Chocolate Ice Cream Ball

This is an assembly dessert rather than a cooked one, and everything depends on keeping the ice cream hard between steps. Work in short stages with the freezer door closed in between.

• "Refrigerator" means the freezer compartment"Refrigerator" means the freezing compartment -- the recipe expects a unit whose small freezing compartment can "freeze through" a dessert. Such compartments generally ran warmer than a modern freezer, so in a modern freezer expect the ice cream to firm up faster than the original implies.
• Freeze the ball firstScoop the ice cream, set the balls on a chilled tray, and freeze them solid for at least an hour before they ever touch a macaroon. A soft scoop will slump the moment whipped cream goes on it.
• Whipped cream, sweetened lightlyAbout 1 cup heavy cream with a tablespoon of sugar and 1/4 teaspoon almond extract is enough for four balls. The extract quantity is left to the cook; a scant 1/4 teaspoon per cup is plenty, since almond extract dominates quickly.
• The icing must be cool and thinA hot icing poured over a frozen ball slides off and melts a channel through the cream. Let a chocolate glaze cool to just pourable, or use a chocolate-and-coconut-oil shell coating, which sets on contact with the cold surface.
• Base softens on standingMacaroons and meringues go leathery once they sit under frozen cream. Assemble onto the base at the last stage, or put the base on the plate and set the finished ball on it at serving time.
• Two finishes, not bothThe recipe offers either a frozen chocolate coating or a hot sauce poured at the table. Choose one; a hot sauce over set icing cracks it into shards.
• Yield and servingOne ball per person, one to two cookies each as a base. Serve immediately after saucing, and let coated balls stand two or three minutes out of the freezer so the ice cream is not glassy.