Ice cream cake (again) and a fallen bread

Last weekend I made an ice cream cake and some black bread. Both were fine, although the cake crust was still too hard, and the bread collapsed in the middle.

Ibrahim's birthday cake

I had marching orders for the ice cream cake. It had to have:

• chocolate ice cream
• rainbow sprinkles
• whipped cream (lots of it, sprayed from a can)

I'd rehearsed last week with a yummy malted milk ice cream cake, and I applied what I learned. Most everything worked, but I'll change a couple of things next time:

• Make the crust thinner; I tried not packing it as tight and cooking it less, but it was still just as hard as before
• If I use sprinkles again, use bigger ones that aren't round; the tiny round sprinkles bounce everywhere! (I packed them around the side, which looked nice, and we sprinkled a few more on top of the whipped cream.)

And of course, for anyone but my nephew, I'd insist on a different ice cream flavor. Coffee or toasted almond or malted milk or peanut butter would all be great. Shaved or grated chocolate would make a nice coating for the sides and maybe the top.

Bowed Bohemian black bread

I don't know for sure why the Bohemian black bread fell. It did stay in the bread maker for a few hours after it was cooked (oops), but I'd think by then it would be too late to collapse. Maybe not.

Fortunately, it still tasted great. We used it for sandwich bread and out-of-hand eating, as usual, and also for bread crumbs in Sodium Girl's pork & fennel meatloaf. Yum!