4 Lessons Learned from an Ice Cream Bombe

How one cake merged nostalgia with geekiness.

I’m discovering that I have a strange trait wherein I enjoy making cakes that reflect highly nerdy board games. Case in point: this summer when I whipped up an insanely good chocolate cake that was supposed to — in some way — look like… the galaxy? I mean, the frosting was dark and there were sprinkles. It sort of worked?

Okay, it was a stretch. I knew i could do better. Maybe that’s why I felt compelled to up my creativity when some friends came over Friday night for another session of peak-geek game Twilight Imperium, 4th Edition. This time I would for sure evoke an unmistakeable deep space experience with my cake, and it would be magnificent. But how?

Somehow I began fixating on bombe cakes. I could shape one to look like a planet! That’s fun! Immediately I thought of Julia Child’s showstopper of a bombe that my mom used to make for special occasions. It’s not terribly hard to make but does require time since there’s a mousse, a brownie structure, and a chocolate topping. I was tempted to go this route since it’s been 15 unforgivable years since I last made this knockout cake, but let’s be honest: if you’re pushing plastic spaceships around a dining room table and rolling dice to simulate intergalactic battle, Julia Child may not be the right vibe. At least… I don’t think?

Playing these board games feels on some level like an adolescent regression; so why not lean into it? The moment does not call for a bombe aux trois chocolates; it demands ice cream, and plenty of it.

Enter famed Internet baker Claire Saffitz and her Easy Ice Cream Sundae Bombe. Her pitch is simple: imagine all the nostalgic fun of an ice cream sundae, but in cake form! Watching her video, I became convinced that this was the only path forward.

The method is simple: combine a pint of chocolate ice cream with crushed chocolate wafers and mold the mixture to the sides of a bowl. Freeze, then fill with two pints of vanilla ice cream studded with almonds and maraschino cherries. Top with more of the chocolate mix, freeze some more, and then unmold at a later time for a finishing veil of chocolate ganache.

This clearly would be a fabulous canvas for me to make some sort of incredible sci-fi visual experience. I had to do it. Setbacks and life lessons ensued.

Lesson 1: When In Doubt, Oreo.

Claire’s recipe calls for using 9oz of the iconic, pillar-of-America Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafer cookies, but in a shocking twist, they are no more. They were DISCONTINUED in 2023! How could this happen? What did we do to deserve this? I blame Brooklyn hipsters. Famous Chocolate Wafers are clearly a food category hipsters should have repopularized by now at some trendy Greenpoint popup (alongside such hits as Jewish deli, anchovies, and cabbage), but apparently the pendulum hasn’t swung that far yet.

I really loved those Famous Wafers, even if I rarely saw them in a store. Furthermore, they are a staple in the greater Icebox cake community (a community which may or may not actually exist); so losing this cookie really is bad news for frozen desserts.

Some Internet sleuthing (and actually Claire’s video too) revealed that the next best thing to the Famous Wafers are actually just Oreo rounds. Claire peeled away all the creme filling for her vid, but that was too tedious a task for me. I figured — at worst — mixing crushed full-creme’d Oreos with chocolate ice cream would simply taste like chocolate Oreo ice cream, and at best, it would be fairly close to chocolate wafers. Now, having tasted the final product, I can assure you there is no need to scrape the creme away. In this recipe, the swap for regular Oreos is not only acceptable, but a joy.

Another swap I made: I ditched the vanilla ice cream and cherries and replaced with mint cookies and cream. This may have been overkill on the Oreo front, but I like to think of it instead as a “celebration” of the cookie.

The lesson: use Oreos in place of chocolate wafers in whatever recipe you’re using and especially in an ice cream cake.

Lesson 2: You Can Be Cheap.

This bombe calls for an outer layer of chocolate mixed with aforementioned chocolate cookies and a chocolate ganache topping. This is my love language. But unfortunately, I can love too much. When I see such a chocolatey lineup, I can’t help but lean in. Aggressively. In this case, I elected to use a pint of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream Darkest Chocolate, partially because it is beyond a doubt the best chocolate ice cream out there, but also because it felt like a neat way to elevate a simple ice cream cake.

In many ways this was an excellent choice. But also, never again. Considering there are three different chocolate things happening at once, there really should be a contrast in the nuances. Everything was dark, darker, and darkest chocolate. Heaven on paper, but in practice, less successful. For example, I really couldn’t taste or differentiate the ganache from the ice cream. Feels like a missed opportunity. Meanwhile, the Oreos - a universally beloved mix-in - kind of distract from the high quality of the Jeni’s ice cream. If I’m paying top tier for a pint ($10 in this case, which is wild), I want to fully savor all its notes and textures.

