Mocha Mud Pie for Sarah's Birthday

My litte princess turned 7 yesterday. We had a gathering of the family and both The Lovely Wife and I made a few dishes for her. I'll post about the meal in my next post but first, the cake....

My little girl is growing up fast and as she grows up, her tastes are getting more and more mature. This time around, she wanted a Dessert cake rather than an iced and decorated cake. She said that although the iced and decorated cakes were nice, they weren't as much fun to eat. Smart Gal!

One of her favourite dessert cakes is the Mocha Mud Pie that you get at TGI Fridays. We all enjoy that dessert and its basically a large chunk of Coffee and Chocolate ice cream with an oreo base, covered with oreo sprinkles and served with Hot Fudge and Almonds. That's what I think it is anway!

As search for TGI Friday's Mocha Mud Pie didn't provide much in terms of recipes so I thought I would wing it and come up with something of my own. Everything is home made with the exception of the Oreo biscuits!



This dessert cake is rather cumbersome to make as there are so many components to it. As I said, since everything was home made, it took quite a bit of doing and quite a bit of time. To save time, I made a batch of chocolate ice cream and then halved it. I added Instant Coffee to the halved batch to make a Mocha Ice Cream and then layered that on top of the Chocolate Ice cream. If you dont want to make your own ice cream, just use equal amounts of Chocolate and Coffee Ice Cream. You can also opt to buy your own Hot Fudge but I prefer to make my own.

Ingredients
For the Ice Cream
700ml Cream
300g dark chocolate
8 egg yolks
150g caster sugar
600ml fresh milk
2 tsp Corn Flour
3 Tbsp Coffee
1.5 Tbsp Sugar
3 Tbsp Cream

For the Base and topping
3 packets of Oreo Biscuits
50g butter

almonds for topping
Hot Fudge (recipe will be provided in another post)

Method
Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and conglour together. Bring milk to the boil and then gradually mix a little into the egg mixture to temper it. Pour the egg mix back into the rest of the milk and cook over a gentle heat, stirring constantly until custart thickens and is smooth. Remove from heat.
Add in the chocolate and stir till melted. Allow to cool then chill.
Whip cream until it forms soft peaks and then fold into the chocolate mixture. Half the mixture and set aside.
Heat 3 tbsp cream then add in the coffee and 1.5 Tbsp sugar till it dissolves.
Add in the coffee mix to one half of the mix.

If using an ice cream maker, churn till firm.
Else, freeze mixture and then beat every few hours to remove the ice crystals and make the ice cream smooth

To make the base and assemble:
Line a 9 inch round or square pan with greaseproof paper, allowing the paper to come up the sides. This is so you can remove the cake and plate it later. Melt the butter and let cool. Process 2 packets of Oreos till fine crumbs. Add in the butter and press on to the pan. Chill in freezer for 10 mins till firm.
Remove the ice cream from freezer and allow to thaw till slightly soft. Cover the oreo base with one layer of chocolate ice cream and then cover that with a layer of Mocha/Coffee ice cream. Place in the freezer to set overnight or at least 8 hours. Before serving, crush the remaining packet of Oreos and cover with hot fudge and almonds.

It took a while to make the ice cream and wait for it to set and all that but I was able to do different bits over different times. The actual assembly didnt take too long either and I left the Hot Fudge and Almonds aside to place on each serving as that way, I could keep the cake in the freezer without the hot fudge freezing.

Since the cake was pretty much frozen, we could'nt stick a candle in, so I decided to stick a candle in a Strawberry and just place that on the cake.




The cake was very well received by everyone and Sarah was a happy little girl! I'm pleased that I managed to kind of replicate the TGI Friday's Mocha Mud Pie and I hope that anyone else looking to make a home made version tries this recipe out and please tell me how it goes. Both my kids think that this version is pretty true to the original and they actually prefer mine as the ice cream is creamier and not so icy.

There was sufficient cake to last for dessert the next day and I still have a small bowl filled with the Mocha Pie to last us over the weekend!

I'm glad you liked the cake Princess although Mummy insists its not a cake and is more an ice-cream dessert...

Happy Birthday Sarah!