Chocolate Ice Cream Pie with Coffee Sauce

I knew I should have listened to my gut feeling that the recipe of Nigella that I was following was overly-sweet.   Sometimes failures can give surprising outcomes.   When I tried the butterscotch sauce to top the ice cream pie, it made my hair stand up.  It was out-of-the-limit sweet.  And I am even one person who can't tolerate excessively (or just a tad) sweet cakes.  My solution stared at me on the stove.  My moka express was holding the answer.   I need to add some espresso to neutralize the sugar.

While I was trying to attend desperately to my domestic demands, a.k.a ironing neglected mountains of clothes, I positioned myself in front of the television while enjoying myself flattening all those crinkles away.  Can I say that I absolutely hate ironing?  Is there actually anyone out there who loves ironing?   To go back to the television, I was watching Nigella's cooking show.  At least there is something enjoyable about this chore.

While  she was demonstrating the procedures, my urge to run to the kitchen and whip up what she was doing was intensifying.  Only, I didn't have all the ingredients and it was almost midnight.   Tomorrow.  It's a promise to myself.

The following day.  I followed everything by memory gauging the amounts on my own.  I found an informative site called Cooking with Friends about biscuit crumb crusts.  Digestives, check.  Sugar, check.  Butter, check.  However, I didn't have the correct ingredients for the filling and the sauce.  But that didn't stop me.  I needed coffee ice cream but I used chocolate instead.    Bourbon was substituted with brandy.  The butterscotch coffee sauce I poured on the ice cream made it taste like coffee and chocolate together.  Delicious!  Ask my son who was asking for another serving while his slice was still almost whole on his plate. 

Now after all the gauging, I will try to put everything in writing.   After a late attempt, I found Nigella's recipe and its real name is girdlebuster pie.   That doesn't sound so friendly to our waistlines. 

Chocolate Ice Cream Pie with Coffee Sauce

Ingredients:
Yields a 9-inch (24 cm.) pie

For the biscuit crumb crust:

• 180 g. or 1-1/2 cups Digestive biscuits
• 90 g. butter
• 65 g. or 1/4 cup white sugar (optional)

• 3 tbsp. brandy
• 30 g. muscovado sugar
• 40 g. butter
• 1 cup espresso (use the real espresso cup to measure)
• 500 g. chocolate ice cream
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Crush the biscuits with a rolling pin or a food processor to get a granular texture.  I crushed mine by putting the biscuits in a ziplock bag and asked the kids to pound them with their toy hammers.  
2. Place them in a bowl with sugar if you are using unsweetened Digestive biscuits. 
3. Pour the melted butter over the crumbs, tossing with your fingers to make sure that the butter and sugar are evenly distributed. 
4. Press the crumb mixture firmly in the pie dish including the sides.  It has a tendency to crumble down so have a bit of patience.  Freeze for half an hour to an hour.
5. In the meantime, take out the ice cream to soften it.  Mix some chocolate chips with the softened ice cream.
6. When the crumb crust is hard enough, scoop the ice cream on top of it and fill up the whole pie dish.  Flatten the ice cream.  Cover with a plastic wrap and freeze for about an hour or until the ice cream hardens.
7. In the meantime, prepare the coffee sauce.  In a small saucepan, melt the butter and muscovado sugar.  Pour the espresso and mix.  Add the brandy on medium fire.  Cook until the alcohol evaporates.  Let cool.  Refrigerate for about 10 minutes once it reaches room temperature.  
8. Pour the sauce on the ice cream pie.  Freeze again for about an hour or until it sets.  
9. To serve, let the pie dish sit for 30 seconds to a minute on hot water to loosen the crumb crust from the dish.  Once it is loose, gently tilt the pie dish to make the pie slide out of it.