Cream Cheese Semifreddo

This festive dessert takes about as long to make as an omelette. Make it next time you have leftover egg whites, and keep it in the freezer. It's very flexible- ours is vanilla, but you could add anything- espresso, almonds, chocolate swirl, fruit...

Most semifreddo tortes have a crust- this no exception- but we won't use the blender to crush the cookies, or an oven to bake the crust. We'll just line a pan with paper and crush some cookies in by hand, spreading them around evenly-

This is 8 chocolae covered digestive biscuits, because that's just what we happened to have around.

For the torte, we will need:

3 egg whites

dash salt

150 g / 3/4 C sugar

60 ml/ 1/4 c water

- boil the sugar and water hard for a minute. Meanwhile, beat the egg whites with the salt until fluffy, and, with the beaters still running, pour the syrup in a thin stream- not on the beaters and not down the side of the bowl but somewhere in the middle. Beat slowly so it stays silky and cools off a little.

then:

200 g/ 8 oz cream cheese

200 ml/ scant 1 C heavy cream

some vanilla, or a shot of espresso, or some crushed fruit, or melted chocolate, nuts, whatever you like-

Beat the cream cheese before adding the cream. When it is fluffy, add cream and keep beating until it is light and fluffy, but not so long the cream splits and turns to butter. Blend the meringue in gently

Dollop evenly over the biscuits then smooth gently, and put in the freezer for several hours. If you are not eating it soon, wrap it in plastic wrap once it is frozen (semi-frozen- like the name. With all the air it will never be rock solid).

In heat like this, a big fat chocolate bar- at super warm room temperature- is the easiest topping. Just peel off big fat ribbons with a potato peeler:

Since it was never fully frozen to begin with, it softens quickly- don't leave it out on the table too long. 

Everyone loves this.