Titled for exactly what it is, if you understand enough Italian, semifreddo is the half-frozen treat that shares a little in common with both cake and ice cream or gelato. The former’s similarity is mostly due to its shape, which you’ll often see molded into an oaf or square. The stronger latter likeness is, naturally, due to semifreddo’s temperature. And you can whip up a modified version with only about as many ingredients as you might have in your morning coffee cup.
A three-ingredient semifreddo cuts the eggs that you’d typically include, and calls only for a couple of cups of heavy cream, a few tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk, and a few more of the flavoring component of your choice. You’ll beat it all together with a hand mixer, pour it into a mold, and freeze for a few hours to firm up before serving. This semifreddo is endlessly customizable, and, depending on the third secret ingredient of your desire, you’ll want to taste the mix before removing to set to ensure that it’s reached dessert level of sweetness. A little sugar from the pantry might be a necessary addition in some outlying cases.
Inspo for your 3-ingredient semifreddo
Semifreddo, even in this altered preparation, is lighter and airier than its frozen ice cream cousin, and obviously not as fluffy as a baked cake, so you’ll need to be studious about inclusions. Denser fruits like halved strawberries, for example, are liable to sink to the bottom, but chopped into finer bits they should remain suspended a bit better. Or, for a double dose of homemade efforts, you can use something like a three-ingredient strawberry jam.
Liquid ingredients like real chocolate sauce and caramel will blend in nicely with broadly palate pleasing appeal, and you can also drizzle them to decorate after freezing. You can even make a kind of caramel with a separate, unopened can of sweetened condensed milk. For a brighter, summery finish, pistachio cream or lemon curd perform nicely in a semifreddo. And, while it’s lovely to shape semifreddo into a cake for slicing, you can also portion it into ramekins or pretty little dessert coupes for individual servings.
