If I’d known how easy it was to make your own ice cream cake, I might never have made anything else for birthdays! The simple three-step process for how to make an ice cream cake on the blog today.
We had a birthday here last week!
My baby (my eldest, but first born baby) turned 15!
Where has time gone – truly?! She’s counting down the days to her next birthday – and a driver’s permit – and I’m doing all I can to make it slow down.
I guess it was the same when I was a teenager… not that I remember that far back. 😂
Well, since this is Miss Madison’s 2nd birthday in lockdown, I really struggled to try and find a way to celebrate her and let her know how special she is, but without going out to dinner, having friends over, hosting a party, leaving the house…. it’s tough!
BUT I recently started following a local Instagram page that showcases local “Mom businesses”, and I came across two incredible businesses that were going to knock it out of the park for me!
First up is The Balloon Diva:
Look at this SPECTACULAR bouquet she made for Maddie’s 15th! It stands about 4′ tall and is just awesome! Don’t worry, all of the balloons were blown up with an electric air pump, so these aren’t Covid contaminated pockets of air. 😂.
The second Mompreneur I found was Simply Smash’n; she makes all kinds of chocolate delights, but the one I’d never seen before was the “smash cake”.
It’s a perfect chocolate shell (in all sorts of different shapes and sizes) and it comes with a little mallet. You smash the chocolate shell and inside it’s filled with treats and surprises! No cake, just oodles and oodles of goodies!
Like a cake-shaped Kinder egg – but WAAAAY better!
Okay, so I’ve knocked my kid’s socks off with these two fantastic finds, but I still needed an edible cake to put a candle in… that’s where my “How to make an ice cream cake” title comes in.
This is so easy, and insanely delicious. I’d go so far as to say I prefer it to the DQ or Baskin Robbins cakes – and it certainly costs considerably less.
Ice cream cake
- (2) quarts of your favourite ice cream/s
- Oreo baking crumbs (or graham crumbs if you aren’t a fan of chocolate)
- Fudge sauce (or butterscotch/caramel – whatever floats your boat)
- springform pan
Bring your ice creams out of the freezer and set on the counter to thaw a bit. You want it to be soft and spreadable, but not to the soft-serve stage.
Maddie chose chocolate mousse royale and cotton candy. 🤢
Pour enough cookie crumbs into a bowl to cover the bottom of your springform pan. With the size of my pan it was roughly ½ of the box.
Squeeze in your fudge sauce and mix until the cookie crumbs are sticky but not completely saturated.
Press the crumb layer into your springform pan.
I lined my pan with a bit of parchment paper to make it easier to pull apart when it was frozen, but you really don’t need to.
My Mom isn’t a fan of chocolate, so I made her her own ice cream cake by crushing animal crackers and mixing with caramel sauce. We’re in lockdown, so I didn’t want to run out again for graham crumbs.
Squeeze some of your sauce over the bottom crumb layer and then add your first flavour of ice cream.
Spread it gently so as not to disrupt the crumb base.
The colour on the cotton candy ice cream is so pretty! And truth be told – it really didn’t taste that awful with the chocolate.
Squeeze another layer of sauce on your ice cream cake and put it in the freezer to harden; maybe 20 minutes.
Time to add your second flavour if ice cream over top – in this case the chocolate mousse royale (my absolute favourite).
Put your cake back in the freezer until it’s solid.
With the chocolate sauce and ice cream, we really didn’t need icing to top the ice cream cake off, but if you want the full DQ experience, you’d add your icing once the cake is completely frozen.
When it comes time to celebrate whatever it is you made the ice cream cake for – and I’m all for celebrating a Wednesday or a flower, or even just waking up in the morning – bring it out of the freezer about 20 minutes before you plan to serve.
I run a knife under hot water to cut the cake more easily – but it doesn’t make for perfectly crisp pieces to photograph.
My Mom’s cake is in a travel tin so I couldn’t get a perfect shot of her pralines ‘n cream ice cream cake – but I will confirm that it tasted fantastic!
I have another birthday coming up shortly, so I’ll try to add more photos to this post then.
Ice cream cake cost
- I went with Baskin Robbins ice cream – because that is my favourite – but I bought it on sale when they have their 30% off days on the 31st of the month – I believe that makes them $7 CDN a quart? There are certainly cheaper ice creams though.
- Oreo crumbs which will make 2 cakes = $5
- Fudge topping which will make more than 3 cakes = $3.49
- TOTAL: $17.66 CDN. which is CONSIDERABLY less than the $35 they cost at stores.
Did I mention that this was insanely delicious? Even with the cotton candy flavour, I couldn’t stop eating it!
Easy birthday (or any day) treat to help you put on your Covid 19 (lbs) 😂
Have a great one!