Brownie Ice Cream Torte - by Summer

This is one of Lisa's picks this month and it had been one I have been avoiding.  Even though Beth states that it's easy to make, it just seemed hard to me.  That's what happens a lot when I read recipes.  I think they seem hard and so I don't even want to bother.  This is a great reason why I have loved doing this project.  It has really pushed me to do things that I would normally skip.  And it would have been a huge shame to skip this dessert!

It really is an easy recipe, but looks impressive.  I made this one for my book club gals this week, since I was host.  I actually made this a day in advance, so I made sure to have enough time with the freezing in-between layers.  The recipes calls for a brownie mix.  In the future, I think I would probably make my own, but these days, a mix was perfect.  The challenge was trying to find one for an 8x8 pan and not 9x13. 

Then it's a layer of vanilla ice.  We had vanilla ice cream on hand, but unfortunately my husband the night before decided he wanted a bowl and I ended up being short.  No problem.  When the baby awoke from his afternoon nap, we ran to the store to buy some more.  Since it was chilling in the freezer, it really didn't matter that this was broken up into a couple of different phases.

The final layer is raspberry sorbet!  Yum!  I made sure to set a timer in between each layer, so I didn't get distracted and forget about the ice or sorbet in the fridge to soften.  If you look closely at the lower right hand bottom of this picture, you will see a little hand.  That is my little assistant wanting to help me out with this recipe.  Unfortunately this was one where I could not hold him and spread the ice cream or sorbet in the pan.  So he was not too happy.  Check out the picture below.

My other big worry about this recipe was how to separate the sides of the springform pan.  For some reason I thought it was going to be difficult and spent way too much time worrying about it. When I went to serve it, the sides just popped right off!  Everyone at my book club loved it!  I did too.  I would totally make this again - I'm thinking it would be a great summer time treat.  And I could definitely see using other flavors of sorbet.  Or if I made this for my dad - I would probably use chocolate ice cream.  I love this recipe!  So simple, but it definitely impresses!!!