It’s Hay Festival time so we’re feeling inspired by our favourite literature.
The king of fantastical food in literature has to be Roald Dahl and any of his books make brilliant inspiration when it comes to getting creative with food. For chocolatey goodness Charlie and the Chocolate Factory might seem like an obvious go-to but my mind always goes straight to Matilda.
The Bogtrotter Sundae
If you’ve read Roald Dhal’s Matilda then you know all about Bruce Bogtrotter and his unfortunate love of chocolate cake. Now, unlike Bruce, we think there might just be such a thing as too much chocolate cake, so why not pair it with ice cream instead for an indulgent sundae? We’ve suggested a couple of our favourite accompaniments below but why not get creative and think up your own fantasy sundae? You could even give it a Roald Dhal-inspired name for a final flourish!
The ice cream
Well, if you’re Bruce it would probably be a double scoop of chocolate, but how about mixing it up? Chocolate combines with pretty much everything (and we’ve tested them all out) so it would be a safe bet to go for any of your favourite flavours here.
The cake
When it comes to chocolate we’re more of a brownie household and their chewiness adds great texture to a sundae. And surely everyone has their own great brownie recipe? Our one comes from a cookbook that Juliet picked up back in the 1980s and these days it’s pretty much fallen apart. Juliet made a batch of these for each child to take with them on their first day of university and they worked a charm – successfully bribing me my first friends!
The sauce
If you’ve seen us at Hay Festival you might have already tried our hot fudge sauce – ultra gooey and chocolatey It’s so thick it has a habit of sliding right off the ice cream but pools in the bottom of the tub to form a delicious chocolatey sludge. Here’s how to make your own super simple hot fudge sauce at home.
Ingredients
1 tin (397g) of sweetened condensed milk
30g cocoa powder
125g butter (I’d always go for salted but that’s just a matter of preference)
Method
1. Melt butter with cocoa powder in a small, heavy bottomed saucepan on a low heat.
2. Once melted, add in the tin of condensed milk
3. Heat and stir the sauce to your perfect temperature and voilà!
Shepherds Ice Cream is manufactured nine miles outside Hay in the foothills of the Black Mountains. You can find it at Shepherds Parlour in Hay-on-Wye, get it delivered straight to your home via our online shop, or catch the team at festivals around the country; www.shepherdsicecream.co.uk