How to make Deep Fried Ice Cream Dessert
Deep Fried Ice Cream is an old Chinese restaurant favourite. However this is not a dish that you will find in China – it’s more a western Asian cuisine dessert. Basically, Deep Fried Ice Cream is a scoop of ice cream, crumbed and deep fried so it’s deliciously hot on the outside but still cold on the inside. It’s sometimes made with cake crumbs but we have always made it with bread.
This is a fab dessert with a bit of Wow that is surprisingly easy to make. Made ahead of time, it’s quick to fry and serve at dessert time to guests.
Ingredients
Makes 8 serves
- 16 slices of white bread
- 2 litre tub of vanilla ice cream (or any other flavour you like)
- 2 or 3 eggs (beaten with a fork)
- 3 cups of fine bread crumbs
- 1 litre Canola oil for deep frying (we’ve found Canola works better than vegetable oil)
- chocolate or caramel ice cream topping
Method
Making the Deep Fried Ice Cream Balls
- Cut off the crust around the slices of bread. Press the bread to flatten it, either with your hands or a rolling pin, so it’s not too thick. The bread pictured here is actually a bit thicker than it should be. Make it thinner than this.
2. Scoop a round ball of ice cream and place it in the centre of a slice of bread.
3. With a second slice of bread, place it over the top of the ice cream, with the corners of the top slice of bread touching the middle of the edges of the bottom slice. Make sure the whole scoop of ice cream is covered by the bread.
4. Dip the ball into the egg, and cover it completely with egg. While it’s wet, mould the edges of the bread together and smooth them out. Work quickly to make your ball into a nice sphere shape.
5. Cover the ball with bread crumbs.
6. Put it straight into the freezer to ensure the ice cream ball is set hard before frying.
7. Freeze for at least a few hours. The ice cream needs to be frozen solid to prevent it from melting quickly when frying.
Watch our video here for how to make Deep Fried Ice Cream:
TIPS:
While making these, your hands will be covered in egg and breadcrumbs – this makes it very difficult to open the freezer door each time without making a huge mess. It’s much easier to have a helper who can open the freezer door and place the balls inside.
Make a production line if you happen to have extra pairs of hands. Having a helper to take the ice cream in and out of the freezer each time you do a new ball will make things easier too. You do need to work quickly so the ice cream doesn’t melt.
Some people scoop balls of ice cream and freeze them hard first, before doing the bread coating.
Any ice cream is fine to use – except gelato – it’s too soft and will melt too quickly.
Fancy bread is definitely not needed. Cheap white bread, like the Home brand varieties at the supermarket seems to work the best.
Frying the Deep Fried Ice Cream
- Put enough oil in a saucepan so that the oil would cover at least half the ball. You’ll need less oil if you use a smaller saucepan.
- Ensure the oil is hot enough before frying. If the oil is not hot enough the bread coating won’t brown quickly and the ice cream inside will melt. To test if the oil is hot enough, dip a wooden chopstick, skewer or wooden spoon into the oil. If the oil bubbles steadily around the wood, the oil is hot enough. Or put a bit of your left over bread crust into the oil and see if this browns quickly. If you have a deep oil thermometer, heat to 180°.
- Carefully place the ball straight from the freezer into the oil and fry until golden brown, turning the ball to brown all sides. This takes around 30 seconds. Only fry 1 or 2 balls at the same time.
- Place on paper towel to absorb any oil.
- Add topping – chocolate or caramel ice cream topping and coconut flakes if you wish.
- Serve immediately – this needs to be eaten straight away so that the coating is warm, and before the ice cream melts. Enjoy!
At Play & Go Adelaide we make every effort to provide accurate information to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication. We recommend confirming times, dates and details directly before making any plans as details may be subject to change.
Image Source: All photos by Play & Go
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