Make your own molten dulce de leche cakes

Over the past decade, Pascale Berthiaume has made a lot of ice cream.

To celebrate that, and the opening of her new retail window, she's throwing a block party on Saturday afternoon in the parking lot of Pascale's Ice Cream on Gladstone Avenue, between Percy and Bay streets.

There'll be local craft beer, local eats (Red Apron, True Loaf Bakery, Ottawa Kabab, Whalesbone and more) and even locally-sourced vintage patio furniture.

Until now, Berthiaume has made her ice cream available at farmers markets, as well as in stores and coffee shops such as Life of Pie.

"I'm a little stressed out about doing retail at that level but I'm sure there will be kinks and we'll figure it out in the days to come," she said.

Collaborations

Berthiaume will also be collaborating with the tenants renting space in her commercial kitchen: Adam Cenaiko of Adam Bakes, and Madison Conlin of Mad Faux Cheese.

Cenaiko, whose own pastry business is a year old, said he couldn't have found a better partner than Berthiaume.

"What we're featuring now is waffles, so she puts different flavours of ice cream inside. We've done buttermilk waffles. This week at the farmers market, we're going to have chocolate waffles with vanilla ice cream. It's just keeps going," said Cenaiko.

"We come up with new creations on a daily basis."

Here's Cenaiko's recipe for molten dulce de leche cakes, a decadent companion to Pascale's Ice Cream.

Molten dulce de leche cakes (makes 8 cakes in 3-inch ramekins)

Ingredients for cakes:

• 1 cup good quality white chocolate.
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter.
• 1 cup dulce de leche (instructions below).
• 2 eggs at room temperature.
• 2 tbsp sugar.
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour.

Making dulce de leche:

1. To make dulce de leche, remove the label from a can of sweetened condensed milk and cover with water in a pot.
2. Bring to a gentle simmer and let the simmer continue for four hours, never letting the water go below the top of the can.
3. Let it come to room temperature overnight before using.

Directions for cakes:

1. Grease 8 3-inch ramekins and dust with flour.
2. Melt white chocolate and butter over a bain marie. Stir in dulce de leche and set aside.
3. Whip eggs with the sugar on high until doubled in volume.
4. Fold the 2 mixtures together and sift flour over top. Mix to incorporate.
5. Portion into ramekins (you can stop here and refrigerate them until you are ready to bake, if desired), and bake at 400 F for 9 minutes.
6. Remove from ramekins while still warm by placing a plate over top and inverting gently. Dust with icing sugar, sprinkle with some Maldon salt and serve with your favourite Pascale's Ice Cream, or whatever ice cream you have in the freezer.