brownie sundae (gf)

a dessert i love and feel very passionately about (with three options on how to plate)

brownie sundaes are one of my favorite desserts in the whole wide world. i love how the luxurious hot fudge plays with the cool creaminess of the ice cream, how the fluffy whipped cream texture contrasts with the denser ice cream, and how all of it is offset by the chewy, rich, and bitter-sweet brownie. 

my love for them (so much so i have chosen it over cake on many birthdays), their decadence, and their ease in putting together is why i am sharing the recipe with you for valentines this year. if there is one dessert i would want for valentines day - it would be this.

i have many opinions on brownie sundaes - but the most important one is that: while i usually prefer a chocolate-based brownie, a cocoa-based brownie is what is needed for a sundae. the texture of the cocoa brownie, and the intensity of flavor and bitter notes, hold up best.

the following recipe is low in flour and high in cocoa, fat, and sugar, meaning it is intense and chewy and doesn’t immediately get hard when it comes into contact with frozen ice cream. while this recipe includes a small amount of flour, it can easily be made gluten-free by substituting gluten-free flour - and if you want to make any other substitutions for ingredients check out my conversion sheet here.

the recipe itself is really easy - the brownie takes 12 minutes of active time (and 25 minutes to bake), the fudge is 5 minutes of active time, and the whipped cream is just a couple of minutes.

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some of you may already know my thoughts on minne di sant’agata, and if you don’t you can find them here. i’ve received some inquiries on how i made the brownie sundae inspired by them a few summers ago, so below is a tutorial on how i assembled it. but you should note that creating an ice-cream sundae entremet (a dessert with multiple, layered components inside it) will require a little extra time and preparation (you will need to purchase a mold as well), and it may take you out of your comfort zone! if you want the minne di sant’agata look but are too intimidated to make the entremet, there is a medium-difficulty option that only requires you to mold the ice cream, otherwise, it is assembled like a normal brownie sundae.

this recipe is scaled for 10 brownie sundaes made in the minne di sant’agata entremet style (what we will call the “hard” level style in this recipe): see image above left. 7 sundaes are made in the less scary minne di sant’agata style (the “medium” level style): see middle image above. and you will be able to make 9 in the classic brownie sundae style: see above right.