As the temperature is firmly in the 80s around here, comes the realization the summer is well and truly upon us. And what better way to celebrate summer sunday’s that with those old-fashioned childhood treats of icecream sundae’s (get it?). While ice cream tastes great during any season, sundaes work best during summer, when the ice cream melts quickly but the addition of a few other select accouterments go a long way towards dragging out the dessert into a delicious meal-ender.

For my first sundae of the season, I chose to keep it simple – because, like with most things in life, sundaes are best when kept simple. Throw on too many ingredients and you lose the essence of this wonderful melding of flavors. So start with your favorite ice cream flavor (or 3, if you really must), add some textured toppings, and a sauce of some sort to bring it all in together – and voila, a perfect sundae. Here, I used vanilla icecream which really is the best base for all kinds of sundae toppings – and complemented it with some of my homemade ganache and some toasted walnuts. Done.

The ganache adds a silky, smooth, warm touch to the cold, classic flavors of the vanilla, while the toasted walnuts (simply heated in the toaster over for a couple of mins) add a crunchiness that works wonders with the softness of the overall dessert. Walnuts also have a subtle, nutty flavor which I really like with chocolate – it adds a bottom note to the sauce without overpowering it like pecans would, for example.

Enjoy the summer, enjoy the ice cream, and there will be other ice cream sunday’s to follow, I am sure!

• Tags: Dessert, ice cream
• Posted on Sunday, June 6th, 2010 at 10:25 am
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