hours.

6. In the meantime, place 400ml of soft drink into a small saucepan and boil until reduced by half. Then, stir the syrup through the remaining melted ice cream, pour into a glass bowl or plastic container and freeze until set, at least 2 hours.

7. When both have set, remove cake from the freezer and place the second layer of cake on top. Place back into the freezer until ready to serve.

8. When ready to serve, remove cake from the cake tin and scoop the ice cream mixture on top.