Sad bunnies – ginger jaffa ice cream

Easter bunnies are just one of many afflicted.

We were kindly bought two bunnies by this wonderful house guest

Sadly, they didn’t make it home from the flight from Germany in one piece.

Not all bunnies lose their bits and pieces after vigorous frottage with other pieces of cabin baggage.

Some of them may have their ears plucked off by peckish owners. Others are manhandled by eager toddlers.

But five days after Easter it’s a common sight. Quite simply, there are arse ends of bunnies hanging about all over the house.

What is one to do with all these sad bunny bottoms?

You might pick at them while reading something trashy with a cup of tea.

You might be like a seven year old me and hide them throughout your room (only to forget where you hid them until a trail of marching ants leads you right  back to the sweet spot).

You could smelt them down and make brownies.

Or you could put the remaining base to good use as a vessel for a veritable smush of good stuff.

Essentially this is a spiced ice cream smush-up, the kind that even a bunny would love.

There’s a grown up kick of ginger and the jaffa tinge of orange zest. There are chunks of chocolate, courtesy of the ears, or other eggs.

And then there are some candied slivers of carrot. Just the thing to make a sad bunny feel better again. 

Sad bunny smush up

Equipment
1 saucepan. 1 speed peeler. 1 knife. 1 spatula. 1 ice cream tub.

Ingredients

1 litre tub of vanilla ice cream (you want it to be a relatively soft ice cream)
1 orange
2 carrots, peeled
4 easter bunnies (you want 4 bases of the bunnies to serve in and about 120 grams of chocolate to mush through the ice cream)
1 heaped teaspoon of ground ginger
1 piece of fresh ginger (the size of a wine cork).
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of water

Here’s how we roll

1. Using a speed peeler, peel the carrots into wafty strips. Dice the strips until you have a pile of  thin squares that are each roughly the size of a stamp.

2. Put the water and the sugar together in a sauce pan and put on a moderate heat so the sugar starts to dissolve.

3. Peel the ginger and then cut into match sticks.

4. Add the ginger to the sugar and water.

5. Add the carrot and the ground ginger and stir around. Cook for 10 minutes until the carrots are sticky and sweet.

6. Put the carrots, ginger and syrup to one side to cool.

7. Crush the ears and necks of the bunnies, leaving the bases together. Crush the chocolate until there are small chunks. Put to one side.

8. Zest an orange.

9. Pluck the candied ginger and carrot out of the syrup. There should still be about a quarter of a cup of syrup left.

10. Add the juice of half orange to the remaining ginger syrup. Heat in a saucepan until it has reduced by half.

11. Mush the candied ginger and carrot, orange zest and chocolate through vanilla ice cream.

10. Return to the freezer until you’re ready to serve.

11. Serve the ice cream in the bunny bottoms and top with segments of  the remaining half of the orange, grated chocolate and a few dots of the ginger orange syrup.