Excellent, “light” dessert to serve when you want guests to cheer! This recipe has never yet been served to me without acclaim. Perfect blending of flavors. It has evolved into my go-to recipe. Making is not difficult, but give yourself enough time. I prepare it the previous day. If you’d like, you can add bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate curls or shavings as a garnish.
| Prep Time: | 45 mins |
| Cook Time: | 10 mins |
| Additional Time: | 5 hrs 5 mins |
| Total Time: | 6 hrs |
| Servings: | 10 |
| Yield: | 1 8-inch springform |
Ingredients
- 24 chocolate wafers
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted
- 1 ½ cups cranberries
- ½ cup light corn syrup
- ⅓ cup white sugar
- ⅓ cup water
- 3 cups vanilla ice cream, softened
- ½ cup shelled pistachio nuts
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- In a food processor or blender, process wafers until finely ground. Stir ground wafers together with 1/4 cup melted butter and press into the bottom and partway up the sides of an 8-inch springform pan. Freeze 30 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in a covered saucepan over medium heat, simmer cranberries, corn syrup, sugar and water for 10 minutes. Transfer mixture to a blender or food processor and puree until smooth. Place in a bowl and chill until cold.
- Spread half the softened ice cream over the frozen crust. Drizzle all but 1/3 cup of the cold cranberry mixture over the ice cream. Top with remaining ice cream. Draw a knife through the layers to marble. Freeze 30 minutes, or until firm.
- Spread remaining 1/3 cup cranberry mixture over top of frozen dessert and freeze 15 minutes more.
- Meanwhile, chop pistachios finely and place in a small skillet over medium heat with 1 tablespoon butter and salt. Cook, stirring, 1 minute, until fragrant. Set aside to cool.
- In a chilled bowl, whip cream until soft peaks form. Beat in confectioners’ sugar and vanilla and whip until stiff peaks form. Fold in cooled pistachios and spread cream over chilled cake. Freeze 30 minutes, then cover tightly with plastic wrap and foil and freeze 4 hours.
- To unmold, wrap a hot, dampened towel around the sides of the pan for 1 to 2 minutes. Then remove the sides of the pan.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 399 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 46 g |
| Cholesterol | 66 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 4 g |
| Saturated Fat | 13 g |
| Sodium | 220 mg |
| Sugars | 27 g |
| Fat | 24 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Made this on Thursday for Saturday’s celebration. Was a huge hit. Didn’t change a thing.
Positively Yummy! My go-to Christmas dessert!
I’ve made this every year at Thanksgiving and/or Christmas for a few years now, and it’s always a hit. Love the contrast of the tart cranberries with the sweet ice cream. It is time consuming, especially over the holidays, but I have found it can be easily parceled out over a few days. I’ll make & freeze the crust on Monday, do the ice cream layer on Tuesday, add the whipped cream & nuts on Wednesday, and sit back & enjoy it after the turkey dinner on Thursday. That way it’s just 5 – 10 minutes per day – much easier to fit in during a hectic time of year.
Delicious and unusual. Also too time consuming to make except for very special occasions. I’d probably double or at least increase the cranberry swirl by half. I skipped cooking the pistachios in butter, just bought roasted nuts. Otherwise it was a wonderful mix of flavors, and got by far the most raves of any birthday cake I’ve made. 🙂
Yummy in my tummy…… I loved this recipe so much! I just started cooking and this recipe is so good! I don’t even like cranberries!
very tasty,good flavor. Took some time to make though.
It was just okay. I didn’t think this one was worth the trouble. Lengthy process and time consuming. The flavor doesn’t make up for the trouble to make it, in my opinion. There are plenty of other ice cream desserts that aren’t nearly as involved.
I used the cranberry swirl in a cheescake recipe, it was delicious. Can’t wait to try the ice cream cake.