Chef's Recipes

Vicky Pollard sundae

Alistair Wise recipe for Vicky Pollard sundae from Sweet Envy in Hobart.

By Alistair Wise
  • 1 hr 20 mins preparation
  • 1 hr 10 mins cooking plus cooling, chilling
  • Serves 6 - 8
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Vicky Pollard sundae
"This sundae makes me happy. I'd like to share it with friends and family. May I have the recipe?"
Jamila Slitti, Hobart, Tas
"Throw away your preconceptions of Victoria sponge," says Sweet Envy's Alistair Wise. "This is the sundae that is begging to get up in your face and keep it real. Scoop the ice-cream, rip up sponge, spoon on some jelly and sprinkle it with sherbet." Wise makes his own strawberry ice-cream, but we've used store-bought. 
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Ingredients

  • To serve: strawberry ice-cream and mint
Vanilla sponge
  • 2 eggs
  • 175 gm caster sugar
  • 60 gm unsalted butter
  • 120 ml milk
  • Seeds from ½ vanilla bean
  • 125 gm plain flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
Pimm’s jelly
  • 75 ml Pimm’s
  • 180 ml (¾ cup) dry ginger ale
  • 2½ titanium-strength gelatine leaves, softened in cold water for 5 minutes
Sherbet
  • ¼ tsp each citric acid and tartaric acid
  • ¼ tsp bicarbonate soda
  • 60 gm pure icing sugar
  • 25 gm (1¼ tbsp) lemon jelly crystals

Method

Main
  • 1
    For vanilla sponge, preheat oven to 170C and butter and line a 20cm-diameter round cake tin. Whisk eggs and sugar in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of boiling water until mixture reaches 50C or it feels hot (1-2 minutes), then transfer to an electric mixer and whisk until ribbon stage (when beaters are lifted, batter falls from beaters like a ribbon; 3-4 minutes). Heat butter, milk and vanilla seeds to about 75C (2-3 minutes). Fold flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt into egg mixture, then add a third of the batter to milk and butter mixture and beat. Add this mixture back to batter and fold to combine. Pour into tin and bake until a skewer withdraws clean (25-35 minutes). Cool in tin for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
  • 2
    For Pimm’s jelly, combine Pimm’s and ginger ale in a bowl, transfer 60ml to a small saucepan and bring just to a simmer over medium heat. Squeeze excess water from gelatine, add to pan and stir to dissolve. Pour mixture into remaining Pimm’s mixture, then transfer to a 500ml container and refrigerate until set (2-3 hours).
  • 3
    For the sherbet, whizz ingredients in a dry blender to combine, or pass through a dry fine sieve a few times.
  • 4
    To serve, place scoops of ice-cream in coupes, top with ripped-up sponge and jelly, sprinkle with sherbet and scatter with mint.