Ice Cream Bomb: Let's Hear It For the Bombe Dessert!
Some people sit in chairs to remove their socks off their feet. Others just have a spoonful of bombe dessert, an ice cream bomb. Maybe you’ve never heard of the bombe, or you’re curious to know more about this explosive dessert. Well today is a great day to learn about it as it’s National Raspberry Bombe Day.
The bombe is a stunning frozen dessert. It’s so beautiful and delicious that it was on the wedding menu when Queen Elizabeth married Prince Philip in 1947. Of course, it was first created in France; we probably don’t need to tell you that. Everyone already knows there’s a direct correlation between the complexity of a tasty dessert and the likelihood it was produced in the kitchen of one the French courts.
How Does One Make the Ice Cream Bombe?
We make it by using a hemispherical mould, the bombe dessert mould. This mould is traditionally lined with ice cream or frozen custard and filled with a pâte à bombe. Pâte à bombe is basically a rich and fluffy meringue type of mixture. It’s designed specifically for desserts like mousses and parfaits that need to be frozen. It can include nuts, candied fruits, liqueurs, and coulis. This is then left overnight to set and freeze into a cannonball-shaped dish. When it’s ready, you cut into and serve, just as you would a cake.
Types of Bombe Dessert
The term bombe has come to refer to any frozen dessert shaped with a mould. Baked Alaska is one such dessert hailing from New Orleans. It tends to remain in your memory if you’ve ever experienced the act of someone flambéeing one before your very eyes! Another version of a bombe, the spumoni, comes from Italy. While this is not set on fire, you make it by combining three gelato flavours. These include cherry, pistachio, and either chocolate or vanilla. If your mind has jumped to the Neapolitan combination you’re on the right track. Neapolitan is actually a version of spumoni, but using flavours more tailored to the North American palate (strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate).
Bavarois or Bavarian cream is another type of bombe that resembles panna cotta, but combines milk, eggs, gelatin, and whipped cream. Most people serve it with fresh or pureed fruit. For a little more fruit fun, we came across a watermelon bombe that, as you can expect, looks just like a watermelon once you cut into it! Tinted green ice cream makes up the outer layer. A thinner layer of white ice cream follows, and finally we have a generous quantity of red-tinted ice cream to make up the middle filling. But what about the watermelon seeds? Easy, they just add chocolate chips.
We managed to find some examples of watermelon bombe dessert on Pinterest. But if you prefer something a little less wild, there’s always the classic Raspberry Bombe.
Enjoy an ice cream bomb on this National Raspberry Bombe Day!