What I’m trying to say in my characteristically wordy way is that a more generic brand like Edy’s or Breyers might be the better way to go for the chocolate layer. It’s a better value and would highlight the ganache more effectively without competing with it.

Plus, one thing about artisanal ice creams: they freeze up hard as a rock, which leads to a whole other variety of annoyances in this recipe (mixing in the Oreos, slicing, spreading, etc). The air that’s whipped into ice cream is called overrun, and cheapo commercial brands tend to have high amounts of it. For the purposes of enjoying a scoop, this isn’t great. For the purposes of making ice cream cake, it’s very helpful. Ultimately it will be up to you to play around with flavors and textures and brands, but my takeaway is that leaning too highbrow may not be the way to go here.

Lesson 3: Pocky Is The Hero We Need

We’re about to take a turn here; so hold on.

I didn’t write a whole preamble about Twilight Imperium for nothing. The context of this game night actually led to a larger, if perhaps niche and not very important culinary revelation.

In my attempt to decorate this ice cream bombe into some sort of awe-inspiring sci-fi marvel, I drew upon inspiration from Twilight Imperium (TI4, for those who are cool). One of the most fearsome pieces of plastic in the game is the War Sun, a spiky orb that travels across the galaxy and sows destruction. In other words, it’s a knockoff Death Star, and more importantly - a perfect cake candidate.

Here’s a pic for reference:

What if I make the bombe look like the upper half of the War Sun? I could stick Kit-Kats in it to recreate the tiny structures on the figurine! But Kit-Kats could wind up looking bulky, and they might fall over easily. I needed something skinnier; so I opted for the spindly Japanese treat that is Pocky. Placed en masse, sticks of Pocky could certainly emulate the skyscrapers that jut out from atop the War Sun.

And so I got to work decorating. With ice cream melting each passing second, I had to work quickly. I unmolded the bombe (which took some work, fyi) onto a plate and poured a dark chocolate ganache atop it. I then inserted many Pocky sticks as best as I could. I didn’t have time to be precious about it, but I was sure to cut the sticks at different lengths so the whole thing didn’t look like a sea urchin.

No matter how many Pocky sticks I added to the bombe, nothing looked quite right, and it definitely didn’t help when I finished everything off by scattering rainbow sprinkles over the ganache. This definitely worked against the War Sun’s brand of interstellar menace. (I later explained to my guests that the aliens on board were celebrating Pride).

By the time I put the bombe back in the freezer, it definitely had an air of wonkiness to it, and in those few minutes before the ganache set and the ice cream re-hardened, I’m happy to announce that the Pocky sticks casually tilted askew like some sort of German Expressionism painting.

Needless to say, I’m not sure I totally captured the spirit of a War Sun:

In retrospect, Kit-Kats may have been the more accurate decoration, but I’m so glad I went the Pocky route because (and here’s where the lesson comes in) I discovered that Pocky… is an excellent ice cream mix-in! The sticks remained crispy and delicate, unlike other mix-ins which can feel like a tooth micro fracture waiting to happen (looking at you, M&Ms).

And so, while the bombe may have looked like a muddy island after a forest fire, it did lead to a lovely realization that a layer of crushed pocky might be a wonderful addition to not just this bombe, but all ice cream cakes. Try it, people!

Lesson 4: What About a Frankenbombe?

It’s fun to make a bombe… but it’s easier to make a regular ice cream cake. I adore Alison Roman’s Mint Chip Ice Cream Cake, which is as simple as molding ice cream over a sponge (I used chocolate muffins from the grocery store) and covering with a frozen whipped cream. At the risk of sacrificing War Sun verisimilitude, I might someday combine Claire Saffitz’s bombe with Alison Roman’s cake. Here’s what I’m thinking, from bottom to top:

Bottom layer: Chocolate sponge

Layer 1: Chocolate-Oreo combo

Layer 2: Crushed Pocky

Layer 3: Mint chip (or mint Oreo) ice cream

Layer 4: Chocolate ganache

Layer 5: Frozen whipped cream

I know it sounds like a lot, but I won’t have my dreams taken away from me. It may take months before I attempt this experiment, but it will happen someday, and I will dutifully report back.

In the meantime, I will be happy with Claire Saffitz’s ice cream bombe, which, for what it’s worth, was fantastic. Let’s not bury the lede here. The leftovers get better every day.

Anyway, I now have a pressing question for the readers: what tips have you learned for homemade ice cream cakes? What do you like to add? What pitfalls do you avoid? And have you ever made an ice cream cake that looks like it could destroy a civilization?