I struggled with what to call this 'creation' -- chocolate banded ice cream torte just didn't do it justice, at least not in my mind. Is the title kind if corny? Yeah, maybe a little, or if you are not in looooove...in love with peanut butter and chocolate that is! Now to be completely honest I do like the peanut butter chocolate combination but it's not my favorite thing ever, and I would probably order carrot cake instead, but I do enjoy a good peanut butter and chocolate mingling every now and then. If you are a peanut butter chocolate maniac than this is certainly the dessert for you!The minute I started thinking about Dorie's Chocolate Banded Ice Cream Torte, chosen by Amy of Food, Family and Fun , I wondered what ice cream to use with the chocolate ganache I just had to throw peanut butter in the mix. How could you not? My other idea was to do a chocolate orange ice cream torte which sounded amazing, but it didn't materialize.
If you read my TWD chocolate pudding post you may remember that I don't like eggs. Don't know why, never have, I'm not a vegan (I am a lifelong vegetarian though), and I'll gladly eat eggs baked into pancakes or cookies or carrot cake (hmmm, am I craving carrot cake?) but I just don't like anything eggy...the smell, the texture, whatever it is just really turns me off, ever since I was a child. So imagine my surprise when I read that Dorie's ganache had 8 - yelp - yes, that's an eight there, eggs! Uck. Sorry sorry sorry! I really do feel bad changing the recipe so much, but there was no way eight eggs were going into anything in this house. Shudder. I've made ganache many times and never used eggs so I just went with my regular heavy cream/chocolate ganache recipe. It worked, yay! Egg battle OVER! At least in this recipe.
I could never ever "make" an ice cream dessert without homemade ice cream, so I made some super yummy egg free peanut butter ice cream that was so rich and creamy, perfect pairing with my ganache.
I was thinking of how I was going to present my ice cream torte, muffin cups sounded great, I didn't want to dig out the springform pan, maybe if I had a special event to bring this too, but really I made this 'just for fun' and didn't want a huge amount of it sitting in the freezer for who knows how long. While racking my brain somehow hearts came to mind, I was going to use my silicon heart pan, and the I remembered my coeur a la creme molds that I recently purchased for a Barefoot Bloggers recipe. I had neatly packed them away, thinking it would be years, or atleast until Valentine's Day until I retrieved them, but no, they were not done with their service yet. They would be just perfect for this weeks Tuesdays with Dorie!
Unmold and here's what I had...not gorgeous, but not bad.
But that was not all, oh no, that was not all...
had to add some chopped up Reece's Cups, not the minis, which while fun, do not give the proper peanut butter to chocolate ratio as seen in full sized Reece's Cups, at least not in my book.
And why-oh-why not add some melty chocolate ganache, it was just sitting there anyway, beckoning to be used...use me it called, use me...
Ahhh, mountains of chocolate peanut butter ice cream goodness, all in the shape of hearts. The romantic in me came out while making this dessert, I imagined a madly in love couple, esacping to a bed and breakfast for the night, the Chocolate Banded Peanut Butter Hearts of Love waiting on a little table under a silver dome... then feeding this dessert to each other, on a bed of silk sheets with rose petals around...
