Gingerbread Ice Cream with Chocolate Soup
Source: Chef Roland Muller, Citricos Restaurant
Serves 6

GINGERBREAD ICE CREAM
1 Pt (2 cups) vanilla ice cream, slightly softened
2 Tbsp molasses
2 tsp ground ginger
8 ginger-man cookies (Pepperidge Farm), broken in small pieces

CHOCOLATE soup
8 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup boiling water
1/4 cup orange juice
2 Tbsp heavy cream
˝ tsp vanilla extract
Garnish: decorated ginger-man cookies (see Note)

Gingerbread Ice Cream:
Vigorously stir ice cream, molasses and ginger in a medium bowl until blended. Fold in crushed cookies. Freeze 4 hours or until firm.

Up to 1 hour before serving:
Put chocolate in a medium bowl. Add boiling water; stir until chocolate melts. Cool to room temperature.

Stir in remaining soup ingredients. Ladle into bowls, add scoops of ice cream, and garnish with decorated or plain ginger-man cookies.

TIP: Don't refrigerate the "soup." It may get grainy.

To decorate cookies:
Spoon canned vanilla frosting into an unpleated sandwich-size ziptop bag. Snip tip off corner of bag; squeeze frosting rough opening.