The fact is that I couldn’t verify that this was actual Mexican chocolate. The article from the August 2010 Bon Appetit suggested that it was the combination of chocolate and cinnamon yielding the Mexican flavor. Okay. If they say so. It tasted good no matter what it’s called. The creamy layer of orange scented meringue atop the creamy homemade chocolate ice cream, all settled on a chocolate cinnamon brownie was as euphoric as an obscure reference to something extremely euphoric of which I currently cannot think. Every mouthful was just decadently luscious.

When I was a youngin’, I always had some crazy affinity for ice cream cake. I think because ice cream cake was had so infrequently that whenever it made an appearance, I too had to make an appearance. Not much has changed there. I still remember when we got our first Carvel. It wasn’t in our neighborhood, but it was close enough. We really didn’t have much from there very often, but we got to ride by it occasionally. And I knew what was in there! I would wake from a deep on-the-road-home-from-grandma’s sleep as we approached the storefront from the not-so-silly-then happy feelings. Just given the opportunity, I was going to stick my spoon into something!

This treat takes textures to another level. I mean there was really a whole lot going on, but when you work from top to bottom with your utensil, ultimately all of the flavors worked together. So putting the prep time in paid off. I love when that happens.

There was the issue of the brownie. My first thought after reading the recipe was that the brownie was going to be rock hard. It wasn’t really too bad. I undercooked the brownie just a bit in an effort to prevent rockafication. It was more hard to cut than to eat. Eating it was chewy in a delicious way. Cutting through it took some skill and agility - at one point I almost wore a slice. I think I may have been deducted a couple of cool points, but I did mange to recover.

Head on over here for the recipe and if you make it, I want to know.